EVENTS:
- 1667 – The blind and impoverished John Milton sells the copyright of Paradise Lost for £10.
- 1840 – Foundation stone for new Palace of Westminster, London, is laid by wife of Sir Charles Barry.
- 1861 – American President Abraham Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus.
- 1967 – Expo 67 officially opens in Montreal, Canada with a large opening ceremony broadcast around the world. It opens to the public the next day.
- 1981 – Xerox PARC introduces the computer mouse.
- 1986 – The city of Pripyat as well as the surrounding areas are evacuated due to Chernobyl disaster.
- 1992 – Betty Boothroyd becomes the first woman to be elected Speaker of the British House of Commons in its 700-year history.
- 2002 – The last successful telemetry from the NASA space probe Pioneer 10.
- 2006 – Construction begins on the Freedom Tower (later renamed One World Trade Center) in New York City.
- 2011 – The April 25–28 tornado outbreak devastates parts of the Southeastern United States, especially the states of Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and Tennessee. Two hundred five tornadoes touched down on April 27 alone, killing more than 300 and injuring hundreds more.
- 2018 – Panmunjom Declaration signed, declaring the end of the Korean conflict.
- 2024 – The worst day of the tornado outbreak sequence of April 25–28, 2024, with 42 tornadoes, including one confirmed EF4 tornado, and two confirmed EF3 tornadoes, which killed 4 people in total.
BIRTHS:
- 1791 – Samuel Morse, American painter and inventor, co-invented the Morse code (d. 1872)
- 1912 – Zohra Sehgal, Indian actress, dancer, and choreographer (d. 2014)
- 1955 – Eric Schmidt, American engineer and businessman
- 1976 – Faisal Saif, Indian director, screenwriter, and critic
- 1980 – Sybille Bammer, Austrian tennis player
- 1986 – Dinara Safina, Russian tennis player
- 1991 – Isaac Cuenca, Spanish footballer
HOLIDAYS and OBSERVANCES:
