On this day: April 26

Events on April 26

• 1336 Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) ascends Mont Ventoux. Wikipedia
• 1564 Playwright William Shakespeare is baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England (date of birth is unknown). Wikipedia
• 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. 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
• 1865 Union cavalry troopers corner and shoot dead John Wilkes Booth, assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, in Virginia. 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
• 1915 World War I: Italy secretly signs the Treaty of London pledging to join the Allied Powers. Wikipedia
• 1933 The Gestapo, the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, was established. Wikipedia
• 1933 The Gestapo, the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, is established by Hermann Göring. 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
• 1944 Georgios Papandreou becomes head of the Greek government-in-exile based in Egypt. 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
• 1944 World War II: Heinrich Kreipe is captured by Allied commandos in occupied Crete. Wikipedia
• 1956 SS Ideal X, the world's first successful container ship, leaves Port Newark, New Jersey, for Houston, Texas. Wikipedia
• 1962 NASA's Ranger 4 spacecraft crashes into the Moon. Wikipedia
• 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. Wikipedia
• 1964 Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged to form Tanzania with Julius Nyerere as its first president. Wikipedia
• 1964 Tanganyika and Zanzibar merge to form the United Republic of Tanzania. Wikipedia
• 1966 A new government is formed in the Republic of the Congo, led by Ambroise Noumazalaye. Wikipedia
• 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. Wikipedia
• 1994 South Africa begins its first multiracial election, which is won by Nelson Mandela's African National Congress. Wikipedia
• 2002 An expelled student murdered sixteen people and wounded seven others before committing suicide at the Gutenberg-Gymnasium Erfurt in Erfurt, Germany. Wikipedia
• 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). 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
• 2025 A car ramming attack at a Lapu-Lapu Day festival kills 11 people and injures at least 30 in Vancouver, Canada. Wikipedia

Born on April 26

• 121 Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor (died 180) Wikipedia
• 757 Hisham I of Córdoba (died 796) Wikipedia
• 1319 John II of France (died 1364) Wikipedia
• 1575 Marie de' Medici, wife of Henry IV of France (died 1642) Wikipedia
• 1697 Adam Falckenhagen, German lute player and composer (died 1754) 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
• 1822 Frederick Law Olmsted, American journalist and designer, co-designed Central Park (died 1903) 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
• 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
• 893 Chen Jingxuan, general of the Tang Dynasty 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 Sigmund Rascher, German physician and SS member, conductor of human experiments in the concentration camps (born 1909) Wikipedia
• 1951 Arnold Sommerfeld, German physicist and academic (born 1868) Wikipedia
• 1969 Morihei Ueshiba, Japanese martial artist, founded aikido (born 1883) Wikipedia
• 1989 Lucille Ball, American model, actress, comedian, and producer (born 1911) Wikipedia
• 2003 Edward Max Nicholson, Irish environmentalist, co-founded the World Wide Fund for Nature (born 1904) 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

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 2026-10-09 through the Wikimedia “On this day” feed. They are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; this selection is shared under the same licence. We picked the 26 events, 22 births and 14 deaths with the widest coverage across Wikipedia's language editions (counted from Wikidata) and sorted them by year; the wording is unchanged apart from removing references to pictures.