On this day... October 26:

On this day...

October 26:  National Day in Austria (1955); Feast day of Saint Demetrius of Thessaloniki 1708 – The final stone of St Paul's Cathedral(pictured), rebuilt after the original burned down in the 1666 Great Fire of London, was laid by the son of its architect, Christopher Wren. 1921 – The Chicago Theatre, which is the oldest surviving Neo-Baroque French-revival grand movie palace, opened. 1944 – World War II: In one of the largest naval battles in modern history, Allied forces defeated the Imperial Japanese Navy at theBattle of Leyte Gulf in the seas surrounding the Philippine island of Leyte. 1977 – Somalian hospital cook Ali Maow Maalin began displaying symptoms in the last known case of naturally occurring smallpox. 1994 – Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty settling relations between the two countries and pledging that neither would allow its territory to become a staging ground for military strikes by a third country.