April 26



Events

Up to 1950 
1315 – Robert the Bruce opens the first Scottish Parliament.
1478 – The Pazzi attack Lorenzo de' Medici and kill his brother Giuliano during High Mass in the Florence Cathedral.
1564 – William Shakespeare is baptised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England.
1607 – English colonists of the Jamestown settlement make landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia.
1721 - A massive earthquake hits Tabriz, present-day Iran.
1802 - Napoleon Bonaparte signs a general amnesty to allow all but 1,000 of the most notorious émigrés of the French Revolution to return to France. 
1803 - Meteor fragments, in their thousands, fall from the skies above L'Aigle, France.
1865 – American Civil War: Confederate General Joseph Johnston surrenders his army to General William Tecumseh Sherman near Durham, North Carolina.
1865 –  Union cavalry troopers corner John Wilkes Booth, President Lincoln's assassin, in a barn in Virginia. Booth is shot dead by cavalryman Boston Corbett.
1876 – In football, FC Copenhagen is founded. It is the oldest Football Club in Denmark and Northern Europe.
1903 - In football, Spanish club Atletico Madrid is founded.
1923 – Future King George VI of the United Kingdom marries Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon at Westminster Abbey.
1925 – Paul von Hindenburg defeats Wilhelm Marx in the second round of the German presidential election to become the first directly elected Reichspräsident, the head of state of the Weimar Republic.
1933 – The Gestapo, the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, is established.
1937 – Spanish Civil War: Guernica, Spain is bombed by German Luftwaffe.
1942 – The worst-ever mining accident in history kills 1,549 miners in an explosion at the Honkeiko Colliery, Manchuria.
1944 - Georgius Papandreou becomes Head of the Greek government-in-exile based in Egypt.
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.

From 1951 
1954 – The Geneva Conference, an effort to restore peace in Indochina and Korea, begins.
1956 - SS Ideal X, the world's first successful container ship, leaves Port Newark, New Jersey for Houston, Texas.
1960 – The April Revolution in South Korea leads to the resignation of President Rhee Syng-man, who had ruled for 12 years.
1962 – NASA's Ranger 4 spacecraft crashes into the Moon.
1963 - Libya changes its constitution. Women gain the right to vote, and the official name of the country becomes "Kingdom of Libya".
1964 – Tanganyika and Zanzibar merge to form Tanzania.
1965 - A Rolling Stones concert in London, Ontario has to be abandoned after 15 minutes after rioting.
1966 – The IOC decides that Munich should host the 1972 Summer Olympics.
1966 - Ambroise Noumazalaye forms the new government in the Republic of the Congo.
1982 – 57 people are killed by former police officer Woo Bum-kon in a shooting spree in Gyeongsangam-do, South Korea.
1986 – In Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, a nuclear reactor at the Chornobyl (Chernobyl) nuclear plant explodes, creating the world's worst nuclear disaster.
1989 – The deadliest-ever tornado kills over 1,000 people in central Bangladesh.
1991 – Seventy tornadoes break out in the central United States. Before its end, Andover, Kansas would record the year's only F5 tornado (see The Andover, Kansas Tornado).
1994 – South Africa holds its first multiracial elections.
1994 – A China Airlines Airbus A-300-600R crashes at Nagoya Airport, Japan killing 264.
2000 – The Andorra national football team scores its first-ever win; 2-0 against the Belarus national football team. Andorra had joined FIFA in 1994.
2002 – 19-year-old Robert Steinhäuser shoots and kills 17 people at his school in Erfurt, Germany.
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.
2012 – Former President of Liberia Charles Taylor is found guilty of war crimes for his role in supplying weapons during the Sierra Leone Civil War.
2013 - A fire in a psychiatric hospital near Moscow, Russia, kills 38 people. Only 3 people survive.
2013 - The Bank of England announces that Winston Churchill will feature on its five-pound bank notes from 2016.
2016 - A court ruling finds that the 96 victims of the Hillsborough disaster were unlawfully killed.
2017 - The Cassini space probe moves inside Saturn's ring system.
2018 - American entertainer Bill Cosby is found guilty of sexual assault.

