October 18

is the 291st day of the year (292nd in leap years). There are 74 days remaining.

Events

1009 - The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a Christian church in Jerusalem, is completely destroyed by the Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, who hacks the Church's foundations down to bedrock.
1016 - The Danes defeat the Saxons in the Battle of Ashingdon.
1210 - Pope Innocent III excommunicates German leader Otto IV
1561 - Fourth Battle of Kawanakajima -- Takeda Shingen defeats Uesugi Kenshin in the climax of their ongoing conflicts
1685 - Louis XIV of France revokes the Edict of Nantes, which has protected French Protestants
1748 - Signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ends the War of the Austrian Succession.
1767 - Mason-Dixon line, survey separating Maryland from Pennsylvania is completed
1851 - Herman Melville's Moby-Dick is first published as The Whale by Richard Bentley of London.
1860 - The Second Opium War finally ends at the Convention of Peking with the ratification of the Treaty of Tientsin, an unequal treaty.
1867 - United States takes possession of Alaska, from Russia, celebrated annually in the state as Alaska Day ($7.2 million paid).
1898 - United States takes possession of Puerto Rico.
1908 - Belgium annexes the Congo Free State.
1912 - The First Balkan War begins.
1922 - The British Broadcasting Company (later Corporation) is founded by a consortium, to establish a nationwide network of radio transmitters to provide a national broadcasting service.
1925 - The Grand Ole Opry opens.
1926 - Musician Chuck Berry born in St. Louis, Missouri.
1944 - Adolf Hitler orders the establishment of a German national militia.
1944 - Soviet Union invades Czechoslovakia
1945 - The USSR's nuclear program receives plans for the USA's plutonium bomb from Klaus Fuchs at the Los Alamos National Laboratory
1945 - A group of the Venezuelan Armed Forces, led by Mario Vargas, Marcos Pérez Jiménez and Carlos Delgado Chalbaud, staged a coup d'etát against then president Isaías Medina Angarita, who was definitely overthrown by the end of the day.
1954 - Texas Instruments announces the first Transistor radio
1964 - The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair closes for its first season after a six-month run.
1968 - A police raid on John Lennon and Yoko Ono's flat finds 168 grains of marijuana. They later plead guilty and are fined £150.
1968 - The U.S. Olympic Committee suspends two black athletes for giving a "black power" salute during a victory ceremony at the Mexico City games.
1968 - Bob Beamon sets a world record of 8.90m in the long jump at the Mexico City games. This becomes the longest unbroken track and field record in history, standing for 23 years, and is later named by Sports Illustrated magazine as one of the five greatest sporting moments of the 20th century.
1969 - Jefferson Airplane member Paul Kantner is charged with possession of marijuana in Hawaii.
1977 - German Autumn: a set of events revolving around the kidnapping of Hanns-Martin Schleyer and the hijacking of a Lufthansa flight by the Red Army Faction (RAF) comes to an end when Schleyer is executed and various RAF members allegedly commit suicide. The (West) German government states that it would never again negotiate with terrorists.
1977 - Reggie Jackson hits three consecutive home runs.
1985 - Nintendo releases the Nintendo Entertainment System in the United States.
1988 - Green Day plays their first ever concert.
1989 - East German leader Erich Honecker resigns.
1993 - Andreas Papandreou begins his second term as Prime Minister of Greece.
2003 - Bolivian Gas War: President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, is forced to resign and leave Bolivia.
2004 - "The day TV died", according to Mark Pesce.
2005 - The second Airbus A380 takes to the skies.

