April 26th Through History

Explanation: The Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which occurred on April 26, 1986 in the USSR (current Ukraine), remains the most serious civil nuclear accident in history. The explosion of reactor No. 4 contaminated a vast area and caused countless health consequences.

Explanation: The Pazzi conspiracy aimed to eliminate Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici during a mass at the Florence cathedral. Giuliano was killed with 19 stab wounds, but Lorenzo managed to escape. Lorenzo de' Medici, known as "the Magnificent", took revenge by having the conspirators executed, with Giuliano de' Pazzi hanged from a window of the Palazzo della Signoria.

Explanation: Game Freak was founded by Satoshi Tajiri and Ken Sugimori. Tajiri, an insect enthusiast in his childhood, was inspired by insect hunting to create the Pokémon concept. The first Pokémon Red and Blue game would not be released until 1996 in Japan, seven years after the company's creation.

Explanation: Albert, Duke of York, was not destined to reign because his older brother Edward VIII was the heir to the throne. It was the abdication of Edward VIII in 1936, to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson, that made Albert King George VI. Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon later became famous as the Queen Mother, who died in 2002 at the age of 101.

Explanation: Ludwig Wittgenstein is the author of two major works with radically different approaches: the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921), which defends a logical and pictorial vision of language, and the Philosophical Investigations (posthumous, 1953), which question this first vision. He is considered one of the most influential figures in 20th century analytical philosophy.

Explanation: Guernica, a Basque city in Spain, was bombed by the German Condor Legion and the Italian Aviazione Legionaria, supporting the Francoist forces during the Spanish Civil War. This event inspired the famous painting by Pablo Picasso, "Guernica", painted in 1937, which became a universal symbol against the barbarity of war.

Explanation: The Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei, secret state police) was founded by Hermann Göring in Nazi Prussia. It was then placed under the command of Heinrich Himmler and Heinrich Müller. The Gestapo was responsible for tracking down political opponents, Jews and anyone considered an enemy of the regime. It had about 32,000 agents to control 80 million Germans.

Explanation: Charles Richter developed in 1935, with Beno Gutenberg, the magnitude scale that bears his name to measure the energy released by earthquakes. The Richter scale is logarithmic: each additional degree corresponds to 31.6 times more energy released. It has since been complemented by the moment magnitude scale (Mw), more accurate for large earthquakes.

Explanation: The French Republican or Revolutionary calendar was in use from 1793 to 1806. It had 12 months of 30 days, each divided into three decades of 10 days. Each day bore the name of a plant, an animal or a tool. Floréal, the month of flowers, extended approximately from April to May in the Gregorian calendar, which explains why April 26 corresponded to the day of lily of the valley, well before the symbolic May 1.

Explanation: Paul von Hindenburg, military hero of World War I, was elected president of the Weimar Republic in 1925 at the age of 77. He is sadly famous for having appointed Adolf Hitler Chancellor of Germany in January 1933, thus opening the way to the Nazi dictatorship. Hindenburg died in August 1934, allowing Hitler to merge the functions of president and chancellor.