On this day in History- Apr. 26

• 0121 - Marcus Aurelius was born (d. 0180). Roman Emperor
• 1192 - Emperor Go-Shirakawa of Japan dies (b. 1127)
• 1444 - Robert Campin dies (b. 1378). Flemish painter
• 1478 - The Pazzi attack Lorenzo de' Medici and kill his brother Giuliano during High Mass in the Florence Cathedral.
• 1489 - Ashikaga Yoshihisa dies (b. 1465). Japanese shogun.
• 1538 - Gian Paolo Lomazzo was born (d. 1600). Italian painter.
• 1558 - Jean François Fernel dies (b. 1497 ?). French physician who in his historic career in medicine and physiology introduced dissection to clinical practice.
• 1573 - Marie de' Medici was born (d. 1642). Wife of Henry IV of France.
• 1607 - English colonists make landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia, later moving up the James River to found Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America.
• 1648 - King Peter II of Portugal was born (d. 1706). King of Portugal (1683-1706).
• 1710 - Thomas Reid was born (d. 1796). Scottish philosopher.
• 1711 - David Hume was born (d. 1776). Scottish philosopher, historian.
• 1716 - John Somers, 1st Baron Somers dies (b. 1651). Lord Chancellor of England
• 1718 - Esek Hopkins was born (d. 1802). American Revolutionary War admiral.
• 1765 - Emma, Lady Hamilton was born (d. 1815). English mistress of Horatio Nelson.
• 1768 - The prestigious English Royal Academy of Arts, led by its first president, Sir Joshua Reynolds, hosted its first art opening.
• 1774 - Christian Leopold von Buch was born (d. 4 Mar 1853). Geologist and geographer whose far-flung wanderings and lucid writings had an inestimable influence on the development of geology during the 19th century.
• 1784 - Nano Nagle dies (b. 1718). Irish convent founder.
• 1785 - John James Audubon was born (d. 27 Jan 1851). Ornithologist, artist, and naturalist known for his drawings and paintings of North American birds.
• 1787 - Ludwig Uhland was born (d. 1862). German poet.
• 1789 - Count Petr Ivanovich Panin dies (b. 1721). Russian soldier.
• 1798 - Eugène Delacroix was born (d. 1863). French painter.
• 1798 - James Beckwourth was born (d. 1867). American explorer.
• 1802 - A general amnesty signed by Napoleon Bonaparte allowed all but about one thousand of the most notorious émigrés of the French Revolution to return to France, as part of a reconciliary gesture to make peace with the various factions of the Ancien Regime that would ultimately consolidate his own rule.
• 1805 - United States Marines captured Derne, Tripoli under the command of First Lieutenant Presley N. O'Bannon.
• 1812 - Alfred Krupp was born (d. 14 Jul 1887). German industrialist ( manufacturer of steel and armaments ) who was known as "The Cannon King" .
• 1822 - Frederick Law Olmsted was born (d. 1903). American landscape architect.
• 1826 - George Hull Ward was born (d. 1863). American general.
• 1826 - Ambrose R. Wright was born (d. 1872). American Civil War General.
• 1829 - Theodor Billroth was born (d. 6 Feb 1894). Christian Albert Theodor Billroth was a Viennese surgeon, generally considered to be the founder of modern abdominal surgery .
• 1836 - Erminnie Adele Platt Smith was born (d. 9 Jun 1886). American anthropologist who was the first woman to specialize in ethnographic field work.
• 1857 - Juan Lindo dies. President of Honduras (1847-1852).
• 1864 - Caetano da Costa Alegre was born in Vila da Trindade, S. Tomé (d. 18 Apr 1890). Portuguese poet. He is considered the first significant black African poet writing in Portuguese to deal with the theme of blackness.
• 1865 - American Civil War: Confederate General Joseph Johnston surrenders his army to General William Tecumseh Sherman at Durham Station, North Carolina.
• 1865 - John Wilkes Booth dies shot while trying to avoid capture for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln (b. 1838).
• 1877 - Sir Alliott Verdon Roe was born (d. 4 Jan 1958). He was the first Englishman to construct and fly his own airplane .
