440 International Those Were the Days
October 26
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Events on This Day   

1785 - The first Spanish jacks imported to the United States arrived in Boston this day. They were a gift from King Charles III of Spain. George Washington bred them resulting in the first donkeys to be born in America.

1825 - The 363-mile-long inland waterway, connecting Lake Erie to New York City by way of the Hudson River, opened to boat traffic. Cannons fired in celebration and folks lined the route to cheer the $7,602,000 pet project of Governor Clinton. He knew that this, the first major, man-made waterway in the U.S. would be enormously important to the settlement of the Great Lakes region. And right he was! By the 1840s, thousands of barges used the Erie Canal. Features Spotlight

1858 - The rotary motion-washing machine was patented by Hamilton E. Smith of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

1881 - Doc Holliday joined the Earp brothers, Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan, in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, AZ. They went up against members of the Clanton gang of suspected cattle rustlers. Wyatt Earp and Billy Clanton opened the battle -- the most famous gunfight of the Old West -- with Doc shooting Billy in the chest. Less than thirty seconds later, three men lay dead and three were wounded. Doc had shot each of the dead cowboys at least once. Virgil had been shot in the leg and Morgan through both shoulders. Holliday was wounded in the hip. Only Wyatt Earp survived the fight untouched.

1911 - Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics beat the New York Giants in the World Series four games to two. Led by Chief Bender, the A’s cruised to a 4-hit 13-2 victory over the Giants in game six, capped by a 7-run seventh inning. The Giants managed just 13 runs and a .175 batting average off pitchers Bender, Jack Coombs, and Eddie Plank in the Series.

1934 - Cole Porter recorded his own composition titled, You’re the Top, from the show Anything Goes, on Victor.

1935 - A talented twelve-year-old sang on Wallace Beery’s radio show on NBC. Judy Garland delighted the appreciative audience. The young girl would soon be in pictures and at the top of stardom. It would be only four years before Ms. Garland (George Jessel gave her the name, thinking it would be better than her own, Frances Gumm) captured the hearts of moviegoers everywhere with her performance as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.

1942 - During the Battle of Santa Cruz, the U.S.S. South Dakota, the Navy’s most decorated ship of World War II, shot down a record 32 enemy planes. The ship took a hit from a 500-pound bomb during the battle. The U.S. aircraft carrier Hornet was sunk during the same battle.

1944 - The Battle of Leyte Gulf ended with the Japanese suffering heavy losses in attempting to halt the U.S. invasion of the Philippines. It was the largest naval battle of World War II.

1949 - President Harry Truman signed a measure raising the minimum wage from 40 to 75 cents an hour. 22 million workers got a raise the very next day.

1951 - Rocky Marciano, the ‘Brockton Blockbuster’, knocked out Joe Louis, the ‘Brown Bomber’ in the 8th round of a fight at Madison Square Garden in New York. One year later, Marciano became heavyweight champ of the world.

1952 - NBC-TV premiered Victory at Sea. The show was the first documentary film series to gain wide acceptance. Richard Rodgers wrote the score and Robert Russell Bennett orchestrated it. No Other Love, adapted from one of the songs in the score, became a hit for Perry Como in the summer of 1953.

1955 - The Village Voice was first published. The Voice was New York City’s ‘underground’ (alternative) newspaper.

1958 - Pan American Airways flew its first Boeing 707 jetliner, the Clipper America, from New York to Paris. The trip took eight hours and 41 minutes.

1962 - Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev sent a note to U.S. President John F. Kennedy offering to withdraw his missiles from Cuba if the U.S. would close its bases in Turkey. The offer was rejected. JFK warned Russia that the U.S. would not allow Soviet missiles to remain in Cuba.

1965 - The Beatles received MBE medals from the Queen of England, as they became Members of the British Empire. Ceremonies were held at Buckingham Palace. John Lennon returned his medal four years later in protest of Britain’s involvement in the Nigerian Civil War.

1966 - The U.S. aircraft carrier Oriskany caught fire in the Gulf of Tonkin (South Vietnam). 43 crewmembers died.

1970 - Following 3½ years of forced isolation from boxing, Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) returned to the ring and beat Jerry Quarry in Atlanta, Georgia.