Births

Up to 1900 
 121 – Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor (died 188)
 1538 - Gian Paolo Lomazzo, Italian painter (died 1600)
 1575 – Marie de' Medici, Queen of France (died 1647)
 1647 - William Ashhurst, English banker and politician (died 1720)
 1648 – Peter II of Portugal (died 1706)
 1710 – Thomas Reid, Scottish philosopher (died 1797)
 1711 – David Hume, Scottish philosopher (died 1776), born on May 7 in Gregorian calendar
 1765 - Emma, Lady Hamilton, wife of Horatio Nelson (died 1815)
 1774 - Christian Leopold von Buch, German geologist (died 1853)
 1782 – Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily (died 1866)
 1785 – John James Audubon, American painter (died 1851)
 1786 – William Hovell, English explorer of Australia (died 1875)
 1787 – Ludwig Uhland, German poet (died 1862)
 1798 – Eugène Delacroix, French painter (died 1863)
 1801 - Ambrose Dudley Mann, American politician and diplomat (died 1889)
 1812 – Alfred Krupp, German industrialist (died 1887)
 1821 - Robert Adamson, Scottish photographer (died 1848)
 1822 – Frederick Law Olmsted, American landscape architect (died 1903)
 1826 – Ambrose R. Wright, American Civil War general (died 1872)
 1845 - Jorge Montt, President of Chile (died 1922)
 1856 – Joseph Ward, 17th Prime Minister of New Zealand (died 1930)
 1862 - Edmund C. Tarbell, American artist (died 1938)
 1865 – Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Finnish painter and architect (died 1931)
 1879 – Owen Willans Richardson, British physicist (died 1959)
 1885 - Marcello Bertinetti, Italian fencer and footballer (died 1967)
 1886 – Gabdulla Tukay, Tatar poet (died 1913)
 1886 – Ma Rainey, American singer (died 1939)
 1888 – Anita Loos, American writer (died 1981)
 1889 – Ludwig Wittgenstein, Austrian-born philosopher (died 1951)
 1889 - James Wordie, Scottish polar explorer (died 1962)
 1892 – John Murray, Australian army officer (died 1951)
 1894 – Rudolf Hess, Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler's Deputy (died 1987)
 1896 - Ernst Udet, German pilot (died 1941)
 1897 – Douglas Sirk, German-born movie director (died 1987)
 1897 - Eddie Eagan, American athlete (died 1967)
 1898 – Vicente Aleixandre, Spanish writer (died 1984)
 1898 – John Grierson, Scottish moviemaker (died 1972)
 1900 – Charles Richter, American seismologist (someone who studies earthquakes), creator of the Richter scale (died 1985)

1901  1950 
 1904 - Jimmy McGrory, Scottish footballer (died 1982)
 1907 - Ilios Tsirimkos, Prime Minister of Greece (died 1968)
 1909 - Marianne Hoppe, German theatre and movie actress (died 2002)
 1910 – Tomoyuki Tanaka, Japanese movie director (died 1997)
 1914 – Bernard Malamud, American writer (died 1986)
 1917 – I. M. Pei, Chinese-born architect
 1917 - Virgil Trucks, American baseball player (died 2013)
 1918 – Fanny Blankers-Koen, Dutch athlete (died 2004)
 1921 - Jimmy Giuffre, American jazz clarinetist, saxophone player and composer (died 2008)
 1922 - Roger Grava, Italian-French footballer (died 1949)
 1922 - Jeanne Sauvé, 23rd Governor General of Canada (died 1993)
 1922 - Margaret Scott, South African-Australian ballerina and choreographer 
 1925 - Vladimir Botlyansky, Russian mathematician and author
 1925 - Jorgen Ingmann, Danish musician (died 2015)
 1925 - Zvi Yavetz, Israeli historian (died 2013)
 1925 - Michele Ferrero, Italian businessman (died 2015)
 1926 – David Coleman, British sports broadcaster (died 2013)
 1930 - Roger Moens, Belgian athlete
 1931 - Bernie Brillstein, American movie and television producer (died 2008)
 1931 - Paul Almond, Canadian screenwriter, director and producer (died 2015)
 1932 - Israr Ahmed, Pakistani theologian, philosopher and scholar (died 2010)
 1932 – Francis Lai, French movie score composer
 1932 - Agildo Ribeiro, Brazilian actor (died 2018)
 1932 - Birgitta Stenberg, Swedish writer (died 2014)
 1932 – Michael Smith, British-born chemist (died 2000)
 1933 – Carol Burnett, American actress and comedienne
 1933 – Arno Allan Penzias, German-born physicist
 1934 - Donald Sterling, American businessman, former owner of the Los Angeles Clippers
 1936 - Doug Sax, American audio engineer (died 2015)
 1937 - Jean-Pierre Beltoise, French racing driver (died 2015)
 1938 - Nino Benvenuti, Italian boxer
 1938 – Duane Eddy, American guitarist
 1940 – Giorgio Moroder, Italian composer
 1942 - Svyatoslav Belza, Russian scholar, critic and essayist (died 2014)
 1942 - Molvi Iftikhar Hussein Ansari, Kashmiri Shia cleric and politician (died 2014)
 1942 – Bobby Rydell, American singer
 1945 - Richard Armitage, American politician
 1945 - Jorge Serrano Elias, 29th President of Guatemala
 1947 – Warren Clarke, British actor (died 2014)
 1947 - David Byrne, Irish politician
 1948 - Derek Davis, Irish broadcaster (died 2015)
 1949 – Carlos Bianchi, Argentine footballer
 1949 - Dominic Sena, American director
 1950 – Thomas Quick, Swedish claimed serial killer

