On This Day — 26 April

2025

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

2025 Vancouver car attack

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.

Nursultan Nazarbayev

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).

Cedar Revolution

2002

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

Erfurt school massacre

1999

Outbreak of CIH computer virus.

CIH (computer virus)

1994

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

China Airlines Flight 140

1994

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

South Africa

1993

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

Space Shuttle Columbia

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.

1991 Great Plains tornado outbreak

1989

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

Daulatpur–Saturia tornado

1989

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

People's Daily

1986

The Chernobyl disaster occurs in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

Chernobyl disaster

1981

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

Michael R. Harrison

1970

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

WIPO Convention

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 Tashkent earthquake

1966

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

Republic of the Congo

1964

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

Tanganyika (1961–1964)

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.

Libya

1962

NASA's Ranger 4 spacecraft crashes into the Moon.

NASA

1962

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

British space programme

1960

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

April Revolution

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.

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad

1956

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

SS Ideal X

1954

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

1954 Geneva Conference

1954

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

Jonas Salk

1945

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

Battle of Bautzen (1945)

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.

Baguio

1944

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

Georgios Papandreou

1944

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

World War II

1943

The Easter Riots break out in Uppsala, Sweden.

Easter Riots

1942

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

Benxihu Colliery

1937

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

Spanish Civil War

1933

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

Gestapo

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.

Paul von Hindenburg

1923

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

George VI

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.

Ice hockey

1916

Easter Rising: Battle of Mount Street Bridge.

Easter Rising

1915

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

World War I

1903

Atlético Madrid Association football club is founded.

Atlético Madrid

1900

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

1900 Hull–Ottawa fire

1865

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

Union (American Civil War)

1805

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

First Barbary War

1803

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

L'Aigle (meteorite)

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.

Napoleon

1794

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

Battle of Beaumont (1794)

1777

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

Sybil Ludington

1721

A massive earthquake devastates the Iranian city of Tabriz.

1721 Tabriz earthquake

1607

The Virginia Company colonists make landfall at Cape Henry.

Virginia Company

1564

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

William Shakespeare

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.

Pazzi

1336

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) ascends Mont Ventoux.

Petrarch

1326

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

Kingdom of France

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.

Fall of Tripoli (1289)