October 26



Events

Up to 1900 
 1341 - The Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347 begins.
 1597 - Imjin War: Admiral Yi Sun-sin decisively defeats the Japanese navy of 300 ships with only 13 ships of his own.
 1640 – The Treaty of Ripon is signed, restoring peace between Scotland and Charles I of Scotland and England.
 1689 – The Bill of Rights 1689 is recognised by Great Britain's dual monarchy.
 1689 - General Enea Silvio Piccolimini of Austria burns down Skopje, in the present-day Republic of Macedonia.
 1708 - The final stone of the newly rebuilt St. Paul's Cathedral in London is laid by the son of Christopher Wren.
 1774 - The First Continental Congress adjourns in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
 1775 - George III of Great Britain and Ireland authorises military force against the American colonies.
 1776 - Benjamin Franklin leaves the United States for France to seek French support for the American Revolutionary War.
 1811 - Argentina's government declares the freedom of expression for the press by decree.
 1813 - War of 1812: A combined force of British regulars, Canadian militia and Mohawks defeats the Americans in the Battle of Chateauguay.
 1825 – The Erie Canal opens, linking Albany, New York to Lake Erie.
 1859 - British clipper Royal Charter gets into a storm of the island of Anglesey, Wales, being thrown against rocks before sinking, killing 449 people, including all the women and children on board.
 1861 - The Pony Express officially ends operations.
 1863 - The English Football Association is founded.
 1881 – The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral takes place in Tombstone, Arizona.
 1896 – Addis Ababa agreement forces Italy to recognise Ethiopia's independence.

1901  2000 
 1905 – Norway becomes independent from Sweden.
 1909 – Japanese Governor of Korea, Hirobumi Ito is shot dead by Korean nationalist Ahn Jung-geun in Harbin, Manchuria.
 1912 - First Balkan War: Thessaloniki officially unites with Greece.
 1917 - World War I: In the Battle of Caporetto, Italy is decisively defeated by forces of Austria-Hungary and Germany.
 1917 - World War I: Brazil declares a state of war against the Central Powers.
 1918 - General Erich Ludendorff is dismissed by Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany for refusing to take part in peace negotiations.
 1921 - The Chicago Theatre opens.
 1936 - The first electric generator at the Hoover Dam, on the Arizona-Nevada border, goes into full operation.
 1942 - World War II: Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands in the Guadalcanal Campaign, ending in Japanese victory.
 1944 - World War II: The Battle of Leyte Gulf ends in US victory.
 1947 - The Maharaja, state ruler, of Kashmir & Jammu agrees to allow his kingdom to join India.
 1951 - Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for a second time.
 1955 – Austria declares permanent neutrality.
 1955 – Ngo Dinh Diem declares himself leader of South Vietnam.
 1958 - Pan American Airways makes the first commercial flight of the Boeing 707 from New York City to Paris.
 1964 - Eric Edgar Cooke is the last person to be executed in Western Australia.
 1965 - Austria celebrates its national holiday on this date for the first time.
 1967 - Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, ruler of Iran, officially has himself crowned.
 1968 - Soviet cosmonaut Georgy Beregovoy pilots Soyuz 3 into space for a four-day mission.
 1977 - The last natural case of Smallpox is discovered in Somalia.
 1979 – Park Chung-hee, President of South Korea is murdered by Kim Jae-kyu. Choi Kyu-ha becomes acting president.
 1984 – The movie The Terminator, directed by James Cameron, and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton, is released.
 1984 - The 1984-85 NBA regular season begins.
 1985 – Uluru (Ayers Rock) is returned to Pitjantjiara Aborigines.
 1994 – Jordan and Israel sign a peace treaty.
 1995 – An avalanche hits the village of Flateyri, in Iceland's West Fjords, killing 20 people.
 1995 - The European Parliament condemns French nuclear testing in the Pacific.
 1997 - Canadian Jacques Villeneuve becomes the Formula One world champion.
 1998 - President of Ecuador Jamil Mahuad and President of Peru Alberto Fujimori meet in Brasilia to agree to an end to their countries' border war.
 2000 – Laurent Gbagbo becomes President of the Ivory Coast.