1970 - Only 22 years old, Garry Trudeau began his comic strip, Doonesbury, in 28 newspapers across the U.S. The sometimes controversial strip is now in hundreds of papers and has spawned a publishing empire of books and assorted items.

1971 - Memphis minister Al Green received a gold record for his single, Tired of Being Alone.

1973 - Alcatraz emerged from a century of isolation. The U.S. Congress created the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in 1972 and Alcatraz Island was included as part of the new National Park Service unit. The island opened to the public on this day. Guided tours of the former prison have become very popular, with more than one million visitors from around the world visiting the island each year.

1975 - Anwar el-Sadat became the first Egyptian president to pay an official visit to the United States.

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

1984 - Barbra Streisand won multiplatinum certification for three albums that reached the four-million-dollar sales mark. Greatest Hits, Vol. II, Guilty, and A Star is Born (with Kris Kristofferson) were honored.

1984 - Baby Fae, a newborn with a severe heart defect, was given the heart of a baboon in an experimental transplant in Loma Linda, CA. The baby lived 21 days with the animal heart.

1986 - Donald Duck was shown for the first time in the People’s Republic of China. Chinese television launched a weekly half-hour of old Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse cartoons. We guess “quack” is the same in any language.

1988 - Three gray whales, trapped for nearly for nearly three weeks in the Arctic ice pack, were freed by Soviet and U.S. icebreakers.

1989 - After twelve ballots, Washington DC attorney Paul Tagliabue was tapped by NFL team owners to be the new commissioner of pro football, succeeding Pete Rozelle. Tagliabue was the seventh person to be chief executive of the NFL. Tagliabue was NFL Comissioner from November 5, 1989 – August 1, 2006.

1992 - Pearl Jam set a first-week sales record, selling 950,000 copies of their Vs. album. (The record was broken in 1998 by Garth Brooks and in 1999 by the Backstreet Boys.)

1996 - The New York Yankees played against the defending World Champion Atlanta Braves in what looked like a quick sweep. The Yankees were battered, injured and struggling until the World Series left New York with the Braves leading two games to none. Beginning in Atlanta, the Yankees came to life and beat the braves in four straight, culminating with the 3-2 win on this day back at Yankee Stadium. The Bronx Bombers won the series four games to two.

1997 - The expansion Florida Marlins, who debuted during the 1993 season, won one of the most exciting game sevens in the history of the World Series and became the first wild card team to win a World Championship. Edgar Renteria’s bases-loaded single with two outs in the bottom of the 11th inning started the celebration in Miami. The Marlins became the fastest team to reach the pinnacle of baseball, winning the World Series, four games to three, over Cleveland Indians.

2000 - “It is often said that the Mayor of New York City wears many hats, while this may be true, I can assure you that for the duration of this World Series I'll be wearing a Yankees hat,” said New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. New York (Yankees) battled New York (Mets) during the 2000 Fall Classic and the Yankees won the Series with a 4-2 victory over the Mets in Game 5 this day at Shea Stadium. Catcher Jorge Posada scored the game-winning run as the Yankees won their third consecutive World Series and their fourth in five years.

2000 - Four new moons were discovered in orbit around Saturn. The moons of Saturn are numerous and diverse, ranging from tiny moonlets only tens of meters across to enormous Titan, which is larger than the planet Mercury.

2000 - The Full Monty debuted on Broadway at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre. The opening night cast included Patrick Wilson, André DeShields, John Ellison Conlee, Jason Danieley, Marcus Neville, Romain Frugé, Kathleen Freeman, Denis Jones, Emily Skinner, Lisa Datz and Annie Golden. The musical closed on September 2002, after a smashing run of 770 performances and 35 previews.

2001 - New movies in the U.S.: Donnie Darko, with Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Drew Barrymore, Mary Mcdonnell, Holmes Osborne, Katharine Ross, Patrick Swayze, Noah Wyle, Maggie Gyllenhaal, James Duval and Beth Grant; High Heels and Low Lifes, starring Minnie Driver, Mary Mccormack, Kevin Mcnally, Sir Michael Gambon, Danny Dyer, Mark Williams, Kevin Eldon, Len Collin and Julian Wadham; K-PAX, with Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges, Alfre Woodard and Mary Mccormack; On the Line, with Lance Bass, Joey Fatone, Emmanuelle Chriqui, James Bulliard, David Foley and Tamala Jones; and Thir13en Ghosts, starring Tony Shalhoub, Embeth Davidtz, Matthew Lillard, Shannon Elizabeth, Rah Digga, F. Murray Abraham, Jr Bourne and Alec Roberts.

