Timeline April 1926

Events in April 1926 9

• 1926 – 2011 Anne McCaffrey (1926-2011) Died 21 November 2011, aged 85 The American-born author was best known for the "Dragonriders of Pern" science fiction series and was the first woman to win a Hugo Award for fiction. She lived much of her later life in Ireland. She died at her home near Dublin.
• 1926 – 2014 Jack Brabham Black Jack Three-time World Champion and the only person to win the title in a car of his own construction.
• 1926 – 2014 Ian Paisley (1926-2014) Died 12 September 2014, aged 88 Ian Paisley, the firebrand Protestant preacher and politician who became Northern Ireland's first minister after decades opposing power-sharing with Irish nationalists, died in Belfast. He founded the Democratic Unionist Party and the Free Presbyterian Church. His late-career political partnership with former IRA commander Martin McGuinness surprised many observers.
• 1926 Violet Gibson attempts to assassinate Mussolini Irish aristocrat shoots and wounds the Italian dictator On 7 April 1926, Violet Gibson, an Irish noblewoman, shot Benito Mussolini in Rome, grazing his nose. She was overpowered by the crowd and later declared insane and deported to Britain rather than tried in Italy.
• 1926 – 2017 Hugh Hefner (1926-2017) Died 27 September 2017, aged 91 American publisher who founded Playboy magazine in 1953, building it into a global media and lifestyle brand that shaped and reflected American attitudes toward sex. He remained the magazine's editor-in-chief until his death. His Playboy Mansion became a cultural symbol of the brand.
• 1926 – 2021 Jane Withers (1926-2021) American child star of the 1930s, later Josephine the Plumber in TV commercials.
• 1926 Jane Withers born in Atlanta Jane Withers is born in Atlanta.
• 1926 – 2022 Elizabeth II The Platinum Queen The longest-reigning monarch in British history (70 years).
• 1926 – 2016 Harper Lee (1926-2016) Died 19 February 2016, aged 89 Lee was an American author best known for her 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird, which won the Pulitzer Prize and became a staple of school curricula worldwide. A long-awaited follow-up, Go Set a Watchman, was published in 2015. She rarely gave interviews after her early fame.