• 1879 - Owen Willans Richardson was born (d. 15 Feb 1959. English physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1928 for "his work on the thermionic phenomenon [electron emission by hot metals] and especially for the discovery of the law named after him.
• 1886 - Ma Rainey was born in Georgia (d. 1939). American blues singer .
• 1888 - Anita Loos was born (d. 1981). American writer.
• 1889 - Ludwig Wittgenstein was born (d. 1951). Austrian-born English philosopher.
• 1892 - Sir Provo William Perry Wallis dies. British Admiral and naval heroe.
• 1893 - Draza Mihajlovic was born (d. 1946). Serbian WW2 Hero.
• 1894 - Rudolf Hess was born (d. 1987). Nazi official .
• 1895 - Nathaniel Kleitman was born (d. 1999). Sleep researcher.
• 1896 - Ernst Udet was born (d. 1941). Luftwaffe Fighter Pilot .
• 1897 - Olga Tschechowa was born (d. 1980). Actress.
• 1897 - Douglas Sirk was born (d. 1987). German-born director.
• 1897 - Eddie Eagan was born (d. 1967). American sportsman.
• 1898 - Vicente Aleixandre was born (d. 1984). Spanish writer, Nobel Prize laureate.
• 1898 - John Grierson was born (d. 1975). Scottish filmmaker.
• 1899 - "Life Saving Guards for Street Cars" were patented by the black American inventor, J.H. Robinson.
• 1900 - Charles Richter was born (d. 30 Sep 1985). Geophysicist, seismologist and inventor of the Richter Scale that measures earthquake intensity which he developed with his colleague, Beno Gutenberg, in the early 1930's .
• 1903 - Fundação do Atlético de Madrid - Espanha
• 1905 - Raul Leoni Otero was born. President of Venezuela (1964-1969)
• 1905 - Jean Vigo was born († 5 Oct 1934). French film director.
• 1908 - Karl August Möbius dies (b. 7 Feb 1825). German zoologist whose work in marine biology included the formation of pearls and the anatomy of the whale. He introduced the ecosystem concept of the "life community" - "Biocönose"
• 1910 - Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson dies (b. 1832). Norwegian author, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1911 - Marianne Hoppe was born (d. 2002). German actress.
• 1911 - Dínamo de Zagreb is founded.
• 1912 - A. E. van Vogt was born (d. 2000). Canadian science fiction writer.
• 1914 - Eduard Suess dies (b. 20 Aug 1831). Austrian geologist who helped lay the basis for paleogeography and tectonics - i.e., the study of the architecture and evolution of the Earth's outer rocky shell.
• 1914 - Bernard Malamud was born (d. 1986). American author.
• 1914 - James W. Rouse was born (d. 1996). American real estate investor, activist, and philanthropist
• 1916 - Mário de Sá Carneiro dies (b. 19 May 1890). Poet and novelist, one of the most original and complex figures of the Portuguese Modernist movement.
• 1916 - Morris West was born (d. 1999). Australian writer.
• 1917 - I.M. Pei was born. Chinese-born American architect.
• 1918 - Fanny Blankers-Koen was born (d. 2004). Dutch athlete.
• 1918 - Stafford Repp was born (d. 1974). American actor.
• 1920 - Srinivasa Ramanujan dies (b. 22 Dec 1887). Indian mathematician known for his work on hypergeometric series and continued fractions. In number theory, he discovered properties of the partition function.
• 1925 - Jørgen Ingmann was born (d. 1990). Danish musician and Eurovision Song Contest winner .
• 1925 - Paul von Hindenburg defeats Wilhelm Marx in the second round of the German presidential election to become the first directly elected Reichspräsident, the head of state of the Weimar Republic.
• 1926 - Michael Mathias Prechtl was born (d. 2003). German illustrator.
• 1932 - Hart Crane dies - suicide (b. 1899). American poet.
• 1932 - William Lockwood dies (b. 1868). English cricketer.
• 1932 - Michael Smith was born (d. 4 Oct 2000). British-born Canadian biochemist who won (with Kary B. Mullis) the 1993 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his development of a technique called oligonucleotide-based site-directed mutagenesis, which enabled researchers to introduce specific mutations into genes and, thus, to the proteins that they encode.
