April 26
1607 - An expedition of English colonists went ashore at Cape Henry, Va., to establish the first permanent English settlement in the Western Hemisphere. (They later settled at Jamestown.)
1865 - John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, was surrounded by federal troops in a barn in Virginia where he was shot and killed.
1913 - Mary Phagan, a 13-year-old worker at a Georgia pencil factory, was strangled; Leo Frank, the factory superintendent, was convicted of her murder and sentenced to death. (Frank’s death sentence was commuted, but he was lynched by an anti-Semitic mob in 1915.)
1933 - Nazi Germany’s infamous secret police, the Gestapo, was created.
1937 - The German Luftwaffe destroyed the Spanish town of Guernica.
1945 - Marshal Henri Philippe Petain, the head of France's Vichy government during World War II, was arrested.
1964 - Tanganyika and Zanzibar joined to form the nation of Tanzania.
1968 - The United States exploded beneath the Nevada desert a 1.3 megaton nuclear device called “Boxcar.”
1977 - The legendary nightclub Studio 54 had its opening night in New York.
1986 - The worst nuclear power plant accident in history occurred at Chernobyl, near Kiev in the Soviet Union. (Dozens of people were killed in the immediate aftermath of the disaster while the long-term death toll from radiation poisoning is believed to number in the thousands.)
1989 - Actress-comedian Lucille Ball died at age 77.
1994 - Voting began in South Africa’s first all-race elections, resulting in victory for the African National Congress and the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as president.
1998 - Auxiliary Bishop John Gerardi Conedera, a leading Guatemalan human rights activist, was bludgeoned to death two days after a report he had compiled on atrocities during Guatemala's 36-year civil war was made public.
2000 - Vermont Gov. Howard Dean signed the nation's first bill allowing same-sex couples to form civil unions.
2005 - Syria's 29-year military presence in Lebanon ended as Syrian soldiers completed a withdrawal brought about by international pressure and Lebanese street protests.
2008 - Police in Austria arrested a man accused of holding his daughter captive in a windowless cellar for 24 years, fathering her seven children and killing one of them. (Josef Fritzl is serving life in a psychiatric ward.)
2009 - The United States declared a public health emergency as more possible cases of swine flu surfaced from Canada to New Zealand; officials in Mexico City closed everything from concerts to sports matches to churches in an effort to stem the spread of the virus.
2012 - Former Liberian President Charles Taylor became the first head of state since World War II to be convicted by an international war crimes court as he was found guilty of arming Sierra Leone rebels in exchange for “blood diamonds” mined by slave laborers and smuggled across the border. (Taylor was sentenced to 50 years in prison.)
2017 - NASA’s Cassini spacecraft survived an unprecedented trip between Saturn and its rings, sending back amazing pictures to show for it.
2018 - Comedian Bill Cosby was convicted of drugging and molesting Temple University employee Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia mansion in 2004. (Cosby was later sentenced to three to 10 years in prison, but Pennsylvania’s highest court threw out the conviction and released him from prison in June 2021, ruling that the prosecutor in the case was bound by his predecessor’s agreement not to charge Cosby.)
2021 - The Census Bureau said U.S. population growth had slowed to its lowest rate since the Great Depression; Americans continued their march to the South and West, as Texas and Florida added enough population to gain congressional seats while New York and Ohio saw slow growth and lost political muscle.
2021 - Apple rolled out a new privacy feature, following through on its pledge to crack down on Facebook and other snoopy apps that secretly shadowed people on their iPhones in order to target more advertising at users.
