April 26
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April 26
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April is:
Today is:
Born on this Day
0121: Marcus Aurelius, 16th Roman Emperor
1228: Conrad IV, King of Germany
1573: Marie de'Medici, Queen of France
1785: American naturalist and artist John James Audubon was born in
Haiti. In order to devote time to his bird studies, he supported himself by giving lessons
in music, dancing and fencing.
1812: Friedrich von Flotow was born in Teutendorf in Germany. Flotow's
reputation rests entirely on one work, a ballet which he later turned into an opera called
"Martha." It is the only opera ever composed to employ an English setting, an
Irish folk melody, and a German libretto!
1893: Author Anita Loos
1894: Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler's deputy
1900: Seismologist Charles Richter, who devised the earthquake-measuring
scale that bears his name, was born in Hamilton, Ohio.
1914: Novelist Bernard Malamud
1917: Architect I.M. Pei. He designed the new wing of the National Art
Gallery, the new parts of the Louvre, and the Kennedy Presidential Library.
1924: Jazz musician Teddy Edwards
1926: Actress Charlotte Rae
1926: Dancer-actress Bambi Lynn
1933: Actress-comedian Carol Burnett (some sources 1938)
1938: Songwriter-musician pop guitarist Duane Eddy
1938: Rhythm-and-blues singer Maurice Williams
1942: Pop singer Bobby Rydell
1942: Actress Claudine Auger ("Thunderball")
1943: Rock musician Gary Wright
1946: Rock singer-musician Ronny Daytona (Ronny & The Daytonas)
1947: Olympic Hall-of-Famer Donna De Varona
1947: Television journalist Boyd Matson
1958: Actor Giancarlo Esposito
1960: Rock musician Roger Taylor (Duran Duran)
1961: Rock musician Chris Mars
1962: Actor-singer Michael Damian ("The Young and the
Restless")
1965: Actor-comedian Kevin James ("King of Queens")
1970: Rapper T-Boz (TLC)
1980: Actress Marne Patterson ("Something So Right")
1980: Actress Jordana Brewster
0757: Death of Pope Stephen III
1396: Death of St. Stephen of Perm
1478: An attempt is made on the life of Lorenzo de Medici;
Giuliano de Medici murdered
1564: Baptism of William Shakespeare
1569: Elizabeth I, Queen of England, issues a Licence for
Sunday Sports
1607: An expedition of English colonists, including
Captain John Smith, went ashore at Cape Henry, Virginia, to establish the first permanent
English settlement in the Western Hemisphere.
1655: Dutch West India Co. refused to exclude Jews from
New Amsterdam
1819: The first Odd Fellows lodge in the United States was
established in Baltimore, Maryland. The main focus of the fraternal order is "to
relieve the brethren, bury the dead and care for the widow and orphan."
1828: Russia declared war on Turkey to support Greece's
battle for independence.
1865: John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President
Lincoln, was surrounded by federal troops near Bowling Green, Virginia, and killed though
they were ordered to take him alive.
1921: Weather forecasts were heard for the first time on
radio when WEW in St. Louis, Missouri, aired weather news.
1923: The Duke of York -- Britain's future King George VI
-- married Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in Westminster Abbey.
1937: During the Spanish Civil War, German-made planes
destroyed the Basquetown of Guernica, Spain.
1942: 1,540 or more people died in the world's worst
mining disaster at a colliery in Benxi, in Japanese-occupied China.
1945: Marshal Henri Philippe Petain, the head of France's
Vichy government during World War Two, was arrested.
1952: Patty Berg set a new record for major women's golf
competition. She shot a 64-over 18 holes in a tournament in Richmond, California.
1961: Roger Maris of the New York Yankees hit the first of
a record 61 home runs in a single season; the homer was off Detroit's Paul Foytack at
Tiger Stadium.
1962: Britain's first satellite, Ariel I, was launched
from Cape Canaveral by a Thor-Delta booster.
1964: The Boston Celtics wrapped up an unprecedented sixth
consecutive NBA championship. The Celtic still had two more crowns to win, however, before
the string would come to an end.
1964: The African nations of Tanganyika and Zanzibar
merged to form Tanzania.
1968: The United States exploded beneath the Nevada desert
a one-megaton nuclear device called "Boxcar."
1970: The Broadway musical "Company," by Stephen
Sondheim and George Furth, opened at the Alvin Theatre in New York.
1977: The "Studio 54" discotheque opened in New
York City.
1980: Following an unsuccessful attempt by the United
States to rescue the US Embassy hostages in Iran, the Tehran government announced the
captives were being scattered to thwart any future rescue effort.
