Did you know about Gilles de Rais
Gilles de Rais served as one of the captains of the French royal army during the Hundred Years' War and took part in the same campaigns as Joan of Arc in 1429, ending with the failed siege of Paris.
Notable Deaths on October 26
October 26 has 120 recorded notable deaths across history, from 664 to 2025. This focused page highlights 20 people with the strongest available profile context.
1440 — Gilles de Rais
French lord (born c. 1405)
By thisDay.info Editorial Team · — Wikipedia
Notable Deaths
120 source records
664 – 2025
Today in history
Major events on October 26
See what else happened on this day in history.
Did you know about Hattie McDaniel
For her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind (1939), she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, becoming the first African American to win an Oscar.
Did you know about Igor Sikorsky
Igor Sikorsky's first success came with the Sikorsky S-2, the second aircraft of his design and construction.
Did you know about Itō Hirobumi
Prince Itō Hirobumi was a Japanese statesman who served as the first prime minister of Japan from 1885 to 1888.
Did you know about Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was the main force behind the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, the first convention to be called for the sole purpose of discussing women's rights, and was the primary author of its Declaration of Sentiments.
More major people who died on October 26
Notable people are ranked by substantive profile depth and public notability.
1952
Hattie McDaniel
American actress and singer (born 1895)
Hattie McDaniel was an American actress, singer-songwriter, and comedian. For her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind (1939), she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, becoming the first African American to win an Oscar. She has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1975, and in 2006, became the first black Oscar winner honored with a U.S. postage stamp. In 2010, she was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame.
1972
Igor Sikorsky
Ukrainian-American engineer and academic, founded Sikorsky Aircraft (born 1889)
Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky was a Russian-American aviation pioneer in both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. His first success came with the Sikorsky S-2, the second aircraft of his design and construction. His fifth airplane, the S-5, won him national recognition in Russia and secured F.A.I. pilot's license number 64. His S-6-A received the highest award at the 1912 Moscow Aviation Exhibition, and in the fall of that year the aircraft won first prize for its young designer, builder and pilot in the military competition at Saint Petersburg. In 1913, the Sikorsky-designed Russky Vityaz (S-21) became the first successful four-engine aircraft to take flight. He also designed and built the Ilya Muromets family of four-engine aircraft, an airliner which he redesigned to be the world's first four-engine bomber when World War I broke out.
1909
Itō Hirobumi
Japanese samurai and politician, Prime Minister of Japan (born 1841)
Prince Itō Hirobumi was a Japanese statesman who served as the first prime minister of Japan from 1885 to 1888. Itō held office again as prime minister three times between 1892 and 1901. He was also a member of the genrō, a group of senior statesmen who effectively dictated policy for the Empire of Japan during the Meiji era. A key figure in the making of modern Japan, Itō played a central role in the drafting of the 1889 Meiji Constitution as well as the establishment of the National Diet and Japanese cabinet system.
1902
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
American activist (born 1815)
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an American writer and activist who was a leader of the women's rights movement in the U.S. during the mid- to late-19th century. She was the main force behind the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, the first convention to be called for the sole purpose of discussing women's rights, and was the primary author of its Declaration of Sentiments. Her demand for women's right to vote generated a controversy at the convention but quickly became a central tenet of the women's movement. She was also active in other social reform activities, especially abolitionism.
1931
Charles Comiskey
American baseball player and manager (born 1859)
Charles Albert Comiskey, nicknamed "Commy" or "the Old Roman", was an American professional baseball first baseman, manager, and team owner. He played 13 seasons in the American Association (AA) for the St. Louis Brown Stockings / Browns, the Players' League (PL) for the Chicago Pirates, and the National League (NL) for the Cincinnati Reds. He was a key figure in the formation of the American League and was also the founding owner of the Chicago White Sox. Comiskey Park, the White Sox's storied baseball stadium, was built under his guidance and named for him.
1871
Robert Anderson (Union officer)
American general (born 1805)
Robert Anderson was a United States Army officer during the American Civil War. He was the Union commander in the first battle of the American Civil War at Fort Sumter in April 1861 when the Confederates bombarded the fort and forced its surrender, starting the war. Anderson was celebrated as a hero in the North and promoted to brigadier general and given command of Union forces in Kentucky. He was removed late in 1861 and reassigned to Rhode Island, before retiring from military service in 1863. In 1865, he returned to Fort Sumter to again raise the American flag that he had lowered during the 1861 surrender.
1944
Hiroyoshi Nishizawa
Japanese lieutenant and pilot (born 1920)
Lieutenant Junior Grade Hiroyoshi Nishizawa was a Japanese naval aviator and an ace of the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service during World War II. Nishizawa was known to his colleagues as 'the Devil' for his breathtaking, brilliant, and unpredictable aerobatics and superb control of his aircraft while in combat. He was a member of the Tainan Kōkūtai's famous "clean up trio" with fellow aces Saburō Sakai and Toshio Ōta and would see action in the New Guinea campaign as well as in the aerial battles over Guadalcanal and over the Solomon Islands. He was killed in 1944 during the Philippines Campaign while aboard an IJN transport aircraft. It is possible that he was the most successful Japanese fighter ace of the war, reportedly telling his last CO that he had achieved a tally of 86 or 87 aerial victories- post war he was linked with scores of 147 or 103, but both of these scores have been considered inaccurate.