1951  1975 
 1953 - Arved Fuchs, German polar scientist and author
 1955 – Kurt Bodewig, German politician
 1956 - Koo Stark, American actress
 1958 - John Crichton-Stuart, 7th Marquess of Bute, Scottish peer and racing driver
 1959 - John Corabi, American singer and musician
 1959 – Thanassis Papakonstantinou, Greek singer and songwriter
 1960 – Roger Andrew Taylor, British drummer (Duran Duran)
 1961 – Joan Chen, Chinese-born actress
 1961 - Chris Mars, American singer-songwriter, musician and producer
 1963 – Jet Li, Chinese martial artist and actor
 1963 - Tank Abbott, American martial artist and wrestler
 1965 – Kevin James, American comedian
 1966 - Yoshihiro Togashi, Japanese manga artist
 1967 - Marianne Jean-Baptiste, British actress
 1967 – Glenn Jacob, American Wrestler
 1970 – Melania Trump, Slovenian-American model, First Lady of the United States
 1972 – Avi Nimni, Israeli footballer
 1973 - Lee Woon-Jae, South Korean footballer
 1973 - Gedeon Naudet, French-born American movie maker
 1974 - Adil Ray, British radio presenter
 1975 – Nerina Pallot, British singer-songwriter
 1975 – Joey Jordison, American musician (Slipknot)

From 1976 
 1977 - Jason Earles, American actor, comedian and martial artist
 1977 – Roxana Saberi, American journalist
 1977 - Raphael Wicky, Swiss footballer
 1977 - Craig Adams, Canadian ice hockey player
 1978 - Elson Becerra, Colombian footballer (d. 2006)
 1979 - Ariane Moffatt, Canadian singer and songwriter
 1980 – Anna Mucha, Polish actress
 1980 – Channing Tatum, American actor
 1980 - Jordana Brewster, American actress
 1980 - Marlon King, Jamaican footballer
 1981 – Matthieu Delpierre, French footballer
 1981 – Ms. Dynamite, British singer and musician
 1981 – Caro Emerald, Dutch singer
 1982 – Nadja Benaissa, German singer
 1982 - Amazing Red, Puerto Rican professional wrestler
 1983 – Jessica Lynch, American POW
 1984 - Emily Wickersham, American actress and model
 1985 – John Isner, American tennis player
 1985 - Nam Gyu-Ri, South Korean singer and actress
 1987 - Jessica Lee Rose, American-New Zealand actress
 1989 - Daesung, South Korean singer-songwriter and actor
 1990 - Kim Yu-mi, South Korean model
 1990 - Jonathan dos Santos, Mexican footballer
 1991 - Ignacio Lores Varela, Uruguayan footballer
 1992 – Danielle Hope, English actress and singer
 1994 - Daniil Kvyat, Russian racing driver
 1994 - Zoe Smith, English weightlifter
 1995 - Daniel Padilla, Filipino actor and singer

Deaths

Up to 1950 
 499 - Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei in China (b. 467)
 645 - Richarius, Frankish hermit and monk (b. 560)
 757 – Pope Stephen II
 1192 – Emperor Go-Shirakawa of Japan (b. 1127)
 1196 – Alfonso II of Aragon (b. 1157)
 1444 – Robert Campin, Flemish painter (b. 1378)
 1476 - Simonetta Vespucci, Italian noblewoman (b. 1453)
 1478 – Giuliano di Piero de' Medici, ruler of Florence (b. 1453)
 1489 - Ashikaga Yoshihisa, Japanese shogun (b. 1465)
 1716 – John Somers, 1st Baron Somers, Lord Chancellor of England (b. 1651)
 1789 - Petr Ivanovich Panin, Russian soldier (b. 1721)
 1865 – John Wilkes Booth, the man who killed United States President Abraham Lincoln (b. 1838)
 1910 – Bjornstjerne Bjornson, Norwegian writer (b. 1832)
 1910 - Garretson W. Gibson, President of Liberia (b. 1832)
 1915 - John Bunny, American actor (b. 1863)
 1920 – Srinivasa Ramanujan, Indian mathematician (b. 1887)
 1924 - Josef Labor, Bohemian composer, organist and pianist (b. 1842)
 1938 – Edmund Husserl, German philosopher (b. 1859)
 1940 – Carl Bosch, German chemist (b. 1874)
 1944 - Violette Morris, French footballer, shot putter and discus thrower (b. 1893)
 1945 – Sigmund Rascher, Nazi doctor (b. 1909)
 1946 – James Larkin White, American, discovered the Carlsbad Caverns (b. 1882)