Birthdays
23 - Keara Graves (actress)
30 - Aaron Judge (baseball player)
32 - Riley Voelkel (actress)
36 - Aaron Meeks (actor)
38 - Emily Wickersham (actress)
38 - Lilly Hiatt (singer)
42 - Channing Tatum (actor)
42 - Marnette Patterson (actress)
42 - Stana Katic (actor)
42 - Jordana Brewster (actress)
43 - Nyambi Nyambi (actor)
44 - Pablo Schreiber (actor)
45 - Tom Welling (actor)
45 - Amin Joseph (actor)
45 - Leonard Earl Howze (actor)
45 - Jason Earles (actor)
51 - Simbi Kali (actress)
51 - Shondrella Avery (actress)
52 - Melania Trump (wife of President Donald Trump)
52 - T-Boz (rapper)
55 - Glen "Kane" Jacobs (professional wrestler)
55 - Marianne Jean-Baptiste (actress)
57 - Kevin James (actor/comedian)
59 - Jet Li (actor)
60 - Michael Damian (actor/singer)
61 - Joan Chen (actress)
69 - Nancy Lenehan (actress)
84 - Maurice Williams (singer)
89 - Carol Burnett (actress/comedian)
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Today in Sports History - April 26
1941 - An organ was played at a baseball stadium for the first time in Chicago.
1952 - Patty Berg set a new record for major women's golf competition when she shot a 64 over 18 holes in a tournament in Richmond, California.
1964 - The Boston Celtics won their sixth consecutive NBA championship after defeating the San Francisco Warriors in five games.
1966 - Red Auerbach announced his retirement as coach of the Boston Celtics.
1983 - The Baltimore Colts select Stanford quarterback John Elway with the first pick in the NFL Draft; Elway is then immediately traded to the Denver Broncos.
1988 - The NBA approved the addition of a third referee for the 1988-89 season.
1990 - Nolan Ryan ties Bob Feller's major league record with the 12th one-hitter of his career.
1992 - The Indianapolis Colts select Washington defensive end Steve Emtman with the first pick in the NFL Draft.
1997 - Mario Lemieux (Pittsburgh Penguins) played what was billed as his last NHL game. He later came out of retirement to play for the Penguins as an owner/player.
2003 - The Cincinnati Bengals select USC quarterback Carson Palmer with the first pick in the NFL Draft.
2008 - The Miami Dolphins select Michigan offensive tackle Jake Long with the first pick in the NFL Draft.
2012 - The Indianapolis Colts select Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck with the first pick in the NFL Draft.
2018 - The Cleveland Browns select Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield with the first pick in the NFL Draft; a record four quarterbacks are taken in the top 10 selections, a first in Draft history.
1607 - An expedition of English colonists went ashore at Cape Henry, Va., to establish the first permanent English settlement in the Western Hemisphere. (They later settled at Jamestown.)
1865 - John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, was surrounded by federal troops in a barn in Virginia where he was shot and killed.
1913 - Mary Phagan, a 13-year-old worker at a Georgia pencil factory, was strangled; Leo Frank, the factory superintendent, was convicted of her murder and sentenced to death. (Frank’s death sentence was commuted, but he was lynched by an anti-Semitic mob in 1915.)
1933 - Nazi Germany’s infamous secret police, the Gestapo, was created.
1937 - The German Luftwaffe destroyed the Spanish town of Guernica.
1945 - Marshal Henri Philippe Petain, the head of France's Vichy government during World War II, was arrested.
1964 - Tanganyika and Zanzibar joined to form the nation of Tanzania.
1968 - The United States exploded beneath the Nevada desert a 1.3 megaton nuclear device called “Boxcar.”
1977 - The legendary nightclub Studio 54 had its opening night in New York.
1986 - The worst nuclear power plant accident in history occurred at Chernobyl, near Kiev in the Soviet Union. (Dozens of people were killed in the immediate aftermath of the disaster while the long-term death toll from radiation poisoning is believed to number in the thousands.)
1989 - Actress-comedian Lucille Ball died at age 77.
1994 - Voting began in South Africa’s first all-race elections, resulting in victory for the African National Congress and the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as president.
1998 - Auxiliary Bishop John Gerardi Conedera, a leading Guatemalan human rights activist, was bludgeoned to death two days after a report he had compiled on atrocities during Guatemala's 36-year civil war was made public.
2000 - Vermont Gov. Howard Dean signed the nation's first bill allowing same-sex couples to form civil unions.
2005 - Syria's 29-year military presence in Lebanon ended as Syrian soldiers completed a withdrawal brought about by international pressure and Lebanese street protests.
2008 - Police in Austria arrested a man accused of holding his daughter captive in a windowless cellar for 24 years, fathering her seven children and killing one of them. (Josef Fritzl is serving life in a psychiatric ward.)
