26 October - Definition and Overview

October 26 is the 299th day of the year (300th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 66 days remaining.

Events

700-1899

• 740 - An earthquake strikes Constantinople, causing much damage and death.
• 1640 - The Treaty of Ripon is signed, restoring peace between Scotland and Charles I of England
• 1795 - The French Directory, a five-man revolutionary government, is created
• 1863 - The Football Association is formed
• 1881 - The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral takes place at Tombstone, Arizona.

1900-1999

• 1905 - Norway becomes independent from Sweden
• 1917 - Battle of Caporetto: Italy suffers a catastrophic defeat at the hands of Germany and Austria during the First World War
• 1918 - Erich von Ludendorff, quartermaster-general of the Imperial German Army, is dismissed by Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany for refusing to cooperate in peace negotiations.
• 1944 - The Battle of Leyte Gulf ends.
• 1944 - Vice president Harry Truman publicly denies ever having been a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
• 1947 - The Maharaja of Kashmir agrees to allow his kingdom to join India
• 1948 - Killer smog settles into Donora, Pennsylvania.
• 1955 - Ngo Dinh Diem declares himself Premier of South Vietnam
• 1958 - First commercial flight of the Boeing 707 from New York to Paris
• 1965 - The Beatles are appointed Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBEs)
• 1976 - Transkei declares its "independence" from South Africa
• 1978 - Independent Counsel Act signed into law
• 1979 - Park Chung-hee, President of South Korea is assassinated by KCIA head Kim Jae-kyu. Choi Kyu-ha becomes the acting President; Kim is executed the following May.
• 1984 - "Baby Fae" receives a heart transplant from a baboon
• 1984 - John D. McCollum shoots and kills himself after spending a day listening to Ozzy Osbourne records; a lawsuit is later filed by his parents over the song "Suicide Solution", but the case eventually gets thrown out.
• 1985 - In the movie Back to the Future, scientist Dr. Emmett Brown breaks the time barrier in Hill Valley, California.
• 1991 - Lori Keevil-Matthews is killed after a 485-pound umbrella slams her against a boulder in a Christo art installation.
• 1994 - Jordan and Israel sign a peace treaty
• 1994 - Announcement of Andrew Wiles correct proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.
• 1995 - Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Mossad agents assassinate Islamic Jihad leader Fathi Shikaki in his hotel in Malta.
• 1997 - The left arms of Chen Ming-Kuo and Yang Chung-ming are amputated by the rope in a 1,500-person tug-of-war contest in Taipei; both arms are successfully reattached later on.
• 1997 - Basketball player Charles Barkley is charged with aggravated battery and resisting arrest after throwing Jorge Lugo through a plate glass window in a dance club in Orlando, Florida.
• 1999 - Britain's House of Lords votes to end the right of hereditary peers to vote in Britain's upper chamber of Parliament.

2000-2099

• 2000 - Laurent Gbagbo takes over as president of Côte d'Ivoire following a popular uprising against President Robert Guéï
• 2001 - The United States passes the controversial USA Patriot Act into law.
• 2002 - Moscow Theater Siege ends: Approximately 50 Chechen rebels and 150 hostages die when Russian commandos storm the House of Culture theater in Moscow, which had been occupied by the rebels three days before.

Births

0-1599

• 1427 - Sigismund of Austria - Regent of Tyrol and Further Austria

1600-1899

• 1673 - Dimitrie Cantemir, Moldavian, writer, domnitor (d. 1723)
• 1685 - Domenico Scarlatti, Italian composer (d. 1757)
• 1759 - Georges Jacques Danton, leader of the French Revolution (d. 1794)
• 1854 - C. W. Post, cereal entrepreneur (d. 1914)
• 1865 - Benjamin Guggenheim, businessman, went down on Titanic (d. 1912)
• 1873 - Thorvald Stauning, Prime Minister of Denmark (d. 1942)
• 1874 - Martin Lowry, British chemist (d. 1936)
• 1883 - Paul Pilgrim, American athlete (d. 1958)

1900-1999

• 1902 - Jack Sharkey, boxing champion (d. 1994)
• 1906 - Primo Carnera, boxing champion (d. 1967)
• 1911 - Sid Gilman, American football player, coach, manager (d. 2003)
• 1911 - Mahalia Jackson, gospel singer (d. 1972)
• 1911 - Sorley MacLean, Scots Gaelic poet (d. 1996)
• 1912 - Don Siegel, American director (d. 1991)
• 1914 - Jackie Coogan, actor (d. 1984)
• 1916 - François Mitterrand, French president (d. 1996)
• 1919 - Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran, shah of Iran (d. 1980)
• 1932 - Eidegenegen Eidagaruwo, first Angam Baby
• 1942 - Bob Hoskins, actor
• 1945 - Pat Conroy, novelist
• 1946 - Pat Sajak, game show host
• 1947 - Hillary Rodham Clinton, wife of former U.S. President Bill Clinton, Senator from New York
• 1947 - Jaclyn Smith, actress
• 1947 - Holly Woodlawn, actor
• 1951 - Bootsy Collins, American musician (P Funk)
• 1952 - Andrew Motion, poet
• 1953 - Keith Strickland, drummer (The B-52's)
• 1954 - D.W. Moffett, actor
• 1957 - Bob Golic, American football player
• 1958 - Rita Wilson, actress
• 1961 - Dylan McDermott, actor
• 1962 - Cary Elwes, British actor
• 1963 - Natalie Merchant, singer

Deaths

• 899 - Alfred the Great
• 1440 - Gilles de Rais, serial killer
• 1764 - William Hogarth, British painter
• 1806 - John Graves Simcoe, first lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada
• 1890 - Carlo Collodi, Italian writer
• 1902 - Elizabeth Cady Stanton, feminist, suffragette
• 1909 - Prince Hirobumi Ito, former Japanese governor of Korea (assassinated)
• 1931 - Charles Comiskey, baseball owner
• 1937 - Józef Dowbór-Muśnicki, Polish general, commander of Greater Poland Uprising in 1919 (b.1867)
• 1947 - Canon Edwin Sidney Savage, Rector of Hexham Abbey and St Bartholomew the Great
• 1952 - Hattie McDaniel, American singer
• 1956 - Walter Gieseking, French conductor (b. 1895)
• 1957 - Nikos Kazantzakis, Greek writer
• 1972 - Igor Sikorsky, helicopter pioneer
• 1979 - Park Chung-hee, President of South Korea
• 1986 - Jackson Scholz, American sprinter
• 1991 - Bill Graham, rock and roll entrepreneur
• 1995 - Gorni Kramer, Italian bandleader and songwriter
• 1999 - Hoyt Axton, musician
• 2002 - Jacques Massu, French general

Holidays

• 1955 - Anniversary of the Austrian day of independence
• Intersex Awareness Day
• Angam Day in Nauru

October 25 - October 27 - November 26 - September 26 - more historical anniversaries