April 26 is the 116th day of the year (117th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 249 days remaining until the end of the year.
Holidays
- Christian feast day:
- Latest day on which Easter Monday can fall, while March 23 is the earliest; celebrated on Monday after Easter.
- Confederate Memorial Day (States of Florida and Georgia)
- Day of Remembrance of the Chernobyl tragedy (Belarus)
- Hug A Friend Day
- Old Permic Alphabet Day
- Union Day (Tanzania)
- Vallenato Legend Festival usually begins on this day. (Valledupar, Colombia)
- World Intellectual Property Day (International)
History
In 645, Richarius, Frankish hermit and monk dies. He was a Frankish hermit, monk, and the founder of two monasteries. He is venerated as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church. Richarius was born a pagan in the late 6th century in the county of Ponthieu near Amiens in Picardy in the north-west of France. He converted to Christianity under the influence of Fricor and Cadoc, two Welsh missionaries. After his conversion, he fasted on barley bread mixed with ashes, and drank only water which he mingled with his own tears. He was ordained a priest, and traveled to England, preaching the Gospel and curing the sick. Travelled by donkey rather than horse, he read the psalter as he rode. In 638, after some years in England, Richarius founded a monastery in his hometown in Ponthieu that was named Centule (or Centula, alteration of Latin Centum Turres: hundred towers). This monastery practised according to the Rule of Saint Columbanus of Luxeuil. A city developed around this monastery, also named Centule. In the Middle Ages it was renamed to Saint-Riquier. Nowadays it has some 1200 inhabitants, who still refer to themselves as Centulois. The Frankish king Dagobert I once came to visit the monastery, and Richarius offered the king advice. He was frank and clear in his speech to the king, speaking without fear or flattery, and the king thereafter became a benefactor of the monastery. Others also gave generously to Richarius’s monastery, and he was able to use the money to help lepers and the poor and to ransom prisoners held by England. Richarius eventually founded a second monastery called Forest-Montier. He made a shelter in the forest of Crécy, fifteen miles from his monastery. He lived there as a hermit with his disciple Sigobart. On April 26, 643, he bid farewell to Sigobart and died.
In 1336, Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) ascends Mont Ventoux.
In 1478, The Pazzi attack Lorenzo de’ Medici and kill his brother Giuliano during High Mass in the Duomo of Florence.
In 1564, Playwright William Shakespeare was baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England (date of actual birth is unknown).
In 1607, English colonists make landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia.
In 1721, A massive earthquake devastates the Iranian city of Tabriz.
In 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 Régime and to eventually consolidate his own rule.
In 1803, Thousands of meteor fragments fall from the skies of L’Aigle, France; the event convinces European science that meteors exist.
In 1805, First Barbary War: United States Marines captured Derne under the command of First Lieutenant Presley O’Bannon.
In 1865, American Civil War: Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston surrenders his army to General William Tecumseh Sherman at the Bennett Place near Durham, North Carolina. Also the date of Confederate Memorial Day for two states.
In 1865, Union cavalry troopers corner and shoot dead John Wilkes Booth, assassin of President Lincoln, in Virginia. He was an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre, in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. Booth was a member of the prominent 19th century Booth theatrical family from Maryland and, by the 1860s, was a well-known actor. He was also a Confederate sympathizer, vehement in his denunciation of Lincoln, and strongly opposed the abolition of slavery in the United States. Booth and a group of co-conspirators originally plotted to kidnap Lincoln, but later planned to kill him, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William H. Seward in a bid to help the Confederacy’s cause. Although Robert E. Lee‘s Army of Northern Virginia had surrendered four days earlier, Booth believed the American Civil War was not yet over because Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston‘s army was still fighting the Union Army. Of the conspirators, only Booth was completely successful in carrying out his respective part of the plot. Booth shot Lincoln once in the back of the head. The President died the next morning. Seward was severely wounded but recovered. Vice-President Johnson was never attacked at all. Following the assassination, Booth fled on horseback to southern Maryland, eventually making his way to a farm in rural northern Virginia 12 days later, where he was tracked down. Booth’s companion gave himself up, but Booth refused and was shot by a Union soldier after the barn in which he was hiding was set ablaze. Eight other conspirators or suspects were tried and convicted, and four were hanged shortly thereafter.
In 1915, John Bunny, American actor (b. 1863) died from Bright’s disease at his home in New Rochelle. He was an American actor and was one of the first comic stars of the motion picture era. Between 1910 and his death in 1915 Bunny was one of the top stars of early silent film, as well as an early example of celebrity. At one time he was billed as “the man who makes more than the president”. His face was insured for $100,000 and his unexpected death made headlines around the world. Though quickly forgotten, Bunny paved the way for future plump comedians such as Fatty Arbuckle and Jackie Gleason.
In 1923, The Duke of York weds Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon at Westminster Abbey.
In 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.
In 1933, The Gestapo, the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, is established.
In 1937, Spanish Civil War: Guernica (or Gernika in Basque), Spain is bombed by German Luftwaffe.
In 1942, Benxihu Colliery accident in Manchukuo leaves 1549 Chinese miners dead.
In 1944, Georgios Papandreou becomes head of the Greek government-in-exile based in Egypt.
In 1944, Heinrich Kreipe is captured by Allied commandos in occupied Crete.
In 1945, World War II: Battle of Bautzen – last successful German tank-offensive of the war and last noteworthy victory of the Wehrmacht.
