TODAY IN HISTORY
Today’s highlight:
On April 26, 1986, an explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine caused radioactive fallout to begin spewing into the atmo- sphere. (Dozens of people were killed in the immedi- ate aftermath of the disaster while the long-term death toll from radiation poisoning is believed to number in the thousands.)
On this date:
In 1607, English colonists went ashore at present-day Cape Henry, Virginia, on an expedition to establish the first permanent English settlement in the Western Hemi- sphere.
In 1865, John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, was surrounded by federal troops near Port Royal, Virginia, and killed.
In 1913, Mary Phagan, a 13-year-old worker at a Geor- gia pencil factory, was strangled; Leo Frank, the factory superintendent, was convicted of her murder and sentenced to death. (Frank’s death sentence was commuted, but he was lynched by an anti-Semitic mob in 1915.)
In 1933, Nazi Germany’s infamous secret police, the Gestapo, was created.
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 mega- ton nuclear device called “Boxcar.”
In 1984, bandleader Count Basie, 79, died in Hollywood, Florida.
In 1994, voting began in South Africa’s first all-race elections, resulting in victory for the African National Congress and the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as president.
In 2000, Vermont Gov. Howard Dean signed the nation’s first bill allowing same-sex couples to form civil unions.
In 2009, the United States declared a public health emergency as more possible cases of swine flu surfaced from Canada to New Zealand; officials in Mexico City closed everything from concerts to sports matches to churches in an effort to stem the spread of the virus.
In 2018, comedian Bill Cosby was convicted of drugging and molesting Temple University employee Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia mansion in 2004. (Cosby was later sentenced to three to 10 years in prison, but Pennsylvania’s highest court threw out the conviction and released him from prison in June 2021, ruling that the prosecutor in the case was bound by his predecessor’s agreement not to charge Cosby.)
Ten years ago: Unable to ignore air travelers’ anger, Congress overwhelmingly approved legislation to allow the Federal Aviation Administration to withdraw furloughs of air traffic controllers caused by budget-wide cuts known as the sequester, ending a week of coastto-coast flight delays.