Today in History: Friday, October 26, 2012

On Oct. 26, 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.

1774 The First Continental Congress adjourned in Philadelphia.

1825 The Erie Canal opened, connecting Lake Erie and the Hudson River in upstate New York.

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.

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.

1994 Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty.

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.

2005 The Chicago White Sox won their first World Series since 1917 by defeating the Houston Astros 1-0 in Game 4.