• 1933 - The Gestapo, the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, is established.
• 1933 - Arno Allan Penzias was born. German-American astrophysicist who shared one-half of the 1978 Nobel Prize for Physics with Robert Woodrow Wilson for their discovery of a faint electromagnetic radiation throughout the universe.
• 1933 - Carol Burnett was born. American singer, actress, and comedian.
• 1933 - Arno Allan Penzias, German-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate.
• 1934 - Alan Arkin was born. American actor.
• 1936 - Lane Smith was born. American actor.
• 1937 - Spanish Civil War: Guernica, Spain is bombed by German Luftwaffe.
• 1938 - Duane Eddy was born. American musician.
• 1938 - Edmund Husserl was born (d. 1859). Austrian philosopher.
• 1940 - Giorgio Moroder was born. Italian composer.
• 1940 - Carl Bosch dies (b. 27 Aug 1874). German industrial chemist who developed the Haber-Bosch process for high-pressure synthesis of ammonia and received, with Friedrich Bergius, the 1931 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for devising chemical high-pressure methods.
• 1942 - Claudine Auger was born. French actress.
• 1942 - Michael Kergin was born. Canadian diplomat
• 1942 - Bobby Rydell was born. American singer
• 1942 - The worst-ever mining accident in history kills 1,549 miners in an explosion at the Honkeiko Colliery, Manchuria.
• 1942 - Benedita da Silva was born. Brazilian politician
• 1943 - Gary Wright was born. American singer.
• 1943 - Peter Zumthor was born. Swiss architect.
• 1946 - Vladimir Zhirinovsky was born. Russian politician.
• 1946 - Father Divine, a controversial religious leader who claims to be God, marries the much-younger Edna Rose Ritchings, a celebrated anniversary in the International Peace Mission movement.
• 1947 - Donna DeVarona, was born. Olympic gold medalist in swimming, sports journalist, sports activist .
• 1949 - Carlos Bianchi was born. Argentinian footballer and coach.
• 1951 - Arnold Sommerfeld dies (b. 5 Dec 1868). German physicist whose atomic model permitted the explanation of fine-structure spectral lines.
• 1954 - Mass testing of the Salk polio vaccine began, involving about 1.8 million children.
• 1954 - Geneva Conference (1954) begins: An international conference is held in Geneva in an effort to restore peace in Indochina and Korea.
• 1954 - Rondinelli was born in São José do Rio Pardo, São Paulo. Brazilian footballer.
• 1956 - Koo Stark was born. American actress.
• 1956 - Edward Arnold dies (b. 1890). American actor.
• 1957 - Gichin Funakoshi dies (b. 1868). Father of Japanese Shotokan Karatedo.
• 1958 - Jeffrey Guterman was born. American mental health counselor
• 1960 - Roger Taylor was born. English musician ("Duran Duran") .
• 1961 - Anthony Cumia was born. American Radio Personality, See Opie and Anthony
• 1961 - Joan Chen was born. Chinese-born actress.
• 1961 - The integrated circuit was patented by Robert Noyce .
• 1962 - Ranger program: The Ranger 4 spacecraft crashes into the Moon.
• 1963 - Jet Li was born. Chinese martial arts fighter, actor .
• 1964 - Tanganyika and Zanzibar merge to form Tanzania.
• 1964 - Jens Unmack was born. Danish singer and songwriter
• 1964 - E. J. Pratt dies (b. 1882). Canadian poet.
• 1965 - Kevin James was born. American comedian and actor
• 1967 - Paraguai assina o Tratado de Tlatelolco
• 1967 - Glen Jacobs was born. American professional wrestler.
• 1969 - Morihei Ueshiba dies (b. 1883). Japanese martial artist, founder of Aikido.
• 1970 - Tionne Watkins was born. American singer (TLC)
• 1970 - Gypsy Rose Lee dies (b. 1911). American actress.
• 1970 - John Knittel dies. Dramatist.
• 1971 - Vietnam War: Vietnamization - The American force level in Vietnam drops to 281,400 men, the lowest number since July 1966.
