1. In 1962, aviation history was made in Florida as the Cuban Missile Crisis reached its peak, and a U.S. U-2 spy plane was shot down over Cuba. The pilot, Major Rudolf Anderson, Jr., was killed in the incident, and his death is remembered annually on October 26th.

2. On October 26, 1985, Florida's Miami Hurricanes defeated the Maryland Terrapins by a score of 38-10 to set a new NCAA football record for consecutive wins with their 39th in a row. The Hurricanes went on to win two more games that season and, as of this writing, still hold the record with 58 consecutive wins.

3. In 1940, the first commercial production of frozen concentrated orange juice took place in Florida on October 26th. This innovation helped to boost the state's citrus industry and made orange juice more readily available to consumers outside of the state.

4. On October 26, 1977, 42 people were killed when a Southern Airways DC-9 jet crashed in Georgia en route from Huntsville, Alabama, to Atlanta, Georgia. Among the passengers were members of the Marshall University football team, who were returning home after playing a game in Alabama.

5. In 2005, Hurricane Wilma made landfall in Florida on October 26th, causing widespread damage and power outages across the state. The storm was the strongest ever recorded in the Atlantic basin, with sustained winds of 185 miles per hour at its peak.