This is a list of selected April 26 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Before doing so, please review the selected anniversaries guidelines. If your suggestion is potentially controversial or relates to a day currently or soon to appear on the Main Page, post it on the talk page instead.
Please note:
- Events listed on the Main Page are selected based on article quality and to provide a diverse range of topics, rather than solely on the importance or significance of the events.
- Only four or five events are featured each day; therefore, not all important or significant events can be included.
- An event is generally excluded if it is already the subject of the scheduled featured article, featured list or picture of the day.
To report an error in content currently on the Main Page, see Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors. If a listed event is inaccurate, please first seek consensus and update the corresponding article before making changes here.
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Lorenzo de' Medici
Boston Corbett, the US Army soldier who killed John Wilkes Booth
Flag of Tanzania- Paul von Hindenburg (requires undeletion)
Paul von Hindenburg
SS emblem
Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| ; Arbor Day in the United States (2013) | refimprove |
| 1925 – Paul von Hindenburg defeated Wilhelm Marx in the second round of the German presidential election, becoming the first directly elected head of state of the Weimar Republic. | unreferenced sections, refimprove sections |
| 1956 – The SS Ideal X set sail from Port Newark in New Jersey as the part of world's first successful container shipping business. | Ideal X: stub; Container ship: refimprove section; Containerization: refimprove section + lead too short |
| 1964 – Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged to form Tanzania with Julius Nyerere as its first president. | refimprove section |
| 1983 – Cold War: Replying to her letter in which she expressed her fears about the tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States, Soviet leader Yuri Andropov invited American schoolgirl Samantha Smith to visit Moscow, Leningrad and the Artek Young Pioneer camp. | appears on July 7 |
Eligible
- 1865 – US Army soldiers cornered and fatally shot John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of US President Abraham Lincoln, in rural northern Virginia, ending a twelve-day manhunt.
- 1933 – The Gestapo, the official secret police force in Nazi Germany, was established.
- 1937 – Spanish Civil War: The Bombing of Guernica by the Condor Legion of the German Luftwaffe resulted in a devastating firestorm that caused widespread destruction and civilian deaths and inspired one of Pablo Picasso's most famous paintings.
- 1944 – World War II: US 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 over 4,000 troops.
- 1945 – World War II: Both the German and Polish–Soviet sides claimed victory as major fighting in the Battle of Bautzen ended.
- 1958 – The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Royal Blue, one of the first major railway electrification systems in the United States, made its final Washington, D.C., to New York City run.
- 1970 – The World Intellectual Property Organization came into being when its charter entered into force.
- 1982 – In one of the deadliest spree killings in modern history, South Korean police officer Woo Bum-kon killed a total of 57 people in one night, including himself.
- 1981 – Dr. Michael R. Harrison of the University of California, San Francisco performed the world's first human open fetal surgery.
- 1989 – A tornado struck the Manikganj District of Bangladesh, killing an estimated 1,300 people, making it the deadliest tornado in history.
- 1989 – An editorial was published in the People's Daily denouncing the growing unrest in Tiananmen Square, which would remain contentious through the remainder of the protests.
- 1994 – Just prior to landing at Nagoya International Airport, the co-pilot of China Airlines Flight 140 inadvertently pushed the wrong button, causing the plane to crash and killing 264 of the 271 people on board.
- 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.
Notes
- Assassination of Abraham Lincoln appears on April 14, so John Wilkes Booth should not appear in the same year.
April 26: World Intellectual Property Day; Feast day of Our Lady of Good Counsel (Roman Catholic Church)
Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant
- 1478 – In a conspiracy to replace the Medici family as rulers of the Florentine Republic, the Pazzi family attacked Lorenzo de' Medici and killed his brother Giuliano during High Mass at the Florence Duomo.
- 1777 – American Revolutionary War: Sixteen-year-old Sybil Ludington rode forty miles through the night to warn militiamen under the control of her father that British troops were planning to invade Danbury, Connecticut.
- 1946 – In Naperville, Illinois, US, two passenger trains collided, leaving 45 people dead and some 125 injured.
- 1986 – The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (pictured) 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.
- 2002 – Expelled student Robert Steinhäuser murdered 16 people and wounded seven others before committing suicide at the Gutenberg-Gymnasium Erfurt in Erfurt, Germany.