2002 - Russian special forces, using gas to knock out Chechen guerrillas, stormed a Moscow theater in a dawn raid that left dozens of hostages dead along with most of their rebel captors. Russian special forces killed 41 rebels, including leader Movsar Barayev, and freed about 600 captives in the third day of the hostage drama. 129 captives were killed.

2003 - Flames stoked by powerful winds raced through parts of Southern California, torching more than 208,000 acres, destroying 500 homes and causing at least eleven deaths.

2003 - Canadian Rob Krueger defeated 320 competitors who played at the World Rock, Paper, Scissors Championships at a downtown Toronto nightclub. Krueger won $3,825.

2004 - The Federal Communications Commission gave its approval to Cingular Wireless LLC’s $41 billion acquisition of AT&T Wireless Services Inc. The ruling allowed the creation of the largest cell phone company in the U.S.

2005 - Chicago White Sox beat the Houston Astros 1-0 to sweep the World Series 4-0. It was the first World Championship for the White Sox since 1917; outfielder Jermaine Dye was picked as the series MVP (Most Valuable Player).

2006 - U.S. President George Bush (II) signed a bill authorizing 700 miles of new fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border.

2006 - The first Amateur Erotic Film Competition opened at the Castro Theater in San Francisco, CA. The $500 first prize went to Cory Wees for a film portraying his bondage and discipline by a woman.

2007 - Films debuting in U.S. theatres: Dan in Real Life, starring Steve Carell, Juliette Binoche, Dane Cook, Norbert Leo Butz, John Mahoney, Dianne Wiest, Alison Pill, Brittany Robertson, Marlene Lawston and Emily Blunt; and Saw IV, with Tobin Bell, Scott Patterson, Betsy Russell, Costas Mandylor, Lyriq Bent, Athena Karkanis, Justin Louis, Simon Reynolds, Mike Realba and Marty Adams.

2007 - Lines of frustrated, angry passengers built up at French airports as Air France cancelled scores of flights on the third day of a strike by flight crews.

2008 - An Egyptian news agency that transmitted video showing protesters tearing down a portrait of President Hosni Mubarak was fined $27,000 for operating unlicensed equipment. Cairo News Company head Nader Gohar said he was targeted as a warning to other media.

2010 - A Brazilian court ordered McDonald’s fast-food chain to pay a former franchise manager $17,500 because he had gained 65 pounds while working there a dozen years. The 32-year-old man said he had been forced to sample food products each day to ensure that quality standards remained high.

2010 - The United Nations General Assembly voted 187-2 in favor of (U.S. and Israel voted against) lifting a 48-year-old economic embargo against Cuba. It was the 19th consecutive year that the General Assembly had adopted the resolution by an overwhelming majority of votes.

2010 - Rain, the Beatles tribute, opened at the Neil Simon Theatre on Broadway for 300 shows (and 8 preview performances).

2011 - The U.S. gave oil giant BP approval to drill at its Kaskida field, some 192 miles off the Louisiana coast. It was BP’s first oc ocean operation since the Deepwater Horizon Macondo well blowout and explosion on April 20, 2010.

2012 - Movies debuting in U.S. theatres: Cloud Atlas, starring Tom Hanks, Hugo Weaving, Susan Sarandon, Halle Berry, Jim Sturgess, Ben Whishaw and Hugh Grant; Fun Size, with Jane Levy, Victoria Justice, Thomas Mann, Johnny Knoxville, Chelsea Handler, Kerri Kenney and Ana Gasteyer; Chasing Mavericks, with Gerard Butler, Elisabeth Shue, Scott Eastwood, Abigail Spencer and Leven Rambin; Silent Hill: Revelation 3D, starring Sean Bean, Carrie-Anne Moss, Kit Harington, Radha Mitchell, Malcolm McDowell, Adelaide Clemens, Deborah Kara Unger, Martin Donovan and Erin Pitt; and The Black Tulip, with Haji Gul Aser, Sonia Nassery Cole, Walid Amini, Somajia Razaya, Hosna Tanha and Basir Mujaheed.

