Today is Monday, April 26, the 116th day of 2010. There are 249 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
On April 26, 1785, American naturalist, hunter and artist John James Audubon was born in present-day Haiti.
ON THIS DATE
In 1607, English colonists went ashore at present-day Cape Henry, Va., on an expedition to establish the first permanent English settlement in the Western Hemisphere.
In 1865, John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, was surrounded by federal troops near Bowling Green, Va., and killed.
In 1909, Abdul Hamid II was deposed as sultan of the Ottoman Empire.
In 1937, planes from Nazi Germany raided the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.
In 1945, Marshal Henri Philippe Petain, the head of France’s Vichy government during World War II, was arrested.
In 1964, the African nations of Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged to form Tanzania.
In 1968, the United States exploded beneath the Nevada desert a 1.3 megaton nuclear device called “Boxcar.”
In 1970, the Stephen Sondheim-George Furth musical “Company” opened at the Alvin Theatre in New York.
In 1980, following an unsuccessful attempt by the United States to rescue the U.S. Embassy hostages in Iran, the Tehran government announced the captives were being scattered to thwart any future rescue effort.
In 1986, the world’s worst nuclear accident occurred at the Chernobyl plant in the Soviet Union.
In 2000, Vermont Gov. Howard Dean signed the nation’s first bill allowing same-sex couples to form civil unions.
In 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.
Associated Press
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