The exact dates of the 1926 lunar year
The Fire Tiger year ran from February 13, 1926 to February 1, 1927. Twelve lunar months came to 354 days in 1926, eleven or twelve short of the solar year, and that shortfall is what pulls the following new year back towards January.
The 1926 new year fell 20 days later in the Gregorian year than the 1925 one, February 13, 1926 against January 24, 1925. Why the 1926 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Fire Tiger pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 1926 is Bing and the branch is the Tiger, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 1926 that branch is taken to mean someone bold and impatient, better at starting than at waiting. Fire, the element attached to 1926, adds visibility, warmth and a tendency to burn through reserves.
1926 is a yang year, the outward half of the Fire pair: 1927 carries the same element in its yin form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 1926 is described as the tiger temperament working through visibility.
Born in January or early February 1926
From 1 January 1926 to February 12, 1926 the animal in force was still the Ox, not the Tiger — 43 days of 1926 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 1926 is a Ox.
The first Tiger of 1926 is anyone born on February 13, 1926 or later, and the last one anyone born on February 1, 1927. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, February 13, 1926 is at the later end.
Where 1926 sits in the sixty-year cycle
1926 is position 3 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Bing stem against the Tiger branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Fire Tiger year was 1866 and the next is 1986.
Someone born in 1866 therefore returned to their own pillar in 1926, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 1926 meets the pairing again in 1986.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Tiger of 1926 is grouped with the Horse and the Dog, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 1922 and 1930. Its opposition is the Monkey, six years on from 1926 in 1932.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 1926 was measured to produce them; 1926 stands four years from 1922 and six from 1932, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 1926
Because the 1926 lunar year opened on February 13, 1926, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, February 1, 1927, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 1926 stays the Tiger.
Handbooks equate the Tiger of 1926 with Aquarius, a pairing that lines up two twelve-part divisions rather than two claims about people. A western sign covers about thirty days, so 1926 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 1926 Fire Tiger as a year-long version of Aquarius flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 1926 Chinese new year start?
February 13, 1926, and the year ran on to February 1, 1927 — 354 days.
What animal is 1926?
The Tiger, in its Fire form, from February 13, 1926 onward; a birth earlier in 1926 is a Ox.
Was 1926 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
No. 1926 ran twelve months and 354 days, so no month was doubled.
I was born in January 1926 — which animal am I?
The Ox, unless you were born on February 13, 1926 or later, which is when the 1926 year began.