What are the important events that happened on April 26? Here are historical events, facts, and some myths about this day.
April 26: Facts & Myths About This Day
April 26 is the 117th day of the year 2024 in the Gregorian calendar. There are 249 days remaining until the end of this year. The day of the week is Friday.
Under the Julian calendar, this day is April 13, 2024 – a Friday. Both day of the week are the same but did you notice the difference with the Gregorian calendar?
When this day started, 1,714,089,600 seconds has elapsed since midnight of January 1, 1970 – the Unix epoch.
Strange as it may, if we name this day after a polygon then it will be called ‘hectadecaheptagon’ day.
Taurus is the zodiac sign of a person born on this day. Diamond is the modern birthstone for this month. Opal is the mystical birthstone from Tibetan origin that dates back over a thousand years.
According to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, there are 278 days remaining before the start of the next Chinese New Year.
The ancient Maya civilization believes that the end of the world will happen on December 21, 2012. There are now 4,144 days since this fabled cataclysmic event.
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April 26 Historical Events
- 1607 –English colonists make landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia.
- 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, as part of a reconciliary gesture with the factions of the Ancien Regime and to eventually consolidate his own rule.
- 1803 –Thousands of meteor fragments fall from the skies of L'Aigle, France; the event convinces European science that meteors exist.
- 1926 –Spanish tonadilla singer Raquel Meller appears on the cover of Time magazine.
- 1956 –First container ship left Port Newark, New Jersey for Houston, Texas.
- 1960 –Forced out by the April Revolution, President of South Korea Syngman Rhee resigns after twelve years of dictatorial rule.
- 1965 –A Rolling Stones concert in London, Ontario is shut down by police after 15 minutes due to rioting.
- 1986 –A nuclear reactor accident occurs at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Soviet Union (now Ukraine), creating the world’s worst nuclear disaster.
- 1989 –The deadliest tornado in world history strikes Central Bangladesh, killing upwards of 1,300, injuring 12,000, and leaving as many as 80,000 homeless.
- 1994 –China Airlines flight 140 crashes at Nagoya Airport in Japan, killing 264 of the 271 people on board.
Who were born on April 26?
- 1648 –King Peter II of Portugal (d. 1706)
- 1826 –Ambrose R. Wright, American Civil War General (d. 1872)
- 1912 –A. E. van Vogt, Canadian writer (d. 2000)
- 1916 –Morris West, Australian writer (d. 1999)
- 1916 –Vic Perrin, American actor (d. 1989)
- 1944 –Amien Rais, Indonesian politician
- 1955 –Mike Scott, American baseball player
- 1959 –John Corabi, American musician
- 1967 –Glenn Jacobs, American professional wrestler
- 1971 –Jay DeMarcus, American bassist (Rascal Flatts)
Who died on April 26?
- 1444 –Robert Campin, Flemish painter (b. 1378)
- 1865 –John Wilkes Booth, American assassin (b. 1838)
- 1881 –Ludwig Freiherr von und zu der Tann-Rathsamhausen, German general (b. 1815)
- 1932 –William Lockwood, British cricketer (b. 1868)
- 1940 –Carl Bosch, German chemist, Nobel laureate (b. 1874)
- 1945 –Pavlo Skoropadsky, Ukrainian politician and general (b. 1871)
- 1972 –Fernando Amorsolo, Filipino painter (b. 1892)
- 1987 –John Ernest Silkin, British politician (b. 1923)
- 1994 –Masutatsu Oyama, Founder of Japanese Kyokushin Karate (b. 1927)
- 2005 –Mason Adams, American actor (b. 1919)
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