Oct.
26 1440
Gilles de Rais, who fought for Joan of Arc and was made Marshal of France, is
hanged after being accused of Satanism and the murder of 140 children.
Oct 26 1759
Georges Jacques Danton, a french revolutionary leader is born
Oct 26 1774
The first Continental Congress, which protested British measures and called
for civil disobedience, adjourns in Philadelphia
Oct. 26 1879
Leon Trotsky, Communist leader is born
Oct 26 1905
Revolutionary Russian workers in St Petersburg form in a brief uprising.
Oct 26 1916
Birth of Francois Mitterrand.
He was elected France’s first socialist president in May 1981 and governed
until May 1995.
Oct 26 In 1948
a killing smog blanketed the small town of Donora, near Pittsburgh. The people
of that working class community went to bed not knowing that a suffocating cloud
of industrial gases would descend upon them during the night. The cloud, a poisonous
mix of sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and metal dust, came from the smokestacks
of the local zinc smelter where most of the town worked. Over the next five
days, twenty residents died and half the town's population - 7000 people were
hospitalized over the next with difficulty breathing. The Donora tragedy shocked
the nation and marked a turning point about industrial pollution and its effect
on health.
Oct 26 1962
Soviets propose an end to the cuban missile crisis.
Oct 26 1999
Up to five gunmen seize Armenia’s parliament in a torrent of automatic
weapons fire, killing the prime minister and seven others before taking dozens
hostage. The gunmen surrendered the next day.
Oct 26 1991
Once and future Washington DC Mayor Marion Barry arrives at a federal correctional
institution in Petersburg, Va., to begin serving a six-month sentence for cocaine
possession.
Oct 26 1994
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel and Prime Minister Abdel Salam el-Majali
of Jordan sign a peace treaty.
Oct 26 2000
An Ilyushin-18 aircraft ploughs into a mountain in the former Soviet republic
of Georgia, killing more than 80 people.
Oct 26 2001
President George W. Bush tears up the bill of rights and signs the Patriot Act.
This also marks the worst birthday present in history.
Mathematicians who died on Oct 26th
1817 : Aida
1945 : Aleksei Krylov
1968 : Sergi Bernstein
1983 : Tarski
1984 : Kac
1998 : Iwasawa