2007
Arthur Kornberg
American biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize (born 1918)
Arthur Kornberg was an American biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1959 for the discovery of "the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of ribonucleic acid and deoxyribonucleic acid" together with Spanish biochemist and physician Severo Ochoa of New York University. He was also awarded the Paul-Lewis Award in Enzyme Chemistry from the American Chemical Society in 1951, an L.H.D. degree from Yeshiva University in 1962, and the National Medal of Science in 1979. In 1991, Kornberg received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement and the Gairdner Foundation Award in 1995.
1989
Charles J. Pedersen
American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1904)
Charles John Pedersen was an American organic chemist best known for discovering crown ethers and describing methods of synthesizing them during his entire 42-year career as a chemist for DuPont at DuPont Experimental Station in Wilmington, Delaware, and at DuPont's Jackson Laboratory in Deepwater, New Jersey. Often associated with Reed McNeil Izatt, Pedersen also shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1987 with Donald J. Cram and Jean-Marie Lehn. He is one of three Nobel Prize laureates born in Korea, along with Peace Prize laureate Kim Dae-jung and Literature laureate Han Kang.
2013
Doug Ireland
American journalist and activist (born 1946)
William Douglas Ireland was an American journalist and blogger who wrote about politics, power, media, and LGBT issues. He was the U.S. correspondent for the French political-investigative weekly Bakchich, for which he also wrote a weekly column, and he was also the Contributing Editor for International Affairs of Gay City News. Scott Tucker has called him "not only a left-wing critic of sexual and political conformism among sectors of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movements, but ... also one of the notable public intellectuals of the civil libertarian left."
2002
Sally Hoyt Spofford
American ornithologist (born 1914)
Sally Hoyt Spofford was an American ornithologist who was long associated with the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. In retirement, she was involved in conservation and birding in Arizona, known as the "doyenne of southern Arizona's birding community". She authored some 50 articles on bird behavior and co-authored the books Enjoying Birds in Upstate New York (1963) with O. S. Pettingill Jr. and Enjoying Birds Around New York City (1966) with Pettingill and R.S. Arbib Jr. She was a member of the American Ornithologists' Union from 1940 onward.
2014
Oscar Taveras
Dominican baseball player (born 1992)
Oscar Francisco Taveras was a Dominican professional baseball outfielder who played one season for the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball (MLB). Known as "El Fenómeno" in the Dominican Republic, the Cardinals signed him at age 16 in 2008 as an international amateur free agent and he made his MLB debut in 2014. Over six minor league seasons, he batted .321 with a .519 slugging percentage. He played all three outfield positions while spending most of the time in center field.
2014
Germain Gagnon
Canadian ice hockey player (born 1942)
Joseph Adrien Germain Gagnon was a Canadian professional ice hockey player who played 259 games in the National Hockey League. He played for the Montreal Canadiens, New York Islanders, Chicago Black Hawks, and Kansas City Scouts. An original Islander, Gagnon recorded three points, including the winning goal, in the Islanders first win on October 12, 1972. The full name was found in his Baptism document. Gagnon returned to Chicoutimi and died there after a long illness on October 26, 2014.
1986
Jackson Scholz
American runner (born 1897)
Jackson Volney Scholz was an American sprinter and author. In the 1928 Olympics, he became the first person to appear in a sprint final in three different games. He financed his training for the 1924 Paris Olympics and beyond with his writing, which led to a half-century-long career as a popular pulp writer and novelist, primarily of juvenile sports fiction. Late in life, he was portrayed in the award-winning film about the 1924 games, Chariots of Fire (1981).
2006
Pontus Hultén
Swedish art collector and curator (born 1924)
Karl Gunnar Vougt Pontus Hultén was a Swedish art collector and museum director. Pontus Hultén is regarded as one of the most distinguished museum professionals of the twentieth century. He was the pioneering former head of the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm and in the 1970s he was invited to participate in the creation of the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, where he was the first director of the Musée National d'Art Moderne (MNAM) in 1974–1981.
1817
Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin
Dutch-Austrian chemist and botanist (born 1727)
Nikolaus Joseph Freiherr von Jacquin was a natural philosopher who studied medicine, chemistry and botany. He travelled to the West Indies as part of an Austrian expedition and collected a large number of botanical specimens and described many species. He served as the first professor of chemistry in the mining academy at Schemnitz in Austria and later worked at the University of Vienna. He was the father of the botanist Joseph Franz von Jacquin.
2014
Vic Allen
English sociologist, economist, and historian (born 1923)
Vic Allen was a British communist, human rights activist, political prisoner, sociologist, historian, economist and emeritus professor at the University of Leeds who worked closely with British trade unions, and was considered a key player in the resistance against Apartheid in South Africa. He was also known for being a key activist within the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), and for spending his life supporting the South African National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).
899
Alfred the Great
English king (born 849)
Alfred the Great was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and Æthelwulf's first wife Osburh, who both died when Alfred was young. Three of Alfred's brothers, Æthelbald, Æthelberht and Æthelred, reigned in turn before him. Under Alfred's rule, considerable administrative and military reforms were introduced, prompting lasting change in England.
1979
Park Chung Hee
South Korean general and politician, 3rd President of South Korea (born 1917)
Park Chung Hee was a South Korean politician and army officer who seized power in the May 16 coup of 1961, and served as the third president of South Korea from 1962 until his assassination in 1979. His regime oversaw a period of intense economic growth and transformation, making Park one of the most consequential leaders in Korean history, although his legacy as a military dictator remains a bitter subject.