April 26.
570. The date of birth of Muhammed, founder of Islam. (at least according to the Shi'a sect). He, uhh, has had some minor impact on world events since then.
1865. Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston surrenders his army to Union General Tecumseh Sherman. Johnston commanded the last Confederate army of any size in the field. On this date, Union cavalry also corner and shoot John Wilkes Booth.
1933. The Gestapo is formed.
1956. The first container ship leaves Port Newark, New Jersey. A long road led to the standardization of container shipping, and "containerization" revolutionizes the logistics of shipping, allowing containers to move, unopened, from ship to truck to railroad on an international basis.
1986. Reactor Number 4 of the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl, Ukraine (then a member of the USSR) suffers a meltdown, and resulting fires send a plume of radioactive material over a large area. Large areas of the Ukraine, Belarus and Russia are affected forcing the evacuation of 366,000 people. The reactor was completely destroyed as a result of the accident, and has since been encased in a concrete and lead sarcophagus to prevent further radiation contamination. As of 2007, substantial cracks in the sarcophagus resulted in the announcement of a new sarcophagus being built at a cost of $1.4 billion.
After a further accident (at Plant 2) in 1991, calls for the shutdown of the Chernobyl plant were heightened, and the last plant went offline in 2000. As of today, however, people continue to work at the plant until they are completely decommissioned, a process which is expected to take years. The "exclusion zone" around the plant (an area within about 18 miles in all directions, or 1,100 square miles) remains uninhabitable. Good news, however -- the Ukraine Ministry of Atomic Power now allows day tours of the Chernobyl plant.
http://www.ukrainianweb.com/chernobyl_ukraine.htm
Or you can read this fascinating account from a fellow in Michigan who posted about his trip there in 2006.
http://nikongear.com/Chernobyl/Chernobyl_1.php