1986: The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukraine had a catastrophic accident resulting in the release of radioactive particles into the atmosphere. Thousands of people from the surrounding area were permanently displaced because of the accident.

1822: Library of Congress: Frederick Law Olmsted, nineteenth-century America's foremost landscape architect, was born. Son of a well-to-do Hartford, Connecticut, merchant, Olmsted spent much of his childhood enjoying rural New England scenery. Weakened eyesight forced him to abandon plans to attend Yale. Instead, young Olmsted studied engineering and scientific farming, putting his agricultural and managerial theories into practice on his own Staten Island farm.