Today in History....October 26

* 1774, the first Continental Congress adjourns

* 1776, Benjamin Franklin departed America for France on a mission to seek French support for the American Revolution

* 1795, the French Directory, a five-man revolutionary government, is created

* 1825, the Erie Canal opens --- passage from Albany, New York to Lake Erie.

* 186, the Pony Express officially ceased operations

* 1881, the Gunfight near the O.K. Corral takes place at Tombstone, Arizona, as Wyatt Earp, his two brothers and "Doc" Holliday confronted Ike Clanton's gang. Three members of Clanton's group were killed; Earp's brothers and Holliday were wounded

* 1936, the first electric generator at Hoover Dam went into full operation

* 1947, the Maharaja of Kashmir agrees to allow his kingdom to join India

* 1951, boxer Joe Louis comes out of retirement to fight Rocky Marciano. However, Marciano would win the fight in eight rounds

* 1955, after the last Allied troops have left the country and following the provisions of the Austrian Independence Treaty, Austria declares its permanent neutrality.

* 1958, Pan American Airways makes the first commercial flight of the Boeing 707 from New York to Paris

* 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

* 1977, the last natural case of smallpox was discovered in Merca district, Somalia. The WHO and the CDC consider this date the anniversary of the eradication of smallpox, the most spectacular success of vaccination

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

* 1984, "Baby Fae" receives a heart transplant from a baboon

* 1994, Jordan and Israel sign a peace treaty. ALSO: Announcement that Andrew Wiles correctly proved Fermat's last theorem

* 2001, the USA PATRIOT Act is passed into law

* 2002, the Moscow theater siege ends when approximately 50 Chechen rebels, practitioners of that "religion of peace", and 129 of the 800-plus captives dead after Russian Spetsnaz storm a theater building in Moscow, which had been occupied by the rebels during a musical performance three days earlier

* 2006, President Bush signed a measure authorizing 700 miles of new fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border