April 26

Tuesday 26, 2005:

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.

Friday 26, 2002:

19-year-old Robert Steinhäuser shoots and kills 17 people at his school in Erfurt, Germany.

Tuesday 26, 1994:

A China Airlines Airbus A-300-600R crashes at Nagoya Airport, Japan killing 264.

Friday 26, 1991:

Seventy tornadoes break out in the central United States. Before its end, Andover, Kansas would record the year's only F5 tornado (see The Andover, Kansas Tornado).

Saturday 26, 1986:

In Ukraine, a nuclear reactor at the Chornobyl (Chernobyl) nuclear plant explodes, creating the world's worst nuclear disaster.

Sunday 26, 1964:

Tanganyika and Zanzibar merge to form Tanzania.

Thursday 26, 1962:

NASA's Ranger 4 spacecraft crashes into the Moon.

Monday 26, 1954:

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

Friday 26, 1946:

Father Divine, a controversial religious leader who claims to be God, marries the much-younger Edna Rose Ritchings, a celebrated anniversary in the International Peace Mission movement.

Sunday 26, 1942:

The worst-ever mining accident in history kills 1,549 miners in an explosion at the Honkeiko Colliery, Manchuria.

Monday 26, 1937:

Spanish Civil War: Guernica, Spain is bombed by German Luftwaffe.

Wednesday 26, 1933:

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

Sunday 26, 1925:

Paul von Hindenburg defeats Wilhelm Marx in the second round of the German presidential election to become the first directly elected Reichspräsident, the head of state of the Weimar Republic.

Wednesday 26, 1865:

Union cavalry troopers corner John Wilkes Booth, President Lincoln's assassin, in a barn in Virginia. Booth is shot dead by cavalryman Boston Corbett.

Thursday 26, 1607:

English colonists of the Jamestown settlement make landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia.

Friday 26, 1478:

The Pazzi attack Lorenzo de' Medici and kill his brother Giuliano during High Mass in the Florence Cathedral.

More on April, 26

• People Born on April, 26
• They left us on April, 26