By The Associated Press
                - Today is Monday, April 26, the 116th day of 1999. There are 249 days
                  left in the year.

                - On April 26, 1607, an expedition of English colonists, including
                  Capt. John Smith, went ashore in Virginia to establish the first
                  permanent English settlement in the Western Hemisphere.
                - In 1785, American naturalist and artist John James Audubon was born
                  in Haiti.
                - In 1865, John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Lincoln, was
                  surrounded by federal troops and killed.
                - In 1937, planes from Nazi Germany raided the Basque town of Guernica
                  during the Spanish Civil War.
                - In 1945, Marshal Henri Philippe Petain, the head of France's Vichy
                  government during World War II, was arrested.
                - In 1961, Roger Maris of the New York Yankees hit the first of a
                  record 61 home runs in a single season; the homer was off Detroit's
                  Paul Foytack at Tiger Stadium.
                - In 1964, the African nations of Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged to
                  form Tanzania.
                - In 1968, the U.S. exploded beneath the Nevada desert a one-megaton
                  nuclear device called Boxcar.
                - In 1970, the Broadway musical "Company" opened at the Alvin Theatre
                  in New York.
                - In 1980, following an unsuccessful attempt by the U.S. to rescue the
                  U.S. Embassy hostages in Iran, the Tehran government announced the
                  captives were being scattered to thwart any future rescue effort.
                - In 1986, the world's worst nuclear accident occurred at the
                  Chernobyl plant in the Soviet Union. An explosion and fire killed at
                  least 31 people and sent radioactivity into the atmosphere.
                - Ten years ago: Actress-comedian Lucille Ball died at Cedars-Sinai
                  Medical Center in Los Angeles at age 77.
                - Five years ago: Voting began in South Africa's first all-race
                  elections. A Taiwanese jetliner crashed in Nagoya, Japan, killing
                  264 people. Rachelle "Shelley" Shannon, who admitted shooting and
                  wounding an abortion provider outside his clinic, was sentenced in
                  Wichita, Kan., to nearly 11 years in prison.
                - One year ago: Auxiliary Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera, a leading
                  human rights activist in Guatemala, was bludgeoned to death two days
                  after a report he'd compiled on atrocities during Guatemala's
                  36-year civil war was made public.

                *Happy Birthday*
                - Actress-comedian Carol Burnett is 66.
                - Rhythm-and-blues singer Maurice Williams is 61.
                - Songwriter-musician Duane Eddy is 61.
                - Singer Bobby Rydell is 57.
                - Actress Claudine Auger ("Thunderball") is 57.
                - Rock musician Gary Wright is 56.
                - Actor Giancarlo Esposito is 41.
                - Rock musician Roger Taylor (Duran Duran) is 39.
                - Rock musician Chris Mars is 38.
                - Actor-singer Michael Damian ("The Young and the Restless") is 37.
                - Actor-comedian Kevin James ("King of Queens") is 34.
                - Rapper T-Boz (TLC) is 29.