TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – APRIL 26
757 Paolo Orsini replaces his brother Pope Stephen II, as Paul I
1467 The miraculous image in Our Lady of Good Counsel appear in Genazzano, Italy
1478 Pazzi conspirators attack Lorenzo and kill Giuliano de’ Medici.
1514 Copernicus makes his first observations of Saturn.
1607 Colonists land at Cape Henry, Va., They would found Jamestown the next month.
1721 Smallpox vaccination 1st administrated
1777 Sybil Ludington, 16, rode from New York to Connecticut rallying her father’s militia
1859 Dan Sickles is acquitted of murder on grounds of temporary insanity – 1st time this defense used successfully in the US
1865 Confederate General J E Johnston surrenders Army of Tennessee, at Durham NC
1920 Harlow Shapley and Heber D. Curtis hold “great debate” on the nature of nebulae, galaxies and size of the universe at US National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C
1954 Mass trials of Jonas Salk’s anti-polio vaccine begin; the first shot is delivered in Fairfax County, Virginia; more than 443,000 children receive shots over three months
1964 Tanganyika and Zanzibar joined to form Tanzania.
1968 Students seize the administration building at Ohio State University.
1977 New York’s famed disco Studio 54 opens
1980 Iran begins scattering US hostages from the US Embassy
1981 Largest US bank robbery (Tucson AZ), more than $33 million stolen
1986 The world’s worst nuclear disaster to date occurred at Chernobyl, in Kiev. Thirty-one people died in the incident and thousands more were exposed to radioactive material.
1994 Germany makes Holocaust denial illegal
1994 Physicists announce first evidence of the top quark subatomic particle.
1998 Auxiliary Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera 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 Governor Howard Dean signed the nation’s first bill allowing same-sex couples to form civil unions.
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.
2012 Indonesia suspends imports of American beef after a confirmed case of mad cow disease in California
2018 Serial killer “Golden State Killer” identified after 40 years as a former police officer, responsible for 12 killings, 50 rapes in California
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
