On This day in History - Apr. 26

• 0121 - Marcus Aurelius was born (d. 0180). Roman Emperor
• 0570 - Muhammed was born. Founder of Islam, according to the Shi'a sect. Other sources suggest April 20.
• 1192 - Emperor Go-Shirakawa of Japan dies (b. 1127).
• 1444 - Robert Campin dies (b. 1378). Flemish painter.
• 1467 - The miraculous image of Our Lady of Good Counsel appears in Genazzano, Italy.
• 1476 - Simonetta Vespucci dies (b. 1453). Inspiration of Botticelli.
• 1478 - The Pazzi attack Lorenzo de' Medici and kill his brother Giuliano during High Mass in the Florence Cathedral.
• 1478 - Giuliano di Piero de' Medici dies assassinated (b. 1453). Ruler of Florence.
• 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.
• 1564 - Shakespeare was christened (baptized: this is not his birthdate).
• 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).
• 1662 - Maria Luisa of Orleans was born (d. 1689). Queen consort of Spain.
• 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). German geologist and geographer whose far-flung wanderings and lucid writings had an inestimable influence on the development of geology during the 19th century.
• 1782 - Maria Amalia of the Two Sicilies was born (d. 1866). Queen of France.
• 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.
• 1801 - Ambrose Dudley Mann was born (d. 1889). American diplomat.
• 1802 - Napoleon Bonaparte signs a general amnesty to allow all but about one thousand of the most notorious émigrés of the French Revolution to return to France, as part of a reconciliary gesture with the factions of the Ancien Regime and to eventually consolidate his own rule.
• 1804 - Charles Goodyear was born (d. 1876). American politician.
• 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.
• 1856 - Sir Joseph Ward was born (d. 1930). 17th Prime Minister of New Zealand.
• 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 - Union cavalry troopers corner and shoot dead John Wilkes Booth, President Lincoln's assassin, in Virginia.
• 1865 - American Civil War: Confederate General Joseph Johnston surrenders his army to General William Tecumseh Sherman at Durham Station, North Carolina.
• 1877 - Sir Alliott Verdon Roe was born (d. 4 Jan 1958). He was the first Englishman to construct and fly his own airplane.
• 1878 - Saint Rafael Guízar Valencia was born. Mexican Catholic bishop
• 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.
• 1881 - Ludwig Freiherr von und zu der Tann-Rathsamhausen dies (b. 1815). German general.
• 1886 - Ma Rainey was born in Georgia (d. 1939). American blues singer .
• 1886 - Ğabdulla Tuqay was born (d. 1913). Tatar poet.
• 1888 - Anita Loos was born (d. 1981). American writer.
• 1889 - Ludwig Wittgenstein was born (d. 1951). Austrian-born English philosopher.
• 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 .
• 1900 - Hack Wilson was born (d. 1948). American baseball player.
• 1903 - Club Atlético de Madrid is founded in Madrid, Spain.
• 1904 - Paul-Émile Léger was born (d. 1991). Quebec cardinal and archbishop.
• 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 - Tomoyuki Tanaka was born (d. 1997). Japanese movie producer and creator of Godzilla.
• 1910 - Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson dies (b. 1832). Norwegian author, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1911 - Gradanski which would give place to Dínamo Zagreb is founded.
• 1911 - Marianne Hoppe was born (d. 2002). German actress.
• 1912 - A. E. van Vogt was born (d. 2000). Canadian science fiction writer.
• 1914 - Bernard Malamud was born (d. 1986). American author.
• 1914 - James W. Rouse was born (d. 1996). American investor.
• 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 - Morris West was born (d. 1999). Australian writer.
• 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.
• 1917 - Sal Maglie was born (d. 1992). Baseball player.
• 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.
• 1922 - Jeanne Sauvé was born (d. 1993). French Canadian politician.
• 1925 - Paul von Hindenburg defeats Wilhelm Marx in the second round of the German presidential election to become the first directly elected head of state of the Weimar Republic.
• 1925 - Jørgen Ingmann was born (d. 1990). Danish musician and Eurovision Song Contest winner.
• 1926 - David Coleman was born. British TV sports broadcaster.
• 1926 - Michael Mathias Prechtl was born (d. 2003). German illustrator.
• 1927 - Jack Douglas was born. English actor
• 1929 - Richard Mitchell was born (d. 2002). American author and professor.
