All times in UTC ·
Dashed edge = started before, or continues beyond, this day
Events on Sunday 26 May 1574 1
1574Relief of LeidenDutch rebels break a year-long Spanish siege by flooding the landSpanish forces besieged the rebel city of Leiden during the Eighty Years' War, reducing its population to starvation. On 3 October 1574, William of Orange's forces breached dikes and sailed a fleet of flat-bottomed boats across the flooded polders to relieve the city. The relief became a founding legend of the Dutch Republic.