From 2001 
 2001 - The United States passes the USA PATRIOT Act into law.
 2002 – Approximately 50 Chechen terrorists and 150 hostages die when Russian security forces storm a theatre building in Moscow, which had been occupied by terrorists for three days
 2003 – The Cedar fire occurs in California, killing 15 people, destroying 1, 000 square kilometres of forests, and 2,200 homes around San Diego.
 2012 - Media tycoon and former Prime Minister of Italy Silvio Berlusconi is found guilty of tax fraud.
 2015 - An earthquake of magnitude 7.5 strikes Afghanistan and Pakistan, killing at least 365 people.
 2017 - Jacinda Ardern becomes the 40th Prime Minister of New Zealand, leading a Labour-New Zealand First Party coalition government.
 2017 - The Tangerang fireworks disaster near Jakarta, Indonesia, kills at least 47 people.
 2018 - October 2018 United States mail bombing attempts: Police in Florida arrest a 56-year-old suspect, Cesar Sayoc, in their hunt for the sender of several mail bombs to well-known figures in the US Democratic party and people who have criticized US President Donald Trump.
 2018 - Michael D. Higgins is re-elected President of Ireland; on the same day the country's voters also vote to get rid of its blasphemy law.
 2019 - Climbing the rock Uluru in Australia is officially banned.
 2019 - Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, is reported to have blown himself up during a US military operation in Northern Syria.

Births

Up to 1900 
 968 - Emperor Kazan of Japan (d. 1008)
 1416 - Edmund Grey, 1st Earl of Kent, English nobleman (d. 1490)
 1427 – Archduke Sigismund of Austria (d. 1496)
 1431 - Ercole I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, Italian nobleman (d. 1505)
 1473 - Friedrich of Saxony, German nobleman (d. 1510)
 1491 – Zhengde, Chinese Emperor (d. 1521)
 1609 - William Sprague, English-born co-founder of Charlestown, Massachusetts (d. 1675)
 1673 - Dimitrie Cantemir, Moldovan prince and polymath (d. 1723)
 1684 - Kurt Christoph Graf von Schwerin, Prussian field marshal (d. 1757)
 1685 – Domenico Scarlatti, Italian composer (d. 1757)
 1694 - Johan Helmich Roman, Swedish composer (d. 1758)
 1697 – John Peter Zenger, German-American journalist, publisher and editor (d. 1746)
 1757 – Karl Leonhard Reinhold, Austrian philosopher (d. 1823)
 1759 - Georges Jacques Danton, French Revolutionary leader (d. 1794)
 1768 - Eustachy Erazm Sanguszko, Polish general and politician (d. 1844)
 1778 - Charles Grant, 1st Baron Glenelg, Scottish politician and colonial administrator (d. 1866)
 1794 – Konstantin Thon, Russian architect (d. 1881) (Nov 6 in Gregorian calendar)
 1800 – Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, Prussian field marshal (d. 1891)
 1802 – King Miguel of Portugal (d. 1866)
 1803 - Joseph Hansom, English architect and inventor (d. 1882)
 1842 – Vasily Vereshchagin, Russian painter (d. 1904)
 1849 - Ferdinand Georg Frobenius, German mathematician (d. 1917)
 1850 - Grigore Tocilescu, Romanian historian, archaeologist (d. 1909)
 1859 - Elizabeth Nourse, American painter (d. 1938)
 1861 - Richard Sears, American tennis player (d. 1943)
 1862 - Hilma af Klint, Swedish artist and mystic (d. 1944)
 1865 - Benjamin Guggenheim, American businessman (d. 1912)
 1869 – Washington Martínez Pereira de Sousa, President of Brazil (d. 1967)
 1872 - Harold Fraser, American golfer (d. 1945)
 1873 – Thorvald Stauning, Prime Minister of Denmark (d. 1942)
 1874 - Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, American art collector (d. 1948)
 1874 - Martin Lowry, English physical chemist (d. 1936)
 1880 - Andrei Bely, Russian writer (d. 1934)
 1880 - Dmitry Karbyshev, Russian general (d. 1945)
 1881 - Louis Bastien, French cyclist (d. 1963)
 1883 - Napoleon Hill, American writer and philosopher (d. 1970)
 1883 - Paul Pilgrim, American runner (d. 1958)
 1890 - Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi, Indian journalist and freedom fighter (d. 1931)
 1900 - Karin Boye, Swedish writer (d. 1941)
 1900 – Ibrahim Abboud, President of Sudan (d. 1983)

