April 26

Historic Events

2025

A car ramming attack at a Lapu-Lapu Day festival kills 11 people and injures at least 30 in Vancouver, Canada. ›

2015

Nursultan Nazarbayev is re-elected President of Kazakhstan with 97.7% of the vote, one of the biggest vote shares in Kazakhstan's history. ›

2015

Peaceful 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. ›

2005

Cedar 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). ›

2002

Robert Steinhäuser kills 16 at Gutenberg-Gymnasium in Erfurt, Germany, before committing suicide. ›

1999

Outbreak of CIH computer virus. ›

1994

China Airlines Flight 140 crashes at Nagoya Airport in Japan, killing 264 of the 271 people on board. ›

1994

South Africa begins its first multiracial election, which is won by Nelson Mandela's African National Congress. ›

1993

The Space Shuttle Columbia is launched on mission STS-55 to conduct experiments aboard the Spacelab module. ›

1991

Fifty-five tornadoes break out in the central United States. Before the outbreak's end, Andover, Kansas, would record the year's only F5 tornado. ›

1989

The deadliest known tornado strikes Central Bangladesh, killing upwards of 1,300, injuring 12,000, and leaving as many as 80,000 homeless. ›

1989

People's Daily publishes the April 26 Editorial which inflames the nascent Tiananmen Square protests. ›

1986

The Chernobyl disaster occurs in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. ›

1981

Dr. Michael R. Harrison of the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center performs the world's first human open fetal surgery. ›

1970

The Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization enters into force. ›

1966

The 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. ›

1966

A new government is formed in the Republic of the Congo, led by Ambroise Noumazalaye. ›

1964

Tanganyika and Zanzibar merge to form the United Republic of Tanzania. ›

1963

In 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. ›

1962

NASA's Ranger 4 spacecraft crashes into the Moon. ›

1962

The British space programme launches its first satellite, the Ariel 1. ›

1960

Forced out by the April Revolution, President of South Korea Syngman Rhee resigns after 12 years of dictatorial rule. ›

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. ›

1956

SS Ideal X, the world's first successful container ship, leaves Port Newark, New Jersey, for Houston, Texas. ›

1954

The Geneva Conference, an effort to restore peace in Indochina and Korea, begins. ›

1954

The first clinical trials of Jonas Salk's polio vaccine begin in Fairfax County, Virginia. ›

1945

World War II: Battle of Bautzen: Last successful German tank-offensive of the war and last noteworthy victory of the Wehrmacht. ›

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 liberate Baguio as they fight against the Japanese forces under General Tomoyuki Yamashita. ›

1944

Georgios Papandreou becomes head of the Greek government-in-exile based in Egypt. ›

1944

World War II: Heinrich Kreipe is captured by Allied commandos in occupied Crete. ›

1943

The Easter Riots break out in Uppsala, Sweden. ›

1942

Benxihu Colliery accident in Manchukuo leaves 1,549 Chinese miners dead. ›

1937

Spanish Civil War: Guernica, Spain, is bombed by the German Condor Legion and the Italian Aviazione Legionaria. ›

1933

The Gestapo, the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, is established by Hermann Göring. ›

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. ›

1923

The Duke of York (the future King George VI) weds Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon at Westminster Abbey. ›

1920

Ice 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. ›

1916

Easter Rising: Battle of Mount Street Bridge. ›

1915

World War I: Italy secretly signs the Treaty of London pledging to join the Allied Powers. ›

1903

Atlético Madrid Association football club is founded. ›

1900

Fires destroy Canadian cities Ottawa and Hull, reducing them to ashes in 12 hours. Twelve thousand people are left without a home. ›

1865

Union cavalry troopers corner and shoot dead John Wilkes Booth, assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, in Virginia. ›

1805

First Barbary War: United States Marines capture Derne under the command of First Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon. ›

1803

Thousands of meteor fragments fall from the skies of L'Aigle, France; the event convinces European scientists that meteors exist. ›

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. ›

1794

Battle of Beaumont during the Flanders Campaign of the War of the First Coalition. ›

1777

Sybil Ludington, aged 16, allegedly rides 40 miles (64 km) to alert American colonial forces to the approach of British regular forces. ›

1721

A massive earthquake devastates the Iranian city of Tabriz. ›

1607

The Virginia Company colonists make landfall at Cape Henry. ›

1564

Playwright William Shakespeare is baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England (date of birth is unknown). ›

1478

The 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. ›

1336

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) ascends Mont Ventoux. ›

1326

The kingdom of France and the kingdom of Scotland agree on a treaty of mutual aid at Corbeil. ›

1289

Following 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. ›