2013 - Saudi activists said more than 60 women answered their call to get behind the wheel in a show of defiance against continuing a ban on female driving. The campaign was the most successful effort to that time by Saudi women demanding the right to drive.

2014 - A divided Ukraine voted to hand handed President Poroshenko a mandate to end a separatist conflict and steer the country further out of Russia’s orbit into Europe’s mainstream.

2015 - POTUS Barack Obama and John Boehner, outgoing Speaker of the House, struck a deal to suspend the debt ceiling. The deal allowed Obama to borrow as much as he needed to keep the government operating into 2017.

2015 - Burger King opened its first store in sparsely populated Mongolia, joining companies from Pizza Hut to Porsche in anticipation of an economic boom from the Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine.

2016 - New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) acquired the original set of 176 emojis that were released in 1999 by Japanese phone company NTT DoCoMo. The first emojis were simple 12-pixel-by-12-pixel images that included a smiley face, a snowman, hearts and an old-school cell phone. The emojis were copied in Japan after the initial set debuted, but they didn’t go global until Apple added them to the iPhone in 2011.

2017 - Twitter Inc accused Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik of interfering in the 2016 U.S. election. Twitter banned the Russian media outlets from buying ads on its network. This, after criticism in the U.S. that the social network had not done enough to deter international meddling.

2017 - The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) said an 85-year-old survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima would jointly accept the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to ICAN.

2018 - Movies opening in the U.S. included: Hunter Killer, starring Ethan Baird, Jacob Scipio and Dempsey Bovell; Indivisible, with Justin Bruening, Sarah Drew and Jason George; Johnny English Strikes Again, starring Olga Kurylenko, Emma Thompson and Rowan Atkinson; Air Strike, starring Ye Liu, Bruce Willis and Seung-heon Song; Glass Jaw, with Mark Rolston, Jon Gries and Jaime Camil; Killer Kate!, starring Alexandra Feld, Danielle Burgess and Amaris Davidson; London Fields, with Amber Heard, Gemma Chan and Cara Delevingne; and Suspiria, starring Chloë Grace Moretz, Tilda Swinton and Doris Hick.

2018 - French President Emmanuel Macron dismissed as “demagoguery” the calls by several European countries, including Germany, to suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia following the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

2018 - North and South Korea agreed to completely destroy 22 front-line guard posts by the end of November as they discussed their next steps in implementing a wide-ranging military agreement.

2019 - More than 100,000 people thronged the streets of Taiwan’s capital Taipei for an East Asia Pride march. This, months after the self-ruled island began formally allowing same-sex marriage -- the first area of Asia to do so.

2020 - Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice -- to give the Republican-appointed justices a 6-to-3 majority.

2020 - The conservative-dominated U.S. Supreme Court refused to allow the extension of Wisconsin’s deadline for receiving absentee ballots to six days after the election. The vote was 5 to 3.

2020 - Large areas in California had no electricity as utilities tried to prevent their equipment from sparking wildfires. New wildfires in Southern California burned thousands of acres over a matter of hours, than 100,000 people ordered to evacuate.

2020 - Masks became obligatory outdoors at all times in Bosnia’s autonomous Bosniak-Croat Federation. All non-urgent medical treatments were suspended and all health institutions were ordered to allocate 30% of their capacity for COVID-19 patients. In Bosnia’s Serb Republic, primary and secondary schools were ordered to switch to online classes for a week. And a French doctor warned that France had “lost control of the epidemic,” a day after health authorities reported more than 52,000 new coronavirus cases.

2021 - Comedian Mort Sahl died at his home in Mill Valley, CA. He was 94 years old. Sahl confronted Eisenhower-era cultural complacency with acidic stage monologues, delivering biting social commentary in the guise of a stand-up comedian and thus changing the nature of both stand-up comedy and social commentary.

2021 - A powerful cyclonic storm hit Sicily causing widespread flooding around the city of Catania, turning streets and squares into rivers and lakes, and causing at least two deaths.

2022 - Thousands of protesters in Saqez, Iran defied police forces (who had opened fire) to mark the 40-day Arba’een (period of mourning) for Mahsa Amini, a 22-year old who died in police custody -- for not wearing a hijab properly.

