TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Friday, Oct. 26, the 299th day of 2018. There are 66 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On October 26th, 1825, the Erie Canal opened in upstate New York, connecting Lake Erie and the Hudson River.
On this date:
■ In 1774, the First Continental Congress adjourned in Philadelphia.
■ In 1881, the “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” took place in Tombstone, Arizona, as Wyatt Earp, his two brothers and “Doc” Holliday confronted Ike Clanton’s gang. Three members of Clanton’s gang were killed; Earp’s brothers and Holliday were wounded.
■ In 1942, Japanese planes badly damaged the aircraft carrier USS Hornet in the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands during World War II. (The Hornet sank early the next morning.)
■ In 1944, the World War II Battle of Leyte Gulf ended in a major Allied victory over Japanese forces, whose naval capabilities were badly crippled.
■ In 1949, President Harry S. Truman signed a measure raising the minimum wage from 40 to 75 cents an hour.
■ In 1972, national security adviser Henry Kissinger declared, “Peace is at hand” in Vietnam.
■ In 1979, South Korean President Park Chung-hee was shot to death by the head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, Kim Jae-kyu.
■ In 1984, “Baby Fae,” a newborn with a severe heart defect, was given the heart of a baboon in an experimental transplant in Loma Linda, California. (Baby Fae lived 21 days with the animal heart.)
■ In 1994, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel and Prime Minister Abdel Salam Majali of Jordan signed a peace treaty during a ceremony at the Israeli-Jordanian border attended by President Bill Clinton.
■ In 2000, the New York Yankees became the first team in more than a quarter-century to win three straight World Series championships, beating the New York Mets 4-to-2 in game five of their “Subway Series.” (The Yankees matched the Oakland Athletics’ three in a row from 1972-74, and won their fourth title in five years.)
Thought for Today: “Time sometimes flies like a bird, sometimes crawls like a snail; but a man is happiest when he does not even notice whether it passes swiftly or slowly.”— Ivan Turgenev, Russian author (1818-1883).