Soviet Socialist Republic. 1989 – The deadliest known tornado strikes Central Bangladesh, killing upwards of 1,300, injuring 12,000, and leaving as many as 80,000 homeless. 1989 – People's Daily publishes the April 26 Editorial which inflames the nascent Tiananmen Square protests. 1991 – Fifty-five tornadoes break out in the central United States. Before the outbreak's end, Andover, Kansas, would record the year's only F5 tornado. 1993 – The Space Shuttle Columbia is launched on mission STS-55 to conduct experiments aboard the Spacelab module. 1994 – China Airlines Flight 140 crashes at Nagoya Airport in Japan, killing 264 of the 271 people on board. 1994 – South Africa begins its first multiracial election, which is won by Nelson Mandela's African National Congress. 2002 – Robert Steinhäuser kills 16 at Gutenberg-Gymnasium in Erfurt, Germany before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot. 2005 – Cedar Revolution: Under international pressure, Syria withdraws the last of its 14,000 troop military garrison in Lebanon, ending its 29-year military domination of that country (Syrian occupation of Lebanon). 2015 – Nursultan Nazarbayev is re-elected President of Kazakhstan with 97.7% of the vote. 2018 – American comedian Bill Cosby is convicted of sexual assault. 2019 – Marvel Studios' blockbuster film, Avengers: Endgame, is released, becoming the highest-grossing film of all time, surpassing the previous box office record of Avatar. Births Pre-1600 121 – Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor (d. 180) 757 – Hisham I of Córdoba (d. 796) 764 – Al-Hadi, Iranian caliph (d. 786) 1284 – Alice de Toeni, Countess of Warwick (d. 1324) 1319 – King John II of France (d. 1364) 1538 – Gian Paolo Lomazzo, Italian painter and academic (d. 1600) 1575 – Marie de' Medici, queen of Henry IV of France (d. 1642) 1601–1900 1647 – William Ashhurst, English banker, Sheriff of London, Lord Mayor of London and politician (d. 1720) 1648 – Peter II of Portugal (d. 1706) 1697 – Adam Falckenhagen, German lute player and composer (d. 1754) 1710 – Thomas Reid, Scottish philosopher and academic (d. 1796) 1718 – Esek Hopkins, American commander (d. 1802) 1774 – Christian Leopold von Buch, German geologist and paleontologist (d. 1853) 1782 – Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily, Queen of France (d. 1866) 1785 – John James Audubon, French-American ornithologist and painter (d. 1851) 1787 – Ludwig Uhland, German poet, philologist, and historian (d. 1862) 1798 – Eugène Delacroix, French painter and lithographer (d. 1863) 1801