2022 - Russian leader Vladimir Putin repeated his claim that Ukraine was planning to explode a radioactive dirty bomb. Western officials and Ukraine’s leaders said Russia was making up the allegation as a pretext for escalating its invasion of Ukraine.

2022 - German luxury car maker Mercedes-Benz became the latest Western company to pull out of Russia following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. A Mercedes spokesperson told CBS News the company intended “to withdraw from the Russian market and to sell its shares in its subsidiaries to a local investor.”

and more...
HistoryOrb, On-This-Day, TODAYINSCI,
The day’s front pages

Jump to Top Birthdays on This Day    October 26

1685 - Domenico Scarlatti
composer: over 550 clavier sonatas; son of composer Alessandro Scarlatti; died July 23, 1757

1803 - Joseph Hansom
architect, inventor: Patent Safety Cab [2-wheeled, horse-driven cab with the driver seated above and behind the passengers]: the hansom cab; died Jun 29, 1882

1854 - C.W. (Charles William) Post
cereal mogul; founder of Post cereals and products: Grape Nuts, Post Toasties, Postum; died May 9, 1914

1874 - Abby (Greene Aldrich) Rockefeller
philanthropist: cofounder of NY Museum of Modern Art; died Apr 5, 1948

1875 - H.B. (Henry Byron) Warner
actor: Bulldog Drummond series, It’s a Wonderful Life, Lost Horizon, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Ten Commandments; died Dec 21, 1958

1894 - John S. (Shively) Knight
Pulitzer Prize-winning [Editor’s Notebook: 1968] reporter, editor: The Akron Beacon Journal; publisher: Knight-Ridder newspaper empire; died June 16, 1981

1902 - Jack Sharkey
boxer: World Heavyweight Champion: won title from Max Schmeling in a 15-round split decision [June 21, 1932], lost title when Primo Carnera knocked him out [June 29, 1933]; record: 38-13-3 (14 knockouts, 1 no-contest); died Aug 17, 1994

1906 - Primo Carnera
boxer: heaviest heavyweight champion [270 pounds: 3/1/34]: outweighed opponent by 86 lbs., won on points; died June 29, 1967

1907 - Tony Pastor
musician: saxophone; singer, bandleader: albums: A-You’re Adorable, Dance Parade: Your Dance Date, Confessin’ (1940-1949), That’s Good Enough for Me; his sons were musicians Guy and Tony Pastor, Jr.; died Oct 31, 1969

1911 - Sid Gillman
College and Pro Football Hall of Famer: Ohio University: 1st college all-star game; Cleveland Rams; head coach: Miami University, University of Cincinnati, LA Rams, LA/San Diego Chargers, Houston Oilers [AFC Coach of the Year-1974]; general manager: Houston Oilers; died Jan 3, 2003

1911 - Mahalia Jackson
singer: God’s Gonna Separate the Wheat from the Tares, Move on Up a Little Higher, The Lord’s Prayer; in film: St. Louis Blues; LP: I Sing Because I’m Happy, The World’s Greatest Gospel Singer; died Jan 27, 1972

1913 - Charlie Barnet
musician: saxophone; bandleader: Cherokee, We’re All Burnt Up, Where Was I?, Pompton Turnpike, I Hear a Rhapsody, Skyliner; autobiography: Those Swinging Years; died Sep 4, 1991

1914 - Jackie Coogan (John Leslie Coogan, Jr.)
actor: The Kid: 1st full-length movie to star a child; Tom Sawyer, Oliver Twist, College Swing, Outlaw Women, The Shakiest Gun in the West, The Escape Artist, The Addams Family, McKeever & The Colonel; TV panelist: Pantomime Quiz; cause of the Coogan Act requiring parent’s of child actors to put their earnings in trust; died Mar 1, 1984

1916 - Francois Mitterand
President of France [1981-1995]; died Jan 8, 1996

1934 - Rodney ‘Hot Rod’ Hundley
basketball; W. Virginia Univ., Minneapolis/LA Lakers; sportscaster: Utah Jazz; died Mar 27, 2015

1941 - Steven Kellogg
author, illustrator of children’s books: Johnny Appleseed, Chicken Little, The Mysterious Tadpole, Pecos Bill, The Island of the Skog, Can I Keep Him?, Pinkerton, Behave!, How Much is a Million?