• 1972 - Vietnam War: Vietnamization - U.S. President Richard M. Nixon announces that another 20,000 U.S. troops will be withdrawn from the war in May and June, reducing the authorized troop level to 49,000.
• 1973 - Irene Ryan dies (b. 1902). American actress.
• 1973 - Chris Perry was born. English footballer.
• 1976 - Sid James dies (b. 1913). British comedian.
• 1976 - Joey Jordison was born. American musician (Slipknot)
• 1976 - Jose Pasillas was born. American musician (Incubus)
• 1977 - Tom Welling was born. American actor, Clark Kent on "Smallville".
• 1980 - Jordana Brewster was born. American actress.
• 1981 - Mariana Ximenes (Mariana Ximenes do Prado Nuzzi) was born in São Paulo. Brazilian actress.
• 1981 - Jim Davis dies (b. 1909). American actor.
• 1982 - Joanne Gobure was born. Nauruan poet.
• 1983 - The Dow Jones Industrial average breaks the 1,200 mark for the first time.
• 1983 - Jessica Lynch was born . POW rescued from Iraq in 2003.
• 1984 - Mija Martina was born. Bosnian singer.
• 1984 - Count Basie dies (b. 1904). American musician and composer.
• 1986 - Broderick Crawford dies (b. 1911). American actor.
• 1986 - Dechko Uzunov dies (b. 1899). Bulgarian painter.
• 1986 - In Ukraine, a nuclear reactor at the Chornobyl (Chernobyl) nuclear plant explodes, creating the world's worst nuclear disaster. Thirty-one people are killed directly by the incident and many thousands more are exposed to significant amounts of radioactive material.
• 1987 - John Ernest Silkin dies (b. 1923). British politician.
• 1988 - James McCracken dies (b. 1926). American tenor.
• 1989 - Lucille Ball dies (b. 1911). American actress and comedian.
• 1991 - Carmine Coppola dies. American composer and conductor, father of Francis Ford Coppola and Talia Shire, grandfather of Sofia Coppola .
• 1991 - Emily McLaughlin dies (b. 1930). American actress.
• 1991 - O futebolista Diego Maradona foi preso por posse de droga.
• 1991 - Seventy tornadoes break out in the central United States. Before its end, Andover, Kansas would record the year's only F5 tornado and 17 people will perish (see The Andover, Kansas Tornado).
• 1992 - Mário Donato dies (b. 1915). Brazilian journalist and writer. President of Brazilian Writers Association (Associação Brasileira de Escritores)
• 1993 - Space shuttle Columbia was launched on the second German sponsored D-2 Spacelab Mission lasting until 6 May.
• 1994 - South Africa holds its first multiracial elections.
• 1994 - A China Airlines Airbus A-300-600R crashes at Nagoya Airport, Japan killing 264.
• 1996 - Stirling Silliphant dies. American writer, producer.
• 1998 - Futebol Clube do Porto wins the fourth consecutive Portuguese football championship.
• 1999 - Jill Dando dies (b. 1961). British television presenter.
• 2002 - 19-year-old Robert Steinhäuser shoots and kills 17 people at his school in Erfurt, Germany.
• 2003 - The Honourable Rosemary Brown dies (b. 1930). Canadian politician (NDP).
• 2002 - Lisa Lopes dies (b. 1971). American singer.
• 2003 - Rosemary Brown dies (b. 1930). Canadian politician.
• 2003 - Max Nicholson dies (b. 1904). Irish environmentalist.
• 2003 - Peter Stone dies (b. 1930). American writer, Oscar- and (3-time) Tony winner.
• 2004 - Hubert Selby Jr. dies. (b. 1928). American author.
• 2005 - Under international pressure, Syria withdraws the last of its 14,000 troop military garrison in Lebanon, ending its 29-year military domination of that country.
• 2005 - Mason Adams dies (b. 1919). American actor.
• 2005 - Blade Icewood dies (b. 1977). American rapper.
• 2005 - Maria Schell dies (b. 1926). Austrian-born actress.
• Tanzania - Union Day
• Intellectual property - World Intellectual Property Day (since 2001)