Today in history

April 26

1937
Nazis Test Luftwaffe on Basque Town of Guernica
1961
Actress Vanessa Redgrave is among 826 British anti-nuclear protesters arrested during a London sit-down.
1966
Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales founded the Crusade for Justice, a Chicano activist group, in Denver, Colorado and marked his departure from the Democratic party and the beginning of a Nationalist strategy for the attainment of Chicano civil rights.

Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales

1968
A national student strike against the Vietnam war enlisted as many as one million high school & college students across the U.S.
1986
A major accident occured at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine. The radiation cloud killed at least 31 immediately and 40,000 were evacuated.The explosion at Chernobyl was undoubtedly the world’s greatest nuclear accident. While only about 3% of the reactor core escaped,it was enough to kill those near it, and damage food and crops worldwide. Much of Eastern Europe and Scandanavia was irradiated. Subsequent deaths and illnesses from radiation exposure continue to this day.

1994
South Africa held its first multiracial elections and chose anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela to head a new coalition government that included his African National Congress Party.

Nelson Mandela

1998
Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera, a leading human rights activist in Guatemala, was bludgeoned to death two days after a report he had compiled was made public. The report blamed the U.S. backed Guatemalan military governments for atrocities committed during Guatemala’s 36-year civil war.

Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera
In 2001 three military officers were convicted of the murder