On this day 26th October

Some notable facts about this date, for more, visit http://www.onthisday.com

Facts

1850 Robert McClure sights the fabled Northwest Passage for the first time (from Banks Island towards Melville Island)

1861 Pony Express (Missouri to California) ends after 19 months

1863 International conference begins in Geneva aimed at improving medical conditions on battlefields - beginning of the Red Cross

1863 Football Association forms in England, standardizing soccer, splitting with rugby

1977 Last natural case of smallpox discovered in Merca district, Somalia. Considered the anniversary of the eradication of smallpox, the most spectacular success of vaccination

Deaths

899 Alfred the Great, writer/king of Wessex (871-99), dies

1764 William Hogarth, British painter (b. 1697)

1902 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, American women's rights activist, dies of heart failure at 86

1952 Hattie McDaniel, 1st African American actress to win an Oscar (Mammy-Gone With the Wind), dies of breast cancer at 57

1972 Igor Sikorsky, Russian-American aviation pioneer and helicopter builder, dies at 83

1995 Bernhard Heiliger, sculptor, dies at 79

2005 Keith Parkinson, American fantasy artist, dies of Leukemia at 47

2014 Jeff Robinson, American baseball player, dies at 52

Born on this day

1947 Hillary Rodham Clinton, US 1st Lady (1993-2001), Senator (NY, 2001-09), Secretary of State (2009-13) and 2016 Democratic Presidential nominee, born in Chicago, Illinois

Bernhard Heiliger

Hattie McDaniel