1. On February 26, 1912, President William Howard Taft signed a proclamation that made Arizona the 48th state in the United States. This marked the end of a long and contentious battle for statehood that had begun several decades earlier.

2. In 1881, the town of Tombstone, Arizona, was the site of one of the most famous gunfights in the Old West. Known as the "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral," the shootout took place on a lot near Fly's Photographic Studio on Fremont Street. Although the actual gunfight occurred on October 26, 1881, February 26 is often cited as the date that sparked the feud between the two groups involved.

3. In 1933, the Arizona State Legislature voted to abolish capital punishment in the state, making Arizona one of the first states in the country to do so. However, the decision was ultimately reversed in 1973, and the death penalty was reinstated.

4. On February 26, 2015, a new species of dinosaur was discovered in the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona. The dinosaur, which was named Vagnaripterus azizi, was a pterosaur that lived about 100 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous period.

5. The University of Arizona's Wildcat basketball team won the NCAA championship on February 26, 1997, defeating the University of Kentucky 84-79 in overtime. The game was played at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis, and the victory was the first NCAA championship for the Wildcats in school history.