On this day: April 26

Events on April 26

• 1478 In a conspiracy to replace the Medici family as rulers of the Republic of Florence, the Pazzi family attacked Lorenzo de' Medici and killed his brother Giuliano at Florence Cathedral. Wikipedia
• 1564 Playwright William Shakespeare is baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England (date of birth is unknown). Wikipedia
• 1777 American Revolutionary War: Sixteen-year-old Sybil Ludington allegedly rode forty miles (64 km) through the night to warn militiamen under her father Henry's command that British troops were planning to invade Danbury, Connecticut. Wikipedia
• 1803 Thousands of meteor fragments fell over L'Aigle, France, becoming a milestone in the understanding of meteorites. Wikipedia
• 1865 U.S. Army soldiers cornered and fatally shot John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of U.S. president Abraham Lincoln, ending a twelve-day manhunt. Wikipedia
• 1903 Atlético Madrid Association football club is founded. Wikipedia
• 1915 First World War: Britain, France and Russia signed a secret treaty promising territory to Italy if it joined the war on their side. Wikipedia
• 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. Wikipedia
• 1933 The Gestapo, the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, was established. Wikipedia
• 1937 Spanish Civil War: The Bombing of Guernica by the Condor Legion of the Luftwaffe resulted in a devastating firestorm that caused widespread destruction and civilian deaths and inspired one of Pablo Picasso's most famous paintings. Wikipedia
• 1941 Boris Kidrič and Edvard Kardelj founded the Liberation Front of the Slovene Nation, the main anti-fascist Slovene civil-resistance and political organization during World War II. Wikipedia
• 1944 World War II: U.S. Navy submarines began attacks on Japan's Take Ichi convoy as it sailed in waters between Taiwan and the Philippines, eventually sinking four vessels and killing more than 4,000 troops. Wikipedia
• 1954 The Geneva Conference, an effort to restore peace in Indochina and Korea, begins. Wikipedia
• 1958 Service ended on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Royal Blue Line, one of the first major electrified train lines in the U.S.. Wikipedia
• 1960 Forced out by the April Revolution, President of South Korea Syngman Rhee resigns after 12 years of dictatorial rule. Wikipedia
• 1962 NASA's Ranger 4 spacecraft crashes into the Moon. Wikipedia
• 1964 Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged to form Tanzania with Julius Nyerere as its first president. Wikipedia
• 1970 The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) came into being when the WIPO Convention entered into force. Wikipedia
• 1986 The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near Chernobyl, Ukrainian SSR, suffered a steam explosion, resulting in a fire, a nuclear meltdown, and the evacuation and resettlement of over 336,000 people around Europe. Wikipedia
• 1989 An editorial was published in the People's Daily denouncing the growing unrest in Tiananmen Square in Beijing which would remain contentious through the remainder of the protests. Wikipedia
• 1989 A tornado struck the Manikganj District of Bangladesh and killed an estimated 1,300 people, making it the deadliest tornado in history. Wikipedia
• 1994 Just before landing at Nagoya Airport, Japan, the copilot of China Airlines Flight 140 inadvertently triggered the takeoff/go-around switch, causing the aircraft to crash and killing 264 of the 271 people on board. Wikipedia
• 1994 South Africa begins its first multiracial election, which is won by Nelson Mandela's African National Congress. Wikipedia
• 1999 The CIH virus activated widely, damaging hundreds of thousands of computers and causing hundreds of millions of dollars in losses. Wikipedia
• 2002 An expelled student murdered sixteen people and wounded seven others before committing suicide at the Gutenberg-Gymnasium Erfurt in Erfurt, Germany. Wikipedia
• 2007 Controversy surrounding the relocation of the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn, a Soviet Red Army World War II memorial in Tallinn, Estonia, erupted into mass protests and riots. Wikipedia
• 2017 The Shandong was launched for the People's Liberation Army Navy, China's first domestically built aircraft carrier. Wikipedia