In 1945, World War II: Filipino troops of the 66th Infantry Regiment, Philippine Commonwealth Army, USAFIP-NL and the American troops of the 33rd and 37th Infantry Division, United States Army are liberated in Baguio City and they fight against the Japanese forces under General Tomoyuki Yamashita.
In 1946, Naperville train disaster kills 47.
In 1954, The Geneva Conference, an effort to restore peace in Indochina and Korea, begins.
In 1956, SS Ideal X, the world’s first successful container ship, leaves Port Newark, New Jersey for Houston, Texas.
In 1956, Edward Arnold, American actor (b. 1890) died at his home in Encino, California from a cerebral hemorrhage associated with anal fibrillation. He was an American actor. He was born on the Lower East Side of New York City as Gunther Edward Arnold Schneider, the son of German immigrants Carl Schneider and Elizabeth Ohse. Arnold appeared in over 150 movies. Although he was labeled “box office poison” in 1938 by an exhibitor publication (he shared this dubious distinction with Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Mae West, Fred Astaire and Katharine Hepburn), he never lacked for work. Rather than continue in leading man roles, he gave up losing weight and went after character parts instead. Arnold was quoted as saying, “The bigger I got, the better character roles I received.” He was such a sought-after actor, he often worked on two pictures at the same time. Arnold was an expert at playing rogues and authority figures, and superb at combining the two as powerful villains quietly pulling strings. He was best known for his roles in Come and Get It (1936), Sutter’s Gold (1936), the aforementioned The Toast of New York (1937), You Can’t Take It with You (1938), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) and The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941). He was the first actor to portray Rex Stout‘s famous detective Nero Wolfe, starring in Meet Nero Wolfe (1936), the film based on the first novel in the series. He played blind detective Duncan Maclain in two movies based on the novels by Baynard Kendrick, Eyes in the Night (1942) and The Hidden Eye (1945). From 1947 to 1953, Arnold starred in the ABC radio program called Mr. President.
In 1958, Final run of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad‘s Royal Blue from Washington, D.C., to New York City after 68 years, the first U.S. passenger train to use electric locomotives.
In 1960, Forced out by the April Revolution, President of South Korea Syngman Rhee resigns after twelve years of dictatorial rule.
In 1962, NASA‘s Ranger 4 spacecraft crashes into the Moon.
In 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.
In 1964, Tanganyika and Zanzibar merge to form Tanzania.
In 1965, A Rolling Stones concert in London, Ontario is shut down by police after 15 minutes due to rioting.
In 1966, An earthquake of magnitude 7.5 destroys Tashkent.
In 1966, A new government is formed in the Republic of Congo, led by Ambroise Noumazalaye.
In 1970, The Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization enters into force.
In 1981, Dr. Michael R. Harrison of the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center performs the world’s first human open fetal surgery.
In 1982, Fifty-seven people are killed by former police officer Woo Bum-kon in a shooting spree in Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea.
In 1986, A nuclear reactor accident occurs at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Soviet Union (now Ukraine), creating the world’s worst nuclear disaster.
In 1989, Lucille Ball, American actress and producer (b. 1911) died from to a aortic rupture in the abdominal area. She was an American comedienne, model, film and television actress and studio executive. She was star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here’s Lucy and Life with Lucy, and was one of the most popular and influential stars in the United States during her lifetime. Ball had one of Hollywood‘s longest careers. In the 1930s and 1940s she started as an RKO girl, playing bit parts as a chorus girl or similar roles and becoming a television star during the 1950s. She continued making films in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1962, Ball became the first woman to run a major television studio, Desilu, which produced many successful and popular television series such as “Mission Impossible” and “Star Trek”.
In 1989, The deadliest tornado in world history strikes Central Bangladesh, killing upwards of 1,300, injuring 12,000, and leaving as many as 80,000 homeless.
In 1989, People’s Daily publishes the People’s Daily editorial of April 26 which inflames the nascent Tiananmen Square protests
In 1991, Seventy tornadoes break out in the central United States. Before the outbreak’s end, Andover, Kansas, would record the year’s only F5 tornado (see Andover, Kansas Tornado Outbreak).
In 1994, China Airlines Flight 140 crashes at Nagoya Airport in Japan, killing 264 of the 271 people on board.
In 2002, Robert Steinhäuser infiltrates and kills 16 at Gutenberg-Gymnasium in Erfurt, Germany before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot.
In 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 (Syrian occupation of Lebanon).
In 2013 – George Jones, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1931) died from hypoxic respiratory failure. He was an American musician, singer and songwriter who achieved international fame for his long list of hit records, including “White Lightning“, as well as his distinctive voice and phrasing. For the last 20 years of his life, Jones was frequently referred to as the greatest living country singer. Country music scholar Bill C. Malone writes, “For the two or three minutes consumed by a song, Jones immerses himself so completely in its lyrics, and in the mood it conveys, that the listener can scarcely avoid becoming similarly involved.” Waylon Jennings expressed a common jealousy in his song “It’s Alright”: “If we all could sound like we wanted to, we’d all sound like George Jones.” The shape of his nose and facial features gave Jones the nickname “The Possum.” Jones said in an interview that he chose to tour only about 60 dates a year.
In 2014, The latest installment of the industry’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, dubs people who do not conform to what those in charge declare to be normal as mentally insane. It appears that modern psychiatry has followed its bretheren and become a hotbed of corruption, particularly the kind that seeks to demonize and declare mentally ill anyone who deviates from what is regarded as the norm.
In 2016, 150 Students WALK OUT of high school after transgender allowed to use girls locker room
