On October 26th...

links will open in a new window

1676 Nathaniel Bacon, leader of a rebellion in colonial Virginia, died.

1682 William Penn accepted the area around the Delaware River from the Duke of York.

1774 The First Continental Congress adjourned in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1787 The first essays of the Federalist Papers were published.

1795 Pinckney's Treaty between Spain and the U. S. was signed, establishing the southern boundary of the U. S. and giving Americans the right to send goods down the Mississippi River.
1795 The French Directory, a five-man revolutionary government, was created.

1800 Prussian General Helmuth von Moltke was born.

1810 The United States annexed Western Florida.

1732 American politician Thomas Johnson died.

1825 The Erie Canal opened.

1854 Cereal company founder C. W. Post was born.

1858 Hamilton Smith patented the rotary washing machine.

1863 The International Red Cross was organized in Geneva, Switzerland.
1863 The Football Association formed in England, standardizing soccer and formalizing the split with rugby.

1869 The first American steeplechase horserace was run at Westchester, New York.

1871 Union Army Major Robert Anderson died.

1881 The "Gunflight at the O.K. Corral" was fought.

1890 Aviator Floyd Bennett was born.

1900 The first section of the New York City, New York, subway system opened.
1900 Ibrahim Abboud, military leader of the Sudan, was born.

1901 The first recorded use of a "getaway car" occured after the hold-up of a shop in Paris, France.

1902 American social reformer Elizabeth Cady Stanton died.

1903 Melvin Purvis, FBI agent charged with capturing John Dillinger, was born.

1905 The union of Norway and Sweden ended.

1914 Actor Jackie Coogan was born.

1916 Margaret Sanger was arrested for obscenity, by advocating birth control.

1919 The U. S. Congress overrode President Woodrow Wilson's veto of the Prohibition Enforcement Act.

1923 Electrical engineer Charles Proteus Steinmetz died.

1940 The P-51 Mustang made its maiden flight.

1944 The Battle for Leyte Gulf ended with a decisive U. S. victory.
1944 U. S. Congressman Emanuel Cleaver was born.

1946 Game show host Pat Sajak was born.

1947 The British Military Occupation of Iraq ended.
1947 American politician Hillary Clinton was born.

1949 The U. S. minimum wage was increased from 40 to 75 cents an hour.

1950 Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India.

1952 Hattie McDaniel, the first black to win an Academy Award, died.

1954 Walt Disney's first television program, "Disneyland," premiered on ABC.

1955 The first edition of Village Voice was published.

1961 Actor Dylan McDermott was born.

1962 Nikita Khrushchev sent a note to John F. Kennedy offering to withdraw his missiles from Cuba if the U.S. closed its bases in Turkey.

1966 Blue Bird, the first in the second series of Intelsat satellites, was launched from Cape Kennedy.

1967 Singer Keith Urban was born.

1968 The first European satellite, Esro 1, was launched from Cape Kennedy.

1970 The comic strip "Doonesbury" debuted.
1970 Muhammad Ali scored a third-round TKO against Jerry Quarry in his first fight since being stripped of his heavyweight title in 1967.

1971 The United Nations voted to give Taiwan's seat in the General Assembly to China.

1972 Igor Sikorsky, inventor of the first successful helicopter, died.

1973 Actor Seth MacFarlane was born.

1974 The Martin Van Buren National Historic Site was established.

1978 Professional wrestler C. M. Punk was born.

1979 South Korean President Park Chung Hee was assassinated.

1995 Georgia Neese Clark Gray, the first woman Treasurer of the United States, died.

1999 Britain's House of Lords voted to end the right of hereditary peers to vote in Britain's upper chamber of Parliament.
1999 Country musician Hoyt Axton died.

Questions or comments about this page?

This page was last updated on July 16, 2018.