1951  2010 
 1951 – Arnold Sommerfeld, German physicist (b. 1868)
 1956 – Edward Arnold, American actor (b. 1890)
 1957 - Gichin Funakoshi, Japanese creator of Karate (b. 1868)
 1968 - John Heartfield, German painter and graphic artist (b. 1891)
 1969 – Morihei Ueshiba, Japanese martial artist (b. 1883)
 1970 - Charles January, American soccer player (b. 1888)
 1976 – Sid James, South African-born British comedian (b. 1913)
 1984 – Count Basie, American musician (b. 1904)
 1986 - Hermann Gmeiner, Austrian humanitarian (b. 1919)
 1986 - Bessie Love, American actress (b. 1898)
 1988 - Valerie Solanas, American feminist (b. 1936)
 1989 – Lucille Ball, American actress (b. 1911)
 1991 - Carmine Coppola, American conductor and composer (b. 1910)
 1991 - Richard Hatfield, Canadian politician, 26th Premier of New Brunswick (b. 1931)
 1994 – Masutatsu Oyama, founder of Japanese Kyokushin karate (b. 1927)
 1996 – Stirling Silliphant, American writer and producer (b. 1918)
 1999 – Jill Dando, British television presenter (b. 1961)
 1999 - Man Mohan Adhikari, Prime Minister of Nepal (b. 1920)
 2002 – Robert Steinhauser, German spree killer in the Erfurt massacre (b. 1983)
 2003 - Edward Max Nicholson, Irish environmentalist (b. 1904)
 2005 – Maria Schell, Swiss-Austrian actress (b. 1926)
 2005 – Augusto Roa Bastos, Paraguayan writer (b. 1917)
 2007 – Jack Valenti, American political advisor and movie executive (b. 1921)

From 2011 
 2011 – Phoebe Snow, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1950)
 2013 - George Jones, American country music singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1931)
 2013 - William L. Guy, 26th Governor of North Dakota (b. 1919)
 2013 - Mary Thom, American journalist (b. 1944)
 2014 - Sandro Lopopolo, Italian boxer (b. 1939)
 2014 - Antonio Pica, Spanish footballer (b. 1933)
 2014 - DJ Rashad, American DJ (b. 1979)
 2015 - Wang Guozhen, Chinese poet (b. 1956)
 2015 - Izatullo Khayoyev, Prime Minister of Tajikistan (b. 1936)
 2015 - Bill Valentine, American baseball umpire (b. 1932)
 2015 - Masudur Rahman Baidya, Indian swimmer (b. 1968)
 2015 - Hojatollah Khatib, Iranian sports administrator (b. 1954)
 2015 - Jayne Meadows, American actress (b. 1919)
 2015 - Marcel Pronovost, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1930)
 2016 - Harry Wu, Chinese activist (b. 1937)
 2016 - Vincent Darius, Grenadian Roman Catholic prelate (b. 1955)
 2016 - Amanullah Khan, Pakistani-Kashmiri activist and writer (b. 1934)
 2016 - Lucy Kibaki, former First Lady of Kenya (b. 1940)
 2017 - Jonathan Demme, American film director (b. 1944)
 2018 - Yoshinobu Ishii, Japanese footballer (b. 1939)
 2018 - Philip H. Hoff, American politician, 73rd Governor of Vermont (b. 1924)
 2018 - Elvira Orphée, Argentine writer (b. 1922)
 2018 - Gianfranco Parolini, Italian film director (b. 1925)

Observances 
 Union Day (Tanzania)
 Confederate Memorial Day (Texas and Florida)
 Day of Remembrance of the Chernobyl tragedy (Belarus)
 World Intellectual Property Day
 Latest possible date for Easter Monday (earliest is March 23)

Days of the year