Today In History
Today is Wednesday, April 26, the 116th day of 2017. There are 249 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
› 1977: According to a widely accepted account from the American Revolutionary War, 16-yearold Sybil Ludington, the eldest child of Col. Henry Ludington, a militia commander in Dutchess County, New York, rode her horse into the night to alert her father’s men of the approach of British regular troops who were sacking Danbury, Connecticut. (Ludington, sometimes referred to as “the female Paul Revere,” was said to have covered 40 miles, more than twice the distance of the Boston silversmith’s ride.)
ON THIS DATE
› 1607: English colonists went ashore at present-day Cape Henry, Virginia, on an expedition to establish the first permanent English settlement in the Western Hemisphere.
› 1972: The first Lockheed L-1011 TriStar went into commercial service with Eastern Airlines.
› 1986: An explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union) caused radioactive fallout to begin spewing into the atmosphere.
› 1994: Voting began in South Africa’s first allrace elections, resulting in victory for the African National Congress and the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as president.
› 2000: Vermont Gov. Howard Dean signed the nation’s first bill allowing same-sex couples to form civil unions.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
Architect I.M. Pei is 100. Movie composer Francis Lai is 85. Actress-comedian Carol Burnett is 84. Rock musician Gary Wright is 74. Actress Nancy Lenehan is 64. Actor Giancarlo Esposito is 59. Rock musician Roger Taylor (Duran Duran) is 57. Actress Joan Chen is 56. Rock musician Chris Mars is 56. Record company executive Jeff Huskins is 51. Former U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey is 51. Actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste is 50. Country musician Joe Caverlee (Yankee Grey) is 49. Rapper T-Boz (TLC) is 47. First lady Melania Trump is 47. Actress Shondrella Avery is 46. Country musician Jay DeMarcus (Rascal Flatts) is 46. Actor Pablo Schreiber is 39. Actress Stana Katic is 37. Actress Marnette Patterson is 37. Actor Channing Tatum is 37. Actress Emily Wickersham is 33. Actor Aaron Weeks is 31.