1942 - Bob Hoskins
actor: Hook, Brazil, The Cotton Club, Mona Lisa, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Heart Condition, Mermaids; died Apr 29, 2014

1944 - Michael Piano
singer: group: The Sandpipers: Guantanamera, Come Saturday Morning

1945 - Pat Conroy
author: The Prince of Tides, The Water Is Wide, The Lords of Discipline, The Great Santini; died Mar 4, 2016

1945 - Jaclyn Smith
actress: Charlie’s Angels, Christine Cromwell, The Bourne Identity, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Goodbye Columbus; commercials: Breck girl

1946 - Keith Hopwood
singer, musician: guitar: group: Herman’s Hermits: Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter, I’m Henry the Eighth I Am

1946 - Pat Sajak
TV host: Wheel of Fortune, The Pat Sajak Show

1947 - Hillary Rodham Clinton
attorney; First Lady: wife of 42nd U.S. President William J. Clinton; U.S. Senator from New York [2000-2009]; U.S. Secretary of State [2009–2013]; Democratic Party presidential candidate [2016]

1948 - Toby (Colbert Dale) Harrah
baseball: Washington Senators, Texas Rangers [all-star: 1972, 1975, 1976], Cleveland Indians [all-star: 1982], New York Yankees

1949 - Steve (Stephen Douglas) Rogers
baseball: pitcher: record: NCAA Division I individual career pitching wins [Tulsa: 4, 1969, 1971]; Montreal Expos [all-star: 1974, 1978, 1979, 1982, 1983

1949 - Mike (Dudley Michael) Hargrove
baseball: Texas Rangers [Rookie of the Year: 1974/all-star: 1975], Cleveland Indians, SD Padres; manager: Cleveland Indians

1950 - Chuck Foreman
football: Minnesota Vikings running back/receiver: NFC Rookie of the Year [1973]: Super Bowl VIII, IX, XI; NFC Player of the Year [1974, 1976]; New England Patriots

1951 - William ‘Bootsy’ Collins
musician: bass, singer: group: Parliament-Funkadelic: One Nation Under a Groove, Atomic Dog

1951 - Steve (Steven Robert) Ontiveros
baseball: SF Giants, Chicago Cubs

1952 - Tony Abbott
children’s author: The Secrets of Droon series

1953 - Keith Strickland
musician: drums: group: The B-52s: Rock Lobster, Quiche Lorraine, 606-0842, Dance This Mess Around

1953 - Maureen Teefy
actress: Fame, Grease 2, Supergirl, Men Seeking Women, Disaster at Silo 7, Portrait of a Teenage Shoplifter, Fyre, Star Time

1953 - Lauren Tewes
actress: The Love Boat, Magic Kid, The China Lake Murders

1954 - D.W. Moffett
actor: Friday Night Lights, For Your Love, Happily Divorced, Switched at Birth

1954 - James Pickens Jr
actor: Grey’s Anatomy, The X-Files, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The West Wing, Roseanne, Beverly Hills, 90210, JAG, Six Feet Under

1956 - Rita Wilson
actress: The Bonfire of the Vanities, Barbarians at the Gate, Sleepless in Seattle, Mixed Nuts, If These Walls Could Talk, That Thing You Do!, From the Earth to the Moon, Runaway Bride, The Story of Us; wife of actor Tom Hanks

1961 - Dylan McDermott
actor: Stalker, Hostages, The Practice, Hamburger Hill, Twister, Steel Magnolias, In the Line of Fire, Destiny Turns on the Radio, Big Shots

1962 - Cary Elwes
actor: Twister, Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Hot Shots!, Days of Thunder, Glory, The Princess Bride, Another Country

1963 - Thomas Cavanagh
actor: Ed, Sherlock Holmes Returns, Jake and the Kid, Bloodhounds II, Royal Pains, The Flash

1964 - Nicole Bass
bodybuilder: Extreme Championship Wrestling, World Wrestling Federation, XPW, National Wrestling Alliance; actress, pornographic dominatrix: regular on The Howard Stern Show