Born on April 26

• 121 Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor (died 180) Wikipedia
• 1319 John II of France (died 1364) Wikipedia
• 1575 Marie de' Medici, wife of Henry IV of France (died 1642) Wikipedia
• 1785 John James Audubon, French-American ornithologist and painter (died 1851) Wikipedia
• 1787 Ludwig Uhland, German poet, philologist, and historian (died 1862) Wikipedia
• 1798 Eugène Delacroix, French painter and lithographer (died 1863) Wikipedia
• 1865 Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Finnish artist (died 1931) Wikipedia
• 1879 Owen Willans Richardson, English physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1959) Wikipedia
• 1889 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Austrian-English philosopher and academic (died 1951) Wikipedia
• 1894 Rudolf Hess, German politician and Deputy Führer in Nazi regime until 1941 (died 1987) Wikipedia
• 1898 Vicente Aleixandre, Spanish poet and author, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1984) Wikipedia
• 1900 Charles Francis Richter, American seismologist and physicist (died 1985) Wikipedia
• 1917 I. M. Pei, Chinese-American architect, designed the National Gallery of Art and Bank of China Tower (died 2019) Wikipedia
• 1932 Michael Smith, English-Canadian biochemist and geneticist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2000) Wikipedia
• 1933 Arno Allan Penzias, German-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2024) Wikipedia
• 1963 Jet Li, Chinese-Singaporean martial artist, actor, and producer Wikipedia
• 1970 Melania Trump, Slovene-American model; 47th First Lady of the United States Wikipedia
• 1977 Tom Welling, American actor Wikipedia
• 1977 Samantha Cristoforetti, Italian astronaut Wikipedia
• 1978 Stana Katic, Canadian actress Wikipedia
• 1980 Channing Tatum, American actor and producer Wikipedia
• 1980 Jordana Brewster, Panamanian-American actress Wikipedia

Died on April 26

• 680 Mu'awiya I, Umayyad caliph (born 602) Wikipedia
• 757 Pope Stephen II (born 715) Wikipedia
• 1865 John Wilkes Booth, American actor, assassin of Abraham Lincoln (born 1838) Wikipedia
• 1910 Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Norwegian-French author, poet, and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1832) Wikipedia
• 1920 Srinivasa Ramanujan, Indian mathematician and theorist (born 1887) Wikipedia
• 1940 Carl Bosch, German chemist and engineer, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1874) Wikipedia
• 1945 Pavlo Skoropadskyi, German-Ukrainian general and politician, Hetman of Ukraine (born 1871) Wikipedia
• 1951 Arnold Sommerfeld, German physicist and academic (born 1868) Wikipedia
• 1969 Morihei Ueshiba, Japanese martial artist, founded aikido (born 1883) Wikipedia
• 1984 Count Basie, American pianist, composer, and bandleader (born 1904) Wikipedia
• 1986 Broderick Crawford, American actor (born 1911) Wikipedia
• 1989 Lucille Ball, American model, actress, comedian, and producer (born 1911) Wikipedia
• 2003 Yun Hyon-seok, South Korean poet and author (born 1984) Wikipedia
• 2017 Jonathan Demme, American filmmaker, producer and screenwriter (born 1944) Wikipedia

Holidays and observances

• Chernobyl disaster related observances: Day of Remembrance of the Chernobyl tragedy (Belarus) Wikipedia
• Chernobyl disaster related observances: Memorial Day of Radiation Accidents and Catastrophes (Russia) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Aldobrandesca (or Alda) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Lucidius of Verona Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Our Lady of Good Counsel Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Pope Anacletus and Marcellinus Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Rafael Arnáiz Barón Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Riquier Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Paschasius Radbertus Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Robert Hunt (Episcopal Church (USA)) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Blessed Stanisław Kubista Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Stephen of Perm, see also Old Permic Alphabet Day Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Trudpert Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: April 26 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Wikipedia
• Confederate Memorial Day (Florida, United States) Wikipedia
• Union Day (Tanzania) Wikipedia
• World Intellectual Property Day Wikipedia

Sources

• Wikipedia — “April 26” — events, births, deaths and observances (text under CC BY-SA 4.0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikipedia — “Selected anniversaries/April 26” — the anniversaries editors chose for the date and the article each one is about (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikidata — in how many language editions each entry's own article exists, used to fill the lists (CC0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• vacanza/holidays (open-source holiday rules, MIT licence) — holiday rules used to build the lists (checked 2026-10-15)

The events, births, deaths and observances above are from the English Wikipedia article “April 26” and the articles it links to (authors and history), retrieved 2026-10-15 through the Wikimedia “On this day” feed. They are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; this selection is shared under the same licence. Every anniversary that Wikipedia's editors selected for April 26 stays on the list; the remaining places, up to 27 events, 22 births and 14 deaths, go to the entries whose own article — about the event itself, or else the person or thing it is about — appears in the most language editions (counted from Wikidata); an article about a person or thing, which covers far more than one day, counts half. An entry with no article of its own counts, also at half, by the least covered article it links, and one that links only places counts for nothing. The 1994 South African general election entry stays as well: we keep a short list, checked by hand, of widely known events that Wikipedia's editors leave out of their selection, usually because the article carries a maintenance notice. Each list runs by year, and the wording is unchanged apart from removing references to pictures, audio and video.