Women Who Made History Today- April 26

1928 Apr 26, Madame Tussaud’s waxwork exhibition opened in London. 1989Apr 26, Lucille Ball (b.1911), Actress-comedian and star of I Love Lucy, died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles at age 77. She left behind a manuscript that was published in 1996 titled “Love, Lucy.” “The tremendous drive and dedication necessary to succeed in any field… often seems to be rooted in a disturbed childhood.” In 1993 Tom Gilbert wrote: “The Story of Lucille Ball and DesiArnaz.” Lucille Ball was married to Gary Morton (d.1999 at 74) for 29 years. In 2003 Stefan Kanfer authored “Ball of Fire: The Tumultuous Life and Comic Art of Lucille Ball.”1993Apr 26, In Britain a woman named Nora was raped in the town of Bridgewater. In 2006 kinship DNA evidence led to the arrest of Geoffrey Godfrey, who was sentenced to 6 years. 1994Apr 26, Rachelle “Shelley” Shannon, who admitted shooting and wounding an abortion provider outside his clinic, was sentenced in Wichita, Kan., to nearly 11 years in prison. 2000Apr 26, Sparkle Rai (22), a black woman, was found dead in her Georgia apartment. She had recently married Ricky Rai (20), the manager of a grocery store in which she worked. In 2008 ChimanRai (68) was convicted of felony murder. Prosecutors charged that Rai teamed up with Willie Fred Evans and Herbert Green to serve as middlemen. The two men passed along $10,000 to brothers Cleveland and Carl Clark. Carl Clark allegedly drove the car and Cleveland Clark, a 300-pound ex-con who also faces the death penalty, carried out the killing. 2003Apr 26, In Washington state Crystal Brame (35), the wife of Tacoma Police Chief David Brame (44), was in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the head after being shot by her husband, who then turned the gun on himself. 2003Apr 26, A Colombian school teacher was found shot to death, days after she was kidnapped, allegedly by leftist rebels who sought to force her father to kill an enemy fighter. 2006Apr 26, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld paid a surprise visit to Iraq, where they embraced the country’s fledgling leaders as independent and focused on the future. 2008Apr 26, In Austria police found a woman (42), missing since 1984, in the town of Amstetten following a tip. Elisabeth said her father, Josef Fritzl, had kept her captive in a cellar for almost 24 years, that he had repeatedly raped her, and that she gave birth to 7 children, one of whom later died. In November Fritzl (73) was charged with murder as well as rape, incest, false imprisonment and slavery. On March 18, 2009, Fritzl pleaded guilty to all charges against him, including homicide, after his daughter appeared unexpectedly in the courtroom. On March 19 Fritzl was convicted of homicide and sentenced him to life imprisonment in a secure psychiatric facility. raid.2014Apr 26, In China a spokeswoman for a leading online video site, Youku, said it has received notification not to show sitcom “The Big Bang Theory,” political and legal drama “The Good Wife,” crime drama “NCIS” and legal drama “The Practice.”