2009 - The United States declared a public health emergency as more possible cases of swine flu surfaced from Canada to New Zealand; officials in Mexico City closed everything from concerts to sports matches to churches in an effort to stem the spread of the virus.
2012 - Former Liberian President Charles Taylor became the first head of state since World War II to be convicted by an international war crimes court as he was found guilty of arming Sierra Leone rebels in exchange for “blood diamonds” mined by slave laborers and smuggled across the border. (Taylor was sentenced to 50 years in prison.)
2017 - NASA’s Cassini spacecraft survived an unprecedented trip between Saturn and its rings, sending back amazing pictures to show for it.
2018 - Comedian Bill Cosby was convicted of drugging and molesting Temple University employee Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia mansion in 2004. (Cosby was later sentenced to three to 10 years in prison, but Pennsylvania’s highest court threw out the conviction and released him from prison in June 2021, ruling that the prosecutor in the case was bound by his predecessor’s agreement not to charge Cosby.)
2021 - The Census Bureau said U.S. population growth had slowed to its lowest rate since the Great Depression; Americans continued their march to the South and West, as Texas and Florida added enough population to gain congressional seats while New York and Ohio saw slow growth and lost political muscle.
2021 - Apple rolled out a new privacy feature, following through on its pledge to crack down on Facebook and other snoopy apps that secretly shadowed people on their iPhones in order to target more advertising at users.
Birthdays
23 - Keara Graves (actress)
30 - Aaron Judge (baseball player)
32 - Riley Voelkel (actress)
36 - Aaron Meeks (actor)
38 - Emily Wickersham (actress)
38 - Lilly Hiatt (singer)
42 - Channing Tatum (actor)
42 - Marnette Patterson (actress)
42 - Stana Katic (actor)
42 - Jordana Brewster (actress)
43 - Nyambi Nyambi (actor)
44 - Pablo Schreiber (actor)
45 - Tom Welling (actor)
45 - Amin Joseph (actor)
45 - Leonard Earl Howze (actor)
45 - Jason Earles (actor)
51 - Simbi Kali (actress)
51 - Shondrella Avery (actress)
52 - Melania Trump (wife of President Donald Trump)
52 - T-Boz (rapper)
55 - Glen "Kane" Jacobs (professional wrestler)
55 - Marianne Jean-Baptiste (actress)
57 - Kevin James (actor/comedian)
59 - Jet Li (actor)
60 - Michael Damian (actor/singer)
61 - Joan Chen (actress)
69 - Nancy Lenehan (actress)
84 - Maurice Williams (singer)
89 - Carol Burnett (actress/comedian)
=======================================
Today in Sports History - April 26
1941 - An organ was played at a baseball stadium for the first time in Chicago.
1952 - Patty Berg set a new record for major women's golf competition when she shot a 64 over 18 holes in a tournament in Richmond, California.
1964 - The Boston Celtics won their sixth consecutive NBA championship after defeating the San Francisco Warriors in five games.
1966 - Red Auerbach announced his retirement as coach of the Boston Celtics.
1983 - The Baltimore Colts select Stanford quarterback John Elway with the first pick in the NFL Draft; Elway is then immediately traded to the Denver Broncos.
1988 - The NBA approved the addition of a third referee for the 1988-89 season.
1990 - Nolan Ryan ties Bob Feller's major league record with the 12th one-hitter of his career.
1992 - The Indianapolis Colts select Washington defensive end Steve Emtman with the first pick in the NFL Draft.
1997 - Mario Lemieux (Pittsburgh Penguins) played what was billed as his last NHL game. He later came out of retirement to play for the Penguins as an owner/player.
2003 - The Cincinnati Bengals select USC quarterback Carson Palmer with the first pick in the NFL Draft.
2008 - The Miami Dolphins select Michigan offensive tackle Jake Long with the first pick in the NFL Draft.
2012 - The Indianapolis Colts select Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck with the first pick in the NFL Draft.
2018 - The Cleveland Browns select Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield with the first pick in the NFL Draft; a record four quarterbacks are taken in the top 10 selections, a first in Draft history.