1966 - Steve Valentine
musician, magician, actor: Crossing Jordan, I’m in the Band, Nikki, Mars Attacks!, Return to the Secret Garden, Spider-Man 3, Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie, The Walk; more

1967 - Keith Urban
musician: guitar, singer: For You, But for the Grace of God, Days Go By, Raining on Sunday, You Think of Me, You Look Good in My Shirt, Song for Dad

1970 - Jessie Armstead
football [linebacker]: Univ of Miami; NFL: New York Giants, Washington Redskins

1971 - Anthony Rapp
actor: stage: Rent, You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown, If/Then; screen: The X-Files, Kidnapped, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Six Degrees of Separation, A Beautiful Mind, Scaring the Fish, Grind

1973 - Timothy Dowling
actor: Thank You for Smoking, The Life Coach, Sleepover, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Dr. Benny, The Seventh Sense, George Lucas in Love

1973 - Seth MacFarlane
TV producer, writer, actor: The Orville, Family Guy, American Dad!, Johnny Bravo, Dexter’s Laboratory

1976 - Steve Kelly
hockey [center]: Edmonton Oilers, Tampa Bay Lightning, New Jersey Devils, Los Angeles Kings

1977 - Jon Heder
actor: Napoleon Dynamite, The Benchwarmers, School for Scoundrels, Blades of Glory, Mama’s Boy, When in Rome; voice actor: Monster House, Surf’s Up

1984 - Sasha Cohen
figure skater, Olympic silver medalist [2006]

1985 - Monta Ellis
basketball: NBA: Golden State Warriors [2005–2012]; Milwaukee Bucks [2012–2013]; Dallas Mavericks [2013- ]

1986 - Emilia Clarke
actress: Game of Thrones, Terminator Genisys; Broadway: Breakfast at Tiffany’s

1993 - Drew Gooden
YouTuber: comedic videos on internet culture and pop culture: as of July 2023, his YouTube channel had over four million subscribers

and still more...
IMDb, iafd (adult), FAMOUS, NNDB,
BASEBALL, BASKETBALL, HOCKEY, PRO-FOOTBALL

Jump to Top Hit Music on This Day    October 26

1945I’ll Buy That Dream (facts) - The Pied Pipers
Till the End of Time (facts) - Perry Como
On the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe (facts) - Johnny Mercer
With Tears in My Eyes (facts) - Wesley Tuttle

1954Hey There (facts) - Rosemary Clooney
I Need You Now (facts) - Eddie Fisher
If I Give My Heart to You (facts) - Doris Day
I Don’t Hurt Anymore (facts) - Hank Snow

1963Sugar Shack (facts) - Jimmy Gilmer & The Fireballs
Be My Baby (facts) - The Ronettes
Deep Purple (facts) - Nino Tempo & April Stevens
Love’s Gonna Live Here (facts) - Buck Owens

1972My Ding-A-Ling (facts) - Chuck Berry
Use Me (facts) - Bill Withers
Nights in White Satin (facts) - The Moody Blues
Funny Face (facts) - Donna Fargo

1981Arthur’s Theme (Best that You Can Do) (facts) - Christopher Cross
Start Me Up (facts) - The Rolling Stones
For Your Eyes Only (facts) - Sheena Easton
Never Been So Loved (In All My Life) (facts) - Charley Pride

1990I Don’t Have the Heart (facts) - James Ingram
Black Cat (facts) - Janet Jackson
Ice Ice Baby (facts) - Vanilla Ice
Friends in Low Places (facts) - Garth Brooks

1999Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit…) (facts) - Lou Bega
Larger Than Life (facts) - Backstreet Boys
Smooth (facts) - Santana featuring Rob Thomas
Something Like That (facts) - Tim McGraw

2008So What (facts) - P!nk
Hot N Cold (facts) - Katy Perry
Disturbia (facts) - Rihanna
Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven (facts) - Kenny Chesney with The Wailers

2017Rockstar (facts) - Post Malone featuring 21 Savage
Bodak Yellow (Money Moves) (facts) - Cardi B
1-800-273-8255 (facts) - Logic featuring Alessia Cara & Khalid
What Ifs (facts) - Kane Brown featuring Lauren Alaina

and even more...
Billboard, Pop/Rock Oldies, Songfacts, Country


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Written and edited by Carol Williams and John Williams
Produced by John Williams


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