April 26

Today in History
• 1220 - German king Frederick II grants bishops sovereign rights
• 1392 - Korean Confucian scholar Jeong Mong-ju is assassinated on the Sonjuk Bridge
• 1467 - The miraculous image in Our Lady of Good Counsel appear in Genazzano, Italy
• 1514 - Copernicus makes his 1st observations of Saturn
• 1654 - Jews are expelled from Brazil
• 1677 - Emperor Leopold I forms University of Innsbruck
• 1755 - 1st Russian university opens in Moscow
• 1803 - Meteorites fall in L'Aigle, France


Holidays - Traditional and Obscure
• Alien Day
• Audubon Day
• International Guide Dog Day
• National No Makeup Day
• National Pretzel Day
• National South Dakota Day
• Secretaries' Day
• World Stationery Day

Birthdays
• 0121 - Marcus Aurelius, born in Rome, Emperor of Rome, 161 - 180
• 0570 - Muhammed, founder of Islam, according to the Shi'a sect
• 1319 - Jean II, the Good, king of France, 1350-64
• 1564 - William Shakespeare, Stratford-on-Avon England, playwright, Hamlet
• 1573 - Marie de' Medici, Queen of France
• 1648 - Pedro II, King of Portugal, 1683-1706
• 1718 - Esek Hopkins, U.S., 1st commander-in-chief, U.S. Navy
• 1785 - John James Audubon, Haiti, bird watcher/artist