History for October 26

History for October 26 - On-This-Day.com
C.W. (Charles William) Post 1854 - Founder of Post cereals and products (Grape Nuts), Napoleon Hill 1883 - Writer (Think and Grow Rich), Mahalia Jackson 1911- Singer 


Jackie Coogan (John Leslie Coogan, Jr.) 1914 - Actor (The Kid), first child to appear in a full-lenth movie, Francois Mitterand 1916 - President of France (1981-1995),  Pat Sajak 1946 - TV host (Wheel of Fortune, The Pat Sajack Show) 


Hillary Rodham Clinton 1947 - First Lady: wife of 42nd U.S. President William J. Clinton, U.S. Senator from New York (2000-), U.S. Presidential candidate in 2008, Jaclyn Smith 1947 - Actress (Charlie’s Angels, The Bourne Identity), Lauren Tewes 1954 - Actress (The Love Boat, Magic Kid, The China Lake Murders) 


1825 - The Erie Canal opened in upstate New York. The 363-mile canal connected Lake Erie and the Hudson River at a cost of $7,602,000. 


1881 - The "Gunfight at the OK Corral" took place in Tombstone, AZ. The fight was between Wyatt Earp, his two brothers and Doc Holiday and the Ike Clanton Gang. 


1905 - Norway gained independence from Sweden. 


1942 - The U.S. ship Hornet was sunk in the Battle of Santa Cruz during World War II. 


1944 - During World War II, the Battle of Leyte Gulf ended. The battle was won by American forces and brought the end of the Pacific phase of World War II into sight. 


1951 - Winston Churchill became the prime minister of Great Britain. 


1962 - The Soviet Union made an offer to end the Cuban Missile Crisis by taking their missile bases out of Cuba if the U.S. agreed to not invade Cuba and would remove Jupiter missiles in Turkey. 


1979 - South Korean President Park Chung-hee was shot to death by Kim Jae-kyu, the head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency. 


1991 - Former Washington Mayor Marion Barry arrived at a federal correctional institution in Petersburg, VA, to begin serving a six-month sentence for cocaine possession. 


1998 - A French lab found a nerve agent on an Iraqi missile warhead. 


2002 - Russian authorities pumped a gas into a theater where separatist rebels held over 800 hostages. The gas killed 116 hostages and all 50 hostage-takers were killed by the gas or gunshot wounds.