Today In History
Today is Thursday, April 26, the 116th day of 2018. There are 249 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
› 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.
ON THIS DATE
› 1564: William Shakespeare was baptized at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, England.
› 1777: During the American Revolutionary War, 16-year-old Sybil Ludington, the daughter of 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.
› 1986: An explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine 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. China Airlines Flight 140, a Taiwanese Airbus A-300, crashed while landing in Nagoya, Japan, killing 264 people (there were seven survivors).
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
Architect I.M. Pei is 101. Movie composer Francis Lai is 86. Actress-comedian Carol Burnett is 85. Rhythm and blues singer Maurice Williams is 80. Songwriter-musician Duane Eddy is 80. Actor Giancarlo Esposito is 60. Rock musician Roger Taylor (Duran Duran) is 58. Actress Joan Chen is 57. Rock musician Chris Mars is
57. Actor-singer Michael Damian is 56. Actor Jet Li is 55. Rock musician Jimmy Stafford (Train) is
54. Actor-comedian Kevin James is 53. Record company executive Jeff Huskins is 52. First lady Melania Trump is 48. Actress Shondrella Avery is 47. Country musician Jay DeMarcus (Rascal Flatts) is 47. Country musician Michael Jeffers (Pinmonkey) is 46. Rock musician Jose Pasillas (Incubus) is 42. Actor Jason Earles is 41. Actor Leonard Earl Howze is 41. Actor Tom Welling is 41. Actor Pablo Schreiber is 40. Actress Marnette Patterson is 38. Actor Channing Tatum is
38. Americana/roots singer-songwriter Lilly Hiatt is 34. Actress Emily Wickersham is 34. Actor Aaron Weeks is 32. Electro pop musician James Sunderland (Frenship) is 31.