1901  1950 
 1902 - Beryl Markham, British aviation pioneer (d. 1986)
 1902 - Henrietta Hill Swope, American astronomer (d. 1980)
 1906 - Primo Carnera, Italian boxer (d. 1967)
 1909 - Ignace Lepp, French psychologist, writer and priest (d. 1966)
 1910 - John Krol, American cardinal (d. 1996)
 1911 - Sorley MacLean, Scottish poet (d. 1996)
 1911 – Mahalia Jackson, American singer (d. 1972)
 1912 – Don Siegel, American director (d. 1991)
 1913 - Charlie Barnet, American jazz saxophonist, composer and bandleader (d. 1991)
 1914 – Jackie Coogan, American actor (d. 1984)
 1916 – François Mitterrand, President of France (d. 1996)
 1919 – Edward Brooke, American politician (d. 2015)
 1919 – Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran (d. 1980)
 1919 - Princess Ashraf of Iran (d. 2016)
 1919 - Thomas Funck, Swedish writer (d. 2010)
 1919 - Jacob Pressman, American rabbi (d. 2015)
 1922 - Madelyn Dunham, grandmother of Barack Obama (d. 2008)
 1922 - Darcy Ribeiro, Brazilian anthropologist, author and politician (d. 1997)
 1924 - Shaw Taylor, English actor and television presenter (d. 2015)
 1924 - Reg Withers, Australian politician (d. 2014)
 1926 – Bernhard Klodt, German footballer (d. 1996)
 1926 - Bo Carpelan, Finnish writer (d. 2011)
 1928 - Albert Brewer, former Governor of Alabama (d. 2017)
 1930 - John Arden, British writer and dramatist (d. 2012)
 1931 - Ronald Drever, Scottish physicist (d. 2017)
 1933 - Takis Kanellopoulos, Greek movie director and screenwriter (d. 1990)
 1934 - Jacques Loussier, French pianist (d. 2019)
 1934 - Ulrich Plenzdorf, German author, screenwriter and dramatist (d. 2007)
 1934 - Rod Hundley, American basketball player (d. 2015)
 1935 - Mike Gray, American writer, screenwriter, cinematographer and producer (d. 2013)
 1936 - Shelley Morrison, American actress (d. 2019)
 1936 - György Pauk, Hungarian violinist
 1939 - Willie Stevenson, Scottish footballer
 1940 - Eddie Henderson, American jazz musician
 1941 - Charlie Landsborough, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
 1942 - Milton Nascimento, Brazilian singer-songwriter and guitarist
 1942 – Bob Hoskins, English actor (d. 2014)
 1944 - Jim McCann, Irish musician (d. 2015)
 1945 - Pat Conroy, American writer (d. 2016)
 1945 - Jaclyn Smith, American actress
 1946 - Kevin Barron, English politician
 1946 - Pat Sajak, American television host
 1946 - Holly Woodlawn, American actress (d. 2015)
 1947 – Hillary Clinton, 67th United States Secretary of State, and former First Lady of the United States
 1947 – Christian Ude, German politician and former Mayor of Munich
 1947 - Reg Empey, Northern Irish politician
 1949 - Steve Rogers, American baseball player

1951  1975 
 1951 - Bootsy Collins, American musician
 1951 - Tommy Mars, American musician
 1952 - Arthur Graham, Scottish footballer
 1952 – Andrew Motion, English poet
 1952 - Lars Peter Hansen, American economist
 1953 - Keith Strickland, American musician
 1953 - Maureen Teefy, American actress
 1955 - Baltasar Garzón, Spanish judge
 1956 - Regina Benjamin, 18th Surgeon General of the United States
 1956 - Rita Wilson, American actress
 1957 - Hugh Dallas, Scottish football referee
 1958 – Shaun Woodward, British politician
 1959 – Evo Morales, President of Bolivia
 1960 - Carlo Lucarelli, Italian writer and journalist
 1961 - Dylan McDermott, American actor
 1961 - Uhuru Kenyatta, President of Kenya
 1962 - Cary Elwes, English actor and writer
 1963 - Natalie Merchant, American singer
 1963 - Ted Demme, American director, producer and actor (d. 2002)
 1963 - Tom Kavanagh, Canadian actor and director
 1965 – Kelly Rowan, Canadian actress
 1966 - Steve Valentine, Scottish actor
 1966 - Judge Jules, English DJ and producer
 1967 – Keith Urban, New Zealand singer
 1967 – Douglas Alexander, British politician
 1968 - Robert Jarni, Croatian footballer
 1970 - Lisa Ryder, Canadian actress
 1971 - Audley Harrison, English boxer
 1971 - Anthony Rapp, American actor
 1971 - Rosemarie DeWitt, American actress
 1972 - Riaz, Bangladeshi movie actor
 1972 - Shan Sa, Chinese-French author and painter
 1973 – Seth MacFarlane, American animator, voice actor, producer and director, creator of Family Guy and American Dad
 1973 – Austin Healey, English rugby player
 1974 - Lisa, Japanese musician

