Updated April 25, 2012, 2:28 pm
On April 26, 1986, the world’s worst nuclear accident occurred at the Chernobyl plant in the Soviet Union. An explosion and fire in the No. 4 reactor sent radioactivity into the atmosphere; at least 31 Soviets died immediately.
Go to article »On April 26, 1914, Bernard Malamud, the Pulitzer Prize-winning American author, was born. Following his death on March 18, 1986, his obituary appeared in The Times.
Go to obituary » | Other birthdays »
On This Date
By The Associated Press
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.) 1785 Naturalist and artist John James Audubon was born in Haiti. 1865 John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, was surrounded and killed by federal troops near Bowling Green, Va. 1937 Planes from Nazi Germany raided the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. 1945 Marshal Henri Philippe Petain, the head of France’s Vichy government during World War II, was arrested. 1964 The African nations of Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged to form Tanzania. 1989 Actress-comedian Lucille Ball died at age 77. 1998 Auxiliary Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera, a leading Guatemalan human rights activist, was bludgeoned to death two days after a report he’d 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.) Current Birthdays
By The Associated Press
Actress-comedian Carol Burnett turns 79 years old today.
AP Photo/Vince Bucci
Actor Jet Li turns 49 years old today.
AP Photo/Andrew Medichini
1938 Duane Eddy, Rock musician, turns 74 1942 Bobby Rydell, Singer, turns 70 1960 Roger Taylor, Rock musician (Duran Duran), turns 52 1961 Joan Chen, Actress, turns 51 1967 Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Actress (“Without a Trace”), turns 45 1971 Jay DeMarcus, Country musician (Rascal Flats), turns 41 1980 Jordana Brewster, Actress, turns 32 1980 Marnette Patterson, Actress, turns 32 1980 Channing Tatum, Actor, turns 32
Historic Birthdays
Bernard Malamud 4/26/1914 – 3/18/1986 American novelist and short-story writer.Go to obituary »
66 John James Audubon 4/26/1785 – 1/27/1851
West Indian-born American ornithologist, artist and naturalist71 Friedrich Flotow 4/26/1812 – 1/24/1883
German-born French composer75 Alfred Krupp 4/26/1812 – 7/14/1887
German industrialist; developed and sold armaments81 Frederick Law Olmsted 4/26/1822 – 8/28/1903
American landscape architect; designed Central Park in New York City72 Harold Rothermere 4/26/1868 – 11/26/1940
English newspaperman; built a journalistic empire in England53 Ma Rainey 4/26/1886 – 12/22/1939
American singer; known as “the mother of the blues”62 Ludwig Wittgenstein 4/26/1889 – 4/29/1951
Austrian-born English philosopher92 Anita Loos 4/26/1889 – 8/18/1981
American novelist and Hollywood screenwriter89 Cass Canfield 4/26/1897 – 3/27/1986
American publisher and editor83 Morris West 4/26/1916 – 10/9/1999
Australian novelist
