April 25, 1980 US President Jimmy Carter announces the hostage rescue disaster in Iran. Eight members of an American Special Forces team die after their helicopter crashes.

April 26, 1986 The Chernobyl atomic power plant in Pripyat, Ukraine, north of Kiev, explodes at 1:23am. A 300-hundred-square-mile area is evacuated and 31 people die as unknown thousands are exposed to radioactive material that spreads in the atmosphere throughout the world