Lower Bound of Matrix Multiplication
Strassen, in his paper describing Strassen's algorithm (Gaussian elimination is not optimal) mentions


  the result of Klyuyev and Kokovkin-Shcherbak [1] that Gaussian elimination for solving a system of linear equations is optimal if one restricts oneself to operations upon rows and columns as a whole.


The reference is to


  
  Klyuyev, V. V., and N. I. Kokovkin-Shcherbak: On the minimizations of the number of arithmetic operations for the solution of linear algebraic systems of equations. Translation by G. I. Tee: Technical Report CS 24, June 14, 1965, Computer Science Dept., Stanford University.
  


The paper is available online.

In modern literature this result is virtually unknown, and I am not aware of any other lower bound on matrix multiplication beyond the $\Omega(n^2)$ lower bounds of Bshouty and Shpilka and the $\Omega(n^2\log n)$ lower bound of Raz.