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 116^th day of the year 2025 in the Gregorian calendar. There are 249 days remaining until the end of this year. The day of the week is Saturday.

Under the Julian calendar, this day is April 13, 2025 – a Saturday. Both day of the week are the same but did you notice the difference with the Gregorian calendar?

When this day started, 1,745,625,600 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 ‘hectadecahexagon’ 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 297 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 4,509 days since this fabled cataclysmic event.

April 26 Historical Events

• 1607 –
  English colonists make landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia.
• 1803 –
  Thousands of meteor fragments fall from the skies of L'Aigle, France; the event convinces European science that meteors exist.
• 1865 –
  American Civil War: Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston surrenders his army to General William Tecumseh Sherman at the Bennett Place near Durham, North Carolina. Also the date of Confederate Memorial Day for most states.
• 1937 –
  Spanish Civil War: Guernica (or Gernika in Basque), Spain is bombed by German Luftwaffe.
• 1954 –
  The Geneva Conference, an effort to restore peace in Indochina and Korea, begins.
• 1966 –
  A new government is formed in the Republic of Congo, led by Ambroise Noumazalaye.
• 1981 –
  Dr. Michael R. Harrison of the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center performs the world’s first human open fetal surgery.
• 1982 –
  57 people are killed by former police officer Woo Bum-kon in a shooting spree in Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea.
• 1989 –
  People’s Daily publishes the People’s Daily editorial of April 26 which inflames the nascent Tiananmen Square protests
• 1991 –
  Seventy tornadoes break out in the central United States. Before the outbreak’s end, Andover, Kansas, would record the year’s only F5 tornado (see Andover, Kansas Tornado Outbreak).

Who were born on April 26?

• 1898 –
  John Grierson, British filmmaker (d. 1972)
• 1900 –
  Hack Wilson, American baseball player (d. 1948)
• 1916 –
  Morris West, Australian writer (d. 1999)
• 1954 –
  Alan Hinkes, British mountaineer
• 1958 –
  Jeffrey Guterman, American mental health counselor
• 1961 –
  Joan Chen, Chinese-born actress
• 1963 –
  Colin Scotts, Australian-born American football player
• 1974 –
  Adil Ray, British radio presenter (BBC Asian Network)
• 1981 –
  Ms. Dynamite, British musician
• 1991 –
  Ignacio Lores Varela, Uruguayan footballer

Who died on April 26?

• 1478 –
  Giuliano di Piero de' Medici, ruler of Florence (assassinated) (b. 1453)
• 1489 –
  Ashikaga Yoshihisa, Japanese shogun (b. 1465)
• 1852 –
  Charles Athanase Walckenaer, French naturalist (b. 25 December 1771)
• 1944 –
  Violette Morris, French athlete (b. 1893)
• 1946 –
  Jim White, discoverer of Carlsbad Caverns (b. 1882)
• 1968 –
  John Heartfield, German artist (b. 1891)
• 1970 –
  Erik Bergman, Lutheran pastor (b. 1886)
• 1980 –
  Cicely Courtneidge, British actress and comedian (b. 1893)
• 1999 –
  Jill Dando, British television presenter (b. 1961)
• 2007 –
  Jack Valenti, American political advisor and film executive (b. 1921)