• 1932 - Michael Smith was born (d. 4 Oct. 2000). English-born Canadian biochemist who won (wuth Katy B. Mullis) the 1993 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his development of a techique called oligonucleotide-based site-directed mutagemesis, wich enabled researchers to introduce specif mutations into genes and, thus, to the proteins that they encode.
• 1932 - Francis Lai was born. French film music composer.
• 1932 - Hart Crane dies - suicide (b. 1899). American poet.
• 1932 - William Lockwood dies (b. 1868). English cricketer.
• 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 was born. German-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate.
• 1933 - Filiberto Ojeda Ríos was born (d. 2005). Puerto Rican activist.
• 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 - Maurice Williams was born. American singer (The Zodiacs).
• 1938 - Edmund Husserl dies (b. 1859). Austrian philosopher.
• 1940 - Giorgio Moroder was born. Italian composer.
• 1940 - Cliff Watson was born. English rugby league player
• 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.
• 1941 - Claudine Clark was born. American R&B singer-composer.
• 1941 - John Mitchell was born. American composer.
• 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.
• 1942 - Claudine Auger was born. French actress.
• 1942 - Michael Kergin was born. Canadian diplomat.
• 1942 - Bobby Rydell was born. American singer.
• 1943 - Gary Wright was born. American singer.
• 1943 - Peter Zumthor was born. Swiss architect.
• 1944 - Amien Rais was born. Indonesian politician.
• 1944 - Violette Morris dies (b. 1893). French athlete.
• 1945 - World War II: Battle of Bautzen - last successful German tank-offensive of the war.
• 1945 - Sylvain Simard was born. Quebec politician.
• 1945 - Pavlo Skoropadsky dies (b. 1871). Ukrainian politician and general.
• 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.
• 1946 - Vladimir Zhirinovsky was born. Russian politician.
• 1947 - Donna DeVarona was born. Olympic gold medalist in swimming, sports journalist, sports activist.
• 1947 - Warren Clarke was born. English actor.
• 1949 - Carlos Bianchi was born. Argentinian footballer and coach.
• 1949 - Jerry Blackwell was born (d. 1995). Wrestler.
• 1949 - Dominic Sena was boprn. American film director.
• 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.
• 1955 - Mike Scott was born. American baseball player.
• 1956 - First container ship left Port Newark, New Jersey for Houston, Texas.
• 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.
• 1959 - Thanassis Papakonstantinou was born. Greek singer and songwriter.
• 1960 - Roger Taylor was born. English musician ("Duran Duran") .
• 1960 - Steve Lombardozzi was born. American baseball player.
• 1961 - The integrated circuit is patented by Robert Noyce.
• 1961 - Anthony Cumia was born. American radio personality (The Opie and Anthony Show).
• 1961 - Chris Mars was born. American rock drummer (The Replacements).
• 1961 - Joan Chen was born. Chinese-born actress.
• 1962 - NASA's Ranger 4 spacecraft crashes into the Moon.
• 1962 - Colin Anderson was born. English footballer.
• 1962 - Debra Wilson was born. American actress and comedian.
• 1963 - in Libya Amendments to the constitution transform Libya (United Kingdom of Libya) into one national unity (Kingdom of Libya) and allows for female participation in elections.
• 1963 - Jet Li was born. Chinese martial arts fighter, actor.
• 1963 - Colin Scotts was born. Australian-born NFL football player.
• 1963 - Alexei Bueno was born. Brazilian poet.
• 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.
• 1966 - Yoshihiro Togashi was born. Mangaka who created YuYu Hakusho.
• 1967 - Paraguai assina o Tratado de Tlatelolco.
  
• 1967 - Glen Jacobs was born. American professional wrestler.
• 1967 - Marianne Jean-Baptiste was born. Academy Award nominated British actress.
• 1969 - Morihei Ueshiba dies (b. 1883). Japanese martial artist, founder of Aikido.
• 1970 - Tionne Watkins was born. American singer (TLC).
• 1970 - Melania Trump was born. Slovenian model.
• 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.
• 1971 - Jay DeMarcus was born. American bassist (Rascal Flatts).
• 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.
• 1972 - Kiko Narváez was born. Spanish footballer.
• 1972 - Jason Bargwanna was born. Australian racing driver.
• 1973 - Chris Perry was born. English footballer.
• 1974 - Adil Ray was born. British Asian presenter on the BBC Asian Network.
• 1975 - Nathan "Joey" Jordison was born. American musician (Slipknot).
• 1975 - Nerina Pallot was born. British singer.