From 1976 
 1977 - Sarah Storey, British Paralympic swimmer and cyclist
 1977 - Jon Heder, American actor
 1978 – CM Punk, American professional wrestler
 1979 - Movsar Barayev, Chechnen militant (d. 2002)
 1980 – Cristian Chivu, Romanian footballer
 1980 - Khalid Abdalla, British actor
 1981 - Martina Schild, Swiss apline skier
 1981 - Guy Sebastian, Australian singer
 1982 - Nicola Adams, British boxer
 1983 – Dmitri Sychev, Russian footballer
 1983 – Luke Watson, South African rugby player
 1984 – Adriano Correia Claro, Brazilian footballer
 1984 – Sasha Cohen, American figure skater
 1984 – Jefferson Farfán, Peruvian footballer
 1985 – Kieran Read, New Zealand rugby player
 1985 - Andrea Bargnani, Italian basketball player
 1985 - Monta Ellis, American basketball player
 1985 - Asin, Indian actress
 1985 - Kafoumba Coulibaly, Ivorian footballer
 1986 - Marco Ruben, Argentine footballer
 1986 - Schoolboy Q, American hip hop musician
 1988 – Greg Zuerlein, American ice dancer
 1992 - Cody Zeller, American basketball player
 1993 - Sergey Karasev, Russian footballer
 1994 - Allie DeBerry, American actress
 1996 - Rebecca Tunney, British gymnast
 2002 - Emma Schweiger, German actress
 2009 - Nathan Colwell, Professional nerd

Deaths

Up to 1900 
 664 - Cedd, English Anglo-Saxon monk and Bishop of London (b. around 620)
 899 – Alfred the Great, Saxon king of England (b. 849)
 1235 – King Andrew II of Hungary (b. 1175)
 1440 – Gilles de Rais, French serial killer (b. 1404)
 1580 - Anna of Austria, Queen of Spain (b. 1549)
 1609 - Matsudaira Tadayori, Japanese daimyo and samurai (b. 1582)
 1633 - Horio Tadaharu, Japanese warlord (b. 1596)
 1675 - William Sprague, English-born co-founder of Charlestown, Massachusetts (b. 1609)
 1679 - Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery, British soldier, statesman and dramatist (b. 1621)
 1717 - Catherine Sedley, English royal mistress (b. 1657)
 1764 – William Hogarth, British painter (b. 1697)
 1773 - Amedée-François Frezier, French military engineer and explorer (b. 1682)
 1806 – John Graves Simcoe, first lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada (b. 1752)
 1864 - William T. Anderson, American Civil War rebel guerrilla leader (b. 1838)
 1871 - Thomas Ewing, American politician (b. 1789)
 1890 – Carlo Collodi, Italian writer (Pinocchio) (b. 1826)
 1896 - Paul-Armand Challemel-Lacour, French statesman (b. 1827)

