This Day in History

[Gravdigr]

Today is April 26.

Many of the southern states in the U.S. celebrate Confederate Memorial Day today, commemorating the ~258,000 members of the Confederate States Army, Navy, Marines, and militia who died in combat during the Civil War.

Today is also Hug A Friend Day, so, hug somebody, dammit! Here's how.

As well, today is World Intellectual Property Day.

Russia, and Belarus, commemorate the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster with Memorial Day of Radiation Accidents and Catastrophes, and Day of Remembrance of the Chernobyl Tragedy, respectively.

Today is the Feast Day of Aldobrandesca. But don't say that word aloud. I did, and my coffee table disappeared.


Events

1777 – Legend tells that Sybil Ludington, aged 16, rode 40 miles to alert American colonial forces to the approach of the British regular forces.

1803 – Thousands of meteor fragments fall from the skies of L'Aigle, France; the event convinces European scientists that meteors exist. Yeah, if something's there, it pretty much exists, alright.

1865 – Union cavalry troopers corner and shoot dead John Wilkes Booth, assassin of President Lincoln, in Virginia.

1956 – SS Ideal X, the world's first successful container ship,



leaves Port Newark, New Jersey for Houston, Texas.

1958 – Final run of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Royal Blue



from Washington, D.C., to New York City after 68 years, the first U.S. passenger train to use electric locomotives.

1981 – Dr. Michael R. Harrison of the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center performs the world's first human open fetal surgery.

1982 - Out on a day's shopping, Rod Stewart was robbed by a gunman of his $50,000 Porsche on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles.

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.

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.

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.

2013 - US country singer George Jones who had a string of number one songs between the 1950s and 1990s, died aged 81. Nicknamed 'Possum', his signature song was He Stopped Loving Her Today, a track about love and death.



121 – Marcus Aurelius, 1785 – John James Audubon, 1822 – Frederick Law Olmsted, 1889 – Anita Loos, 1898 – Eddie Eagan, 1917 – I. M. Pei, 1927 - Grandmadigr The Younger, 1933 – Carol Burnett, 1938 – Duane Eddy♪ ♫, 1940 - Uncledigr The Elder, 1942 – Bobby Rydell♪ ♫, 1943 – Gary Wright, 1960 – Roger Taylor(Duran Duran), 1961 – Joan Chen, 1963 – Jet Li, 1965 – Kevin James, 1970 – Melania Trump (47th FLOTUS), 1970 – Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins♪ ♫(TLC), 1978 – Stana Katic (Castle), 1980 – Jordana Brewster (Fast & Furious), 1983 – Jessica Lynch



1865 – John Wilkes Booth, 1956 – Edward Arnold, 1970 – Gypsy Rose Lee, 1981 – Jim Davis (Dallas), 1984 – Count Basie, 1986 – Broderick Crawford, 1989 – Lucille Ball, 1991 – A. B. Guthrie, Jr., 2013 - George Jones, 2015 – Jayne Meadows