• 1976 - Jose Pasillas was born. American musician (Incubus).
• 1976 - Vaclav Varada was born. Czech ice hockey player.
• 1976 - Sid James dies (b. 1913). British comedian.
• 1977 - Kosuke Fukudome was born. Japanese baseball player.
• 1977 - Chris Johnston was born. Irish rugby player.
• 1977 - Jason Earles was born. American actor.
• 1977 - Tom Welling was born. American actor (Clark Kent on "Smallville").
• 1978 - Avant was born. American R&B singer.
• 1978 - Joe Crede was born. American baseball player.
• 1978 - Peter Madsen was born. Danish footballer.
• 1979 - Janne Wirman was born. Finnish musician (Children of Bodom).
• 1979 - Ariane Moffatt was born. Quebec singer and songwriter.
• 1980 - Anna Mucha was born. Polish actress.
• 1980 - Channing Tatum was born. American actor.
• 1980 - Jordana Brewster was born. American actress.
• 1981 - Mariana Ximenes (Mariana Ximenes do Prado Nuzzi) was born in São Paulo. Brazilian actress.
• 1981 - Matthieu Delpierre was born. French footballer.
• 1981 - Ms. Dynamite was born. English musician.
• 1981 - Jim Davis dies (b. 1909). American actor.
• 1982 - 57 people are killed by former Korean police officer Woo Bum-kon in a shooting spree in Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea.
• 1982 - Brock Gillespie was born American basketball player.
• 1982 - Cooper Wallace was born. National Football League tight end.
• 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.
• 1983 - José María López was born. Argentine racing driver.
• 1984 - Lee Humphrey was born. American basketball player.
• 1984 - Mija Martina was born. Bosnian singer.
• 1984 - Count Basie dies (b. 1904). American musician and composer.
• 1985 - John Isner was born. American Tennis player.
• 1985 - Nam Gyu-Ri was born. Korean singer, member of See Ya.
• 1986 - In Ukraine, a nuclear reactor accident occurrs at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, creating the world's worst nuclear disaster.
• 1986 - Broderick Crawford dies (b. 1911). American actor.
• 1986 - Dechko Uzunov dies (b. 1899). Bulgarian painter.
• 1986 - Bessie Love dies (b. 1898). American actress.
• 1987 - Jessica Lee Rose was born. American-born New Zealand actress.
• 1987 - John Ernest Silkin dies (b. 1923). British politician.
• 1988 - Anna Svidersky was born (d. 2006). American murder victim.
• 1988 - James McCracken dies (b. 1926). American tenor.
• 1989 - Lucille Ball dies (b. 1911). American actress and comedian.
• 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).
• 1991 - Carmine Coppola dies (b. 1910). American composer and conductor, father of Francis Ford Coppola and Talia Shire, grandfather of Sophis Coppola.
• 1991 - Emily McLaughlin dies (b. 1930). American actress.
• 1991 - Richard Hatfield dies (b. 1931). Canadian politician.
• 1992 - Riot on the streets of Miami, and several other surrounding towns and suburbs.
• 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 - Physicists announce first evidence of the top quark subatomic particle.
• 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 and producer.
• 1998 - Futebol Clube do Porto wins the fourth consecutive Portuguese football championship.
• 1999 - Last release of the Nemesis OS.
• 1999 - Adrian Borland dies (b. 1957). English musician (The Sound).
• 1999 - Jill Dando dies (b. 1961). British television presenter.
• 2001 - Junichiro Koizumi becomes Prime-Minister of Japan.
• 2002 - 19-year-old Robert Steinhäuser shoots and kills 17 people at his school in Erfurt, Germany.
• 2002 - Robert Steinhäuser dies (b. 1983). German spree killer.
• 2002 - Lisa Lopes dies (b. 1971). American singer.
• 2003 - Rosemary Brown dies (b. 1930). Canadian politician (NDP).
• 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 - Augusto Roa Bastos dies (b. 1917). Paraguayan author.
• 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.
• 2007 - Queen's Pier was officially closed by the Hong Kong Government, after a bitter struggle by conservationists, in order to facilitate land reclamation in Hong Kong's Central district.
• 2007 - Bronze Night in Tallinn.
• 2007 - Jack Valenti dies (b. 1921). American political advisor and film executive.
• Tanzania - Union Day.
• Intellectual property - World Intellectual Property Day (since 2001).
• Florida and Georgia, USA - Confederate Memorial Day.