Historical Events on April 26
- 1564: William Shakespeare is baptized in Warwichshire, England on this day.
- 1607: At Cape Henry in Virginia, English colonists arrive.
- 1721: The city of Tabriz in Iran is hit by a massive earthquake.
- 1803: Thousands of pieces of meteors fall from the skies over France. This event convinces many European scientists that the formerly postulated theory of meteors does indeed exist.
- 1865: Confederate forces under General Joseph E. Johnston surrender to Union forces under General William Tecumseh Sherman near Durham, North Carolina.
- 1865: Assassin of U.S President Abraham Lincoln – John Wilkes Booth – is cornered and shot to death by Union cavalry troopers in Virginia.
- 1933: The secret police of Nazi Germany – the Gestapo – is officially organized on this day.
- 1937: German Luftwaffe bomb Guernica, Spain.
- 1945: At the Battle of Bautzen during World War II, the Germans have the last successful tank campaign of the war.
- 1945: Filipino and American troops are liberated in Baguio City in the Philippines.
- 1962: The NASA spacecraft Ranger 4 crashes into the Moon.
- 1986: The world’s first nuclear disaster occurs when the nuclear reactor Chernobyl in the Soviet Union had an accident on this day.
- 1989: A tornado hits Central Bangladesh and kills over thirteen hundred people and wounds another twelve thousand people. It also leaves approximately eighty thousand people homeless.
- 1991: 70 tornadoes erupt all over the central U.S.
- 1994: Over two hundred and sixty people are killed when China Airlines Flight 140 crashes at Nagoya Airport in Japan.
Famous Birthdays on April 26
- French-American ornithologist and painter, John James Audubon is born in 1785.
- German poet, historian and philologist, Ludwig Uhland is born in 1787.
- French painter and lithographer, Eugene Delacroix is born in 1798.
- English physicist and Nobel Prize laureate, Owen Willans Richardson is born in 1879.
- American singer and “Mother of the Blues,” Ma Rainey is born in 1886.
- American comedian and actress, Debra Wilson is born in 1962.
- Chinese martial artist and actor, Jet Li is born in 1963.
- English actress Susannah Harker is born in 1965.
- American comedian and actor, Kevin James is born in 1965.