OCTOBER 26th

On this date in:
1774	The First Continental Congress adjourned in Philadelphia.
1825	The Erie Canal opened, connecting Lake Erie and the Hudson River in upstate New York.
1881	The gunfight at the OK Corral took place in Tombstone, Ariz., 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 were wounded.
1962	In one of the most dramatic verbal confrontations of the Cold War, American U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson asked his Soviet counterpart during a Security Council debate whether the USSR had placed missiles in Cuba.
1967	The Shah of Iran crowned himself and his queen after 26 years on the Peacock Throne.
1972	National security adviser Henry Kissinger declared "peace is at hand" in Vietnam.
1984	A newborn with a severe heart defect was given the heart of a baboon in an experimental transplant in Loma Linda, Calif. She lived for 21 more days.
1996	Federal prosecutors cleared Richard Jewell as a suspect in the Olympic park bombing.
2001	President George W. Bush signed the USA Patriot Act, giving authorities unprecedented ability to search, seize, detain or eavesdrop in their pursuit of possible terrorists.
2002	A hostage siege by Chechen rebels at a Moscow theater ended with 129 of the 800-plus captives dead, most from a knockout gas used by Russian special forces who stormed the theater.
2004	Israel's parliament approved Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan for withdrawing from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank.
2004	The final vote count in the Afghan presidential election gave a resounding victory to interim leader Hamid Karzai.
2005	The Chicago White Sox won their first World Series since 1917 by defeating the Houston Astros 1-0 in Game 4.

Article of the day

Shootout at the OK Corral

On this day in 1881, the Earp brothers face off against the Clanton-McLaury gang in a legendary shootout at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona.

After silver was discovered nearby in 1877, Tombstone quickly grew into one of the richest mining towns in the Southwest. Wyatt Earp, a former Kansas police officer working as a bank security guard, and his brothers, Morgan and Virgil, the town marshal, represented "law and order" in Tombstone, though they also had reputations as being power-hungry and ruthless. The Clantons and McLaurys were cowboys who lived on a ranch outside of town and sidelined as cattle rustlers, thieves and murderers. In October 1881, the struggle between these two groups for control of Tombstone and Cochise County ended in a blaze of gunfire at the OK Corral.

On the morning of October 25, Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury came into Tombstone for supplies. Over the next 24 hours, the two men had several violent run-ins with the Earps and their friend Doc Holliday. Around 1:30 p.m. on October 26, Ike's brother Billy rode into town to join them, along with Frank McLaury and Billy Claiborne. The first person they met in the local saloon was Holliday, who was delighted to inform them that their brothers had both been pistol-whipped by the Earps. Frank and Billy immediately left the saloon, vowing revenge.

Around 3 p.m., the Earps and Holliday spotted the five members of the Clanton-McLaury gang in a vacant lot behind the OK Corral, at the end of Fremont Street. The famous gunfight that ensued lasted all of 30 seconds, and around 30 shots were fired. Though it's still debated who fired the first shot, most reports say that the shootout began when Virgil Earp pulled out his revolver and shot Billy Clanton point-blank in the chest, while Doc Holliday fired a shotgun blast at Tom McLaury's chest. Though Wyatt Earp wounded Frank McLaury with a shot in the stomach, Frank managed to get off a few shots before collapsing, as did Billy Clanton. When the dust cleared, Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers were dead, and Virgil and Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday were wounded. Ike Clanton and Claiborne had run for the hills.

Sheriff John Behan of Cochise County, who witnessed the shootout, charged the Earps and Holliday with murder. A month later, however, a Tombstone judge found the men not guilty, ruling that they were "fully justified in committing these homicides." The famous shootout has been immortalized in many movies, including Frontier Marshal (1939), Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957), Tombstone (1993) and Wyatt Earp (1994).

Source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=VideoArticle&id=51977

Today Bithdays

72	Shelley Morrison Actress ("Will and Grace")
66	Bob Hoskins Actor
63	Pat Conroy Author
63	Jaclyn Smith Actress ("Charlie's Angels")
62	Pat Sajak TV game show host ("Wheel of Fortune")
61	Hillary Rodham Clinton U.S. senator, D-N.Y.
57	Bootsy Collins Musician
57	Maggie Roche Singer (The Roches)
57	Julian Schnabel Director
56	James Pickens Jr. Actor ("Grey's Anatomy")
55	Keith Strickland Rock musician (The B-52's)
54	D. W. Moffett Actor
52	Rita Wilson Actress
47	Dylan McDermott Actor ("The Practice")
46	Cary Elwes Actor
45	Natalie Merchant Rock singer (10,000 Maniacs)
41	Keith Urban Country singer
37	Anthony Rapp Actor ("Rent")
31	Jon Heder Actor ("Napoleon Dynamite")
30	Mark Barry Singer (BB Mak)
24	Sasha Cohen Figure skater