1901  2000 
 1901 - Alfred Tysoe, British athlete (b. 1874)
 1902 – Elizabeth Cady Stanton, American feminist, suffragette (b. 1815)
 1909 – Prince Hirobumi Ito, former Japanese governor of Korea, and first Prime Minister of Japan (assassinated) (b. 1841)
 1929 - Aby Warburg, German academic (b. 1866)
 1931 – Charles Comiskey, American baseball owner (b. 1859)
 1932 - Margaret Brown, American philanthropist, socialite and activist (b. 1867)
 1937 – Józef Dowbór-Muśnicki, Polish general, commander of Greater Poland Uprising in 1919 (b. 1867)
 1941 – Arkady Gaidar, Soviet/Russian children's writer, died in combat (b. 1904)
 1944 – Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom (b. 1857)
 1944 - William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1881)
 1945 - Alexei Krylov, Russian engineer and mathematician (b. 1863)
 1945 - Paul Pelliot, French explorer (b. 1878)
 1946 – Ioannis Rallis, Greek Prime Minister (b. 1878)
 1947 – Canon Edwin Sidney Savage, Rector of Hexham Abbey and St Bartholomew the Great (b. 1861)
 1952 – Hattie McDaniel, American singer (b. 1895)
 1956 – Walter Gieseking, French conductor (b. 1895)
 1957 – Nikos Kazantzakis, Greek writer (b. 1883)
 1957 - Gerty Cori, Czech-born American biochemist and Nobel Prize winner (b. 1896)
 1965 - Sylvia Likens, American torture victim (b. 1949)
 1966 – Alma Cogan, British singer (b. 1932)
 1971 - Vincent Coleman, American actor (b. 1901)
 1972 – Igor Sikorsky, helicopter pioneer (b. 1889)
 1979 – Park Chung-hee, President of South Korea (b. 1917)
 1983 – Alfred Tarski, Polish mathematician (b. 1901)
 1984 - Marc Kac, Polish mathematician (b. 1914)
 1986 - Jackson Scholz, American runner (b. 1897)
 1989 – Charles J. Pedersen, American organic chemist (b. 1904)
 1995 – Gorni Kramer, Italian bandleader and songwriter (b. 1913)
 1999 – Hoyt Axton, musician (b. 1938)
 1999 - Rex Gildo, German actor and singer (b. 1936)

From 2001 
 2002 – Jacques Massu, French general (b. 1908)
 2002 - Movsar Barayev, Chechen militant (b. 1979)
 2005 - Rong Yiren, Chinese politician (b. 1916)
 2007 - Khun Sa, Burmese warlord (b. 1934)
 2007 – Dr. Arthur Kornberg, American scientist (b. 1918)
 2008 – Tony Hillerman, American writer (b. 1925)
 2009 - George Na'ope, American musician (b. 1928)
 2010 – Paul the Octopus, FIFA World Cup 'oracle' (b. 2008)
 2011 – Jona Senilagakali, Fijian politician, diplomat and physician (b. 1929)
 2012 - John M. Johansen, American architect (b. 1916)
 2013 - Ron Davies, Welsh photographer (b. 1921)
 2014 - Oscar Taveras, Dominican baseball player (b. 1992)
 2014 - Mo Collins, American football player (b. 1976)
 2014 - Germain Gagnon, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1942)
 2014 - Jeff Robinson, American baseball player (b. 1961)
 2014 - Genpei Akasegawa, Japanese author and artist (b. 1937)
 2014 - Senzo Meyiwa, South African footballer (b. 1987)
 2015 - Ed Walker, American radio personality (b. 1932)
 2015 - Leo Kadanoff, American physicist (b. 1937)
 2017 - Ali Ashraf Darvishian, Iranian writer (b. 1941)
 2017 - Arnett E. Girardeau, American politician (b. 1929)
 2017 - Nelly Olin, French politician (b. 1941)
 2017 - Stephen Toulouse, American policy specialist and policy relations manager (b. 1972)
 2017 - Shea Norman, American gospel singer (b. 1971)
 2018 - Nikolai Karachentsov, Russian actor (b. 1944)
 2018 - Ana González de Recabarren, Chilean human rights activist (b. 1925)
 2018 - Warren B. Hamilton, American geologist (b. 1925)
 2018 - György Károly, Hungarian poet and novelist (b. 1953)
 2019 - Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Iraqi terrorist, leader of the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (b. 1971)
 2019 - Paul Barrere, American guitarist (b. 1948)
 2019 - Enriqueta Basilio, Mexican sprinter and hurdler (b. 1948)
 2019 - Robert Evans, American film producer (b. 1930)
 2019 - Chuck Meriwether, American baseball umpire (b. 1956)
 2019 - V. Nanammal, Indian yoga teacher (b. 1920)
 2019 - Natalya Pugacheva, Russian singer (Buranovskiye Babushki) (b. 1935)
 2019 - Gregory E. Pyle, American politician (b. 1949)
 2019 - Pascale Roberts, French actress (b. 1930)

Observances 
 National Holiday in Austria
 Angam Day (Nauru)
 Armed Forces Day (Benin)
 Accession Day (Jammu and Kashmir)
 Intersex Awareness Day

Days of the year