1983: A national commission released a scathing report on
the state of American education, calling for sweeping measures to combat what it called a
"rising tide of mediocrity" in schools.
1983: The Dow Jones Industrial average closed above 1,200
points for the first time.
1984: President Reagan and his wife, Nancy, arrived in
Beijing to begin a 5½-day visit to China.
1984: Jazz pianist Count Basie died in Hollywood, Florida,
at age 79.
1985: The U.S. Senate passed, by voice vote, a resolution
urging President Reagan to alter his plans to visit the German military cemetery at
Bitburg.
1986: President Reagan, during a stopover in Hawaii as
part of a 12-day trip to Asia, telephoned ousted Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos.
1986: Actor Broderick Crawford died at age 74.
1986: The world's worst nuclear accident occurred at the
Chernobyl plant in the Soviet Union. An explosion and fire in the number-four reactor sent
radioactivity into the atmosphere; at least 31 Soviets died immediately.
1987: From Japan to Sweden, anti-nuclear protesters
demonstrated on the first anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, with some of the biggest
turnouts reported in Europe.
1988: Vice President George Bush locked up the Republican
presidential nomination with an easy win in the Pennsylvania primary. Massachusetts
Governor Michael Dukakis won the Democratic contest.
1989: Actress-comedian Lucille Ball died at Cedars-Sinai
Medical Center in Los Angeles at age 77.
1990: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, leader of the
right-wing Likud bloc, was chosen to form a new government after Labor Party leader Shimon
Peres failed in his attempt to form a coalition.
1990: Carlos Pizarro Leongomez, leader of the leftist
Colombian guerrilla movement M-19 who gave up violence to run for president, was
assassinated on a plane.
1990: New York's highest court awarded the America's Cup
to the United States...ruling the San Diego Yacht Club did not cheat by racing a catamaran
against an inherently slower New Zealand monohull boat. Catamarans have two parallel hulls
and no one had ever tried to enter one in the America's Cup race before.
1991: 23 people were killed as four-dozen tornadoes raked
Kansas and Oklahoma.
1991: The government reported the nation had sunk deeper
into recession in the first quarter of 1991 as the gross national product shrank at an
annual rate of 2.8 percent.
1992: Powerful aftershocks rattled Northern California
following a six-point-nine earthquake that injured at least 65 people.
1992: Finance officials from the Group of Seven nations,
meeting in Washington, endorsed the broad outlines of an economic assistance package for
the former Soviet Union.
1992: Worshippers celebrated the first Russian Orthodox
Easter in Moscow in 74 years.
1993: After the United States Holocaust Museum opened to
the public, over two million toured the permanent exhibition during its first year of
operation.
1993: President Clinton signed an executive order imposing
new economic sanctions against Yugoslavia after the Serbian leadership in Bosnia voted
against accepting a UN-sponsored plan to end the war.
1993: Conan O'Brien was named to succeed David Letterman
as host of NBC's "Late Night" program.
1993: The New England Composers Orchestra, under the
direction of James Yannatos and Charles Fussell, presented a Contemporary Music Series
concert at Harvard University in Sanders Theatre.
1994: Voting began in South Africa's first all-race
elections. South African blacks voted for the first time and gave the power of government
to the African National Congress and President Nelson Mandela.
1994: A Taiwanese jetliner crashed in Hagoya, Japan,
killing 264 people.
1994: Rachelle "Shelley" Shannon, who admitted
shooting and wounding an abortion doctor outside his clinic, was sentenced in Wichita,
Kansas, to nearly 11 years in prison.
1995: One week after the Oklahoma City bombing, Americans
observed a minute of silence in honor of the victims.
1996: After 16 days of bloodshed, Israel and Hezbollah
guerrillas pledged to end the worst fighting in the Mideast in three years, agreeing to a
U-S-brokered truce.
1997: In his Saturday radio address, President Clinton
prepared for the opening of a community service summit by asking Congress to pay for a
drive to ensure that every third-grader can read.
1998: Auxiliary Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera, a leading
human rights activist in Guatemala, was bludgeoned to death two days after a report he'd
compiled on atrocities during Guatemala's 36-year civil war was made public.
1999: The head of the International Committee of the Red
Cross, Cornelio Sommaruga, met with three U.S. soldiers held captive by Yugoslavia.
1999: BBC anchorwoman Jill Dando, the host of a
crime-fighting program, was fatally shot on the steps of her London home.
2000: A sad moment in this nation's history
occurred when Vermont Governor Howard Dean signed the nation's first bill allowing same-sex couples to form civil unions.
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