What happened on 26 April?

14 events from the Ever-When timeline, ranked by how much they mattered.

1. 1986 Chernobyl disaster Reactor 4 explodes at Chernobyl; worst civilian nuclear accident in history; corrodes Soviet legitimacy.
2. 1564 Born: William Shakespeare English playwright and poet; defining figure of English literature.
3. 1954 Seven Samurai Akira Kurosawa's epic of villagers hiring rōnin to defend them against bandits.
4. 1986 The safety test that destroyed Reactor 4 At 1:23 a.m., a botched turbine test on a reactor with a hidden design flaw ends in two explosions that blow the thousand-tonne lid off Reactor 4 and set its graphite core burning
5. 1937 Bombing of Guernica Nazi Condor Legion bombs Basque town of Guernica; subject of Picasso's famous painting; symbol of total war on civilians.
6. 1925 Kafka's The Trial published posthumously Novel of bureaucratic nightmare; gives us 'Kafkaesque'.
7. 1986 The first responders take fatal doses Firemen fight the roof fires within minutes, kicking chunks of graphite reactor core aside without being told what they are; plant workers wade through radioactive water hunting va
8. 1915 Treaty of London (1915) Secret pact promising Italy Habsburg territory in exchange for joining the Entente.
9. 1289 Fall of Tripoli (1289) Mamluk Sultan Qalawun takes Tripoli; the County of Tripoli, last crusader state on the mainland besides the Kingdom of Jerusalem, is destroyed.
10. 1895 Trial of Oscar Wilde Wilde sues for libel, loses, is then prosecuted for gross indecency and sentenced to two years' hard labour; case shapes attitudes for decades.
11. 1798 Born: Eugène Delacroix Leading French Romantic painter of Liberty Leading the People.
12. 1889 Born: Ludwig Wittgenstein The most influential philosopher of the 20th century, who twice transformed the study of language and logic.
13. 1925 Hindenburg becomes President Old field marshal Hindenburg elected President of Germany; symbolically restores imperial-era authority.
14. 2019 Avengers: Endgame released Conclusion of the Marvel Infinity Saga; among the highest-grossing films ever.