Oct. 26
Today in history
Today is Oct. 26. On this date in:
1825: The Erie Canal officially opened as the first major man-made waterway in America. The canal – linking Lake Erie with the Hudson River and bypassing the British-controlled lower St. Lawrence River – cost over $7 million and took eight years to complete.
1881: A city ordinance in Tombstone, Arizona, prohibiting weapons within town limits triggered the famous shootout at the OK Corral. A group of lawmen, including Wyatt Earp and “Doc” Holliday, faced off with a gang of outlaws known as the Cowboys. When the dust settled, the lawmen had gunned down three of the cowboys in an event that became immortalized in books and film as a symbol of the Wild West.
1944: The Battle of Leyte Gulf, part
of the U.S. effort to free the Philippines from the Japanese during World War II, ended. It was the largest naval battle in history, involving 216 U.S. warships and 64 Japanese ships, and left the Japanese fleet basically incapacitated for the rest of the war. The Japanese battleship Musashi, one of the largest ever built, was destroyed.
1951: Winston Churchill returned to power after a six-year absence, winning a second term as Britain’s prime minister with a narrow victory in general elections.
1955: Ngo Dinh Diem proclaimed South Vietnam a republic and declared himself president.
1965: The Beatles were awarded the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II, recognizing their contributions to music and popular culture.
1974: Four convicted terrorists took 22 people hostage, including children, during a Roman Catholic Mass at the Scheveningen Prison in The Hague, Netherlands. Seven hostages were released over the next four days before a raid by Dutch military freed the other 15 and led to the capture of the kidnappers.
1977: The World Health Organization confirmed the last natural case of smallpox in Somalia. There are concerns that the smallpox virus could be used in a biological attack, although there is no evidence that it exists outside of secure laboratories.
1979: South Korean President Park Chung-hee was assassinated by Kim Jae-kyu, the head of the country’s Central Intelligence Agency.
1982: The medical drama “St. Elsewhere” premiered on NBC. The show ran for nearly six years and jump-started the careers of actors Denzel Washington, Alfre Woodard, Howie Mandel and David Morse.
1984: Stephanie Fae Beauclair, a 14-day-old infant girl born with a heart defect, was given the healthy, walnut-sized heart of a young baboon in a groundbreaking transplant surgery performed by Dr. Leonard L. Bailey at Loma Linda University Medical Center in California. The baby, who initially made good progress after the surgery, died about three weeks later.
1994: Israel and Jordan signed a peace agreement ending 46 years of war in a desert ceremony along the Israel-Jordan border that was witnessed by U.S. President Bill Clinton.
2001: President George W. Bush signed the Patriot Act into law in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The law, designed to allow law enforcement and federal government agencies to more easily gather intelligence, gave authorities the ability to search, seize, detain or eavesdrop on possible terrorists.
– USA TODAY Network
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Today in history, October 26
