April 26Birthdays & History

On this day: April 26 in history

Oldest first. Tap a year to see it on the World Chronicle timeline.

1. 1289Following weeks of bombardment, the city of Tripoli falls to the Mamluks under Qalawun. The Mamluks massacre all men they find and enslave the women and children.Africa
2. 1326The kingdom of France and the kingdom of Scotland agree on a treaty of mutual aid at Corbeil.Europe
3. 1336Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) ascends Mont Ventoux.Europe
4. 1478The Pazzi family attack on Lorenzo de' Medici in order to displace the ruling Medici family kills his brother Giuliano during High Mass in Florence Cathedral.Europe
5. 1564Playwright William Shakespeare is baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England (date of birth is unknown).Europe
6. 1607The Virginia Company colonists make landfall at Cape Henry.North America
7. 1721A massive earthquake devastates the Iranian city of Tabriz.Middle East
8. 1777Sybil Ludington, aged 16, allegedly rides 40 miles (64 km) to alert American colonial forces to the approach of British regular forces.North AmericaEurope
9. 1794Battle of Beaumont during the Flanders Campaign of the War of the First Coalition.Europe
10. 1802Napoleon 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.Europe
11. 1803Thousands of meteor fragments fall from the skies of L'Aigle, France; the event convinces European scientists that meteors exist.Europe
12. 1805First Barbary War: United States Marines capture Derne under the command of First Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon.North America
13. 1865Union cavalry troopers corner and shoot dead John Wilkes Booth, assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, in Virginia.North America
14. 1900Fires destroy Canadian cities Ottawa and Hull, reducing them to ashes in 12 hours. Twelve thousand people are left without a home.North America
15. 1903Atlético Madrid Association football club is founded.Europe
16. 1915World War I: Italy secretly signs the Treaty of London pledging to join the Allied Powers.Europe
17. 1916Easter Rising: Battle of Mount Street Bridge.Europe
18. 1920Ice hockey makes its Olympic debut at the Antwerp Games with center Frank Fredrickson scoring seven goals in Canada's 12–1 drubbing of Sweden in the gold medal match.North AmericaEurope
19. 1923The Duke of York (the future King George VI) weds Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon at Westminster Abbey.Europe
20. 1925Paul 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.Europe
21. 1933The Gestapo, the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, is established by Hermann Göring.Europe
22. 1937Spanish Civil War: Guernica, Spain, is bombed by the German Condor Legion and the Italian Aviazione Legionaria.Europe
23. 1942Benxihu Colliery accident in Manchukuo leaves 1,549 Chinese miners dead.Asia
24. 1943The Easter Riots break out in Uppsala, Sweden.Europe
25. 1944World War II: Heinrich Kreipe is captured by Allied commandos in occupied Crete.Europe
26. 1944Georgios Papandreou becomes head of the Greek government-in-exile based in Egypt.EuropeMiddle East
27. 1945World 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 liberate Baguio as they fight against the Japanese forces under General Tomoyuki Yamashita.AsiaNorth AmericaAsia
28. 1945World War II: Battle of Bautzen: Last successful German tank-offensive of the war and last noteworthy victory of the Wehrmacht.Europe
29. 1954The Geneva Conference, an effort to restore peace in Indochina and Korea, begins.EuropeAsia
30. 1954The first clinical trials of Jonas Salk's polio vaccine begin in Fairfax County, Virginia.North America
31. 1956SS Ideal X, the world's first successful container ship, leaves Port Newark, New Jersey, for Houston, Texas.North America
32. 1958Final 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.North America
33. 1960Forced out by the April Revolution, President of South Korea Syngman Rhee resigns after 12 years of dictatorial rule.Asia
34. 1962NASA's Ranger 4 spacecraft crashes into the Moon.North America
35. 1962The British space programme launches its first satellite, the Ariel 1.Europe
36. 1963In Libya, amendments to the constitution transform Libya (United Kingdom of Libya) into one national unity (Kingdom of Libya) and allow for female participation in elections.AfricaEurope
37. 1964Tanganyika and Zanzibar merge to form the United Republic of Tanzania.Africa
38. 1966The magnitude 5.1 Tashkent earthquake affects the largest city in Soviet Central Asia with a maximum MSK intensity of VII (Very strong). Tashkent is mostly destroyed and 15–200 are killed.EuropeAsia
39. 1966A new government is formed in the Republic of the Congo, led by Ambroise Noumazalaye.Africa
40. 1970The Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization enters into force.World
41. 1981Dr. Michael R. Harrison of the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center performs the world's first human open fetal surgery.North America
42. 1986The Chernobyl disaster occurs in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.Europe
43. 1989The deadliest known tornado strikes Central Bangladesh, killing upwards of 1,300, injuring 12,000, and leaving as many as 80,000 homeless.Asia
44. 1989People's Daily publishes the April 26 Editorial which inflames the nascent Tiananmen Square protests.Asia
45. 1991Fifty-five tornadoes break out in the central United States. Before the outbreak's end, Andover, Kansas, would record the year's only F5 tornado.North America
46. 1993The Space Shuttle Columbia is launched on mission STS-55 to conduct experiments aboard the Spacelab module.North America
47. 1994China Airlines Flight 140 crashes at Nagoya Airport in Japan, killing 264 of the 271 people on board.AsiaAsia
48. 1994South Africa begins its first multiracial election, which is won by Nelson Mandela's African National Congress.AfricaNorth America
49. 1999Outbreak of CIH computer virus.Asia
50. 2002Robert Steinhäuser kills 16 at Gutenberg-Gymnasium in Erfurt, Germany, before committing suicide.Europe
51. 2005Cedar Revolution: 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).Middle East
52. 2015Nursultan Nazarbayev is re-elected President of Kazakhstan with 97.7% of the vote, one of the biggest vote shares in Kazakhstan's history.Asia
53. 2015Peaceful protesters install the first anti-monument in Mexico, Antimonumento +43, as a call for justice and remembrance to commemorate the 2014 Iguala mass kidnapping, later inspiring similar memorials elsewhere in the country and Latin America.Latin AmericaNorth America
54. 2025A car ramming attack at a Lapu-Lapu Day festival kills 11 people and injures at least 30 in Vancouver, Canada.North America

Source: Wikipedia "April 26" / CC BY-SA 4.0