Births

1127 - Emperor Go-Shirakawa of Japan (d. 1192)
1405 - Pope Pius II (d. 1464)
1517 - Manoel da Nóbrega, Portuguese Jesuit in Brazil (d. 1570)
1547 - Justus Lipsius, Flemish humanist (d. 1606)
1569 - Giambattista Marini, Italian poet (d. 1625)
1595 - Edward Winslow, Plymouth Colony founder (d. 1655)
1634 - Luca Giordano, Italian artist (d. 1705)
1653 - Abraham van Riebeeck, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (d. 1713)
1662 - Matthew Henry, English non-conformist minister (d. 1714)
1668 - John George IV, Elector of Saxony (d. 1694)
1679 - Ann Putnam, Jr., American accuser in the Salem Witch Trials (d. 1716)
1701 - Charles le Beau, French historian (d. 1778)
1706 - Baldassare Galuppi, Italian composer (d. 1785)
1741 - Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, French general and author (d. 1803)
1777 - Heinrich von Kleist, German writer (d. 1811)
1785 - Thomas Love Peacock, English satirist (d. 1866)
1854 - Billy Murdoch, Australian cricketer (d. 1911)
1859 - Henri Bergson, French philosopher, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (d. 1941)
1868 - Ernst Didring, Swedish author (d. 1931)
1870 - Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, Japanese scholar
1873 - Ivanoe Bonomi, Prime Minister of Italy (d. 1951)
1893 - Georges Ohsawa, Japanese founder of Macrobiotics (d. 1966)
1898 - Lotte Lenya, Austrian singer and actress (d. 1981)
1898 - Shin'ichi Suzuki, Japanese violinist (d. 1998)
1902 - Miriam Hopkins, American actress (d. 1972)
1902 - Pascual Jordan, German physicist (d. 1980)
1903 - Lina Radke, German athlete (d. 1983)
1906 - James Brooks, American painter (d. 1992)
1909 - Norberto Bobbio, Italian philosopher and legal theorist (d. 2004)
1911 - Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Indian guru
1913 - Robert Gilruth, American aviation and space pioneer (d. 2000)
1918 - Bobby Troup, American musician (d. 1999)
1919 - Anita O'Day, American singer
1919 - Pierre Elliott Trudeau, fifteenth Prime Minister of Canada (d. 2000)
1920 - Melina Mercouri, Greek actress and political activist (d. 1994)
1921 - Jesse Helms, U.S. Senator from North Carolina
1925 - Ramiz Alia, political leader of Albania
1926 - Chuck Berry, American musician
1926 - Klaus Kinski, German actor (d. 1991)
1927 - George C. Scott, American actor (d. 1999)
1928 - Keith Jackson, American football commentator
1928 - Hugh Allan "Buddy" MacMaster, Canadian musician
1929 - Violeta Chamorro, President of Nicaragua
1931 - Chris Albertson, American jazz historian
1932 - Vytautas Landsbergis, Lithuanian politician, one of the political destroyers of the Soviet Union
1934 - Inger Stevens, Swedish actress (d. 1970)
1934 - Chuck Swindoll, American evangelist
1935 - Peter Boyle, American actor
1939 - Mike Ditka, American football player, coach, and commentator
1939 - Lee Harvey Oswald, purported American assassin of John F. Kennedy (d. 1963)
1939 - Flavio Cotti, member of the Swiss Federal Council
1945 - Huell Howser, American TV host
1946 - Howard Shore, Canadian film composer
1947 - Joe Morton, American actor
1947 - Laura Nyro, American singer and songwriter (d. 1997)
1948 - Ntozake Shange, American author
1949 - George Hendrick, baseball player
1950 - Om Puri, Indian actor
1950 - Wendy Wasserstein, American playwright
1951 - Terry McMillan, American author
1952 - Bảo Ninh, Vietnamese novelist
1956 - Martina Navrátilová, Czech-born tennis player
1959 - Milčo Mančevski, Macedonian film director and screenwriter
1960 - Jean-Claude Van Damme, Belgian actor
1961 - Wynton Marsalis, American musician
1968 - Basil White, American comedian
1970 - Jose Padilla, American gang member and suspected terrorist
1970 - Doug Mirabelli, baseball player
1974 - Robbie Savage, Welsh footballer
1975 - Alex Cora, baseball player
1976 - Azlea Antistia, American actress
1977 - Ryan Nelsen, New Zealander footballer
1987 - Zac Efron, American actor and singer

Deaths

707 - Pope John VII
1035 - Sancho III of Navarre
1101 - Hugh of Vermandois, son of Henry I of France (b. 1053)
1141 - Margrave Leopold IV of Austria
1417 - Pope Gregory XII
1503 - Pope Pius III (b. 1439)
1545 - John Taverner, English composer
1558 - Maria of Austria, wife of Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia (b. 1505)
1564 - Johannes Acronius Frisius, German physician and mathematician (b. 1520)
1570 - Manoel da Nóbrega, Portuguese Jesuit in Brazil (b. 1517)
1604 - Igram van Achelen, Dutch statesman (b. 1528)
1646 - Isaac Jogues, French Jesuit missionary (b. 1607)
1667 - Fasilides, Emperor of Ethiopia
1678 - Jacob Jordaens, Flemish painter (b. 1593)
1739 - Antônio José da Silva, Brazilian-born dramatist (b. 1705)
1744 - Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, English friend of Anne of England (b. 1660)
1770 - John Manners, Marquess of Granby, British soldier (b. 1721)
1775 - Christian August Crusius, German philosopher and theologian (b. 1715)
1817 - Etienne-Nicolas Méhul, French composer (b. 1763)
1886 - Philipp Franz von Siebold, German physician (b. 1796)
1871 - Charles Babbage, English mathematician and inventor (b. 1791)
1893 - Charles Gounod, French composer (b. 1818)
1911 - Alfred Binet, French psychologist (b. 1857)
1921 - King Ludwig III of Bavaria (b. 1845)
1931 - Thomas Edison, American inventor (b. 1847)
1942 - Mikhail Nesterov, Russian painter (b. 1862)
1948 - Walther von Brauchitsch, German field marshal (b. 1881)
1959 - Boughera El Ouafi, Algerian athlete
1961 - Tsuru Aoki, Japanese-born American actress (b. 1892)
1973 - Leo Strauss, Jewish-American Philosopher (b. 1899)
1975 - Al Lettieri, American actor (b. 1928)
1982 - Bess Truman, First Lady of the United States (b. 1885)
1982 - Dwain Esper, American film director (b. 1892)
1983 - Willie Jones, baseball player (b. 1925)
2000 - Julie London, American singer and actress (b. 1926)
2000 - Gwen Verdon, American dancer and actress (b. 1925)
2001 - Micheline Ostermeyer, French athlete and musician (b. 1922)
2002 - Nikolai Rukavishnikov, cosmonaut (b. 1932)
2002 - Roman Tam, Hong Kong singer (b. 1950)
2003 - Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Spanish writer (b. 1939)
2003 - Preston Smith, Governor of Texas (b. 1912)
2004 - Veerappan, Indian bandit and smuggler (b. 1945)
2005 - John Hollis, British actor (b. 1931)

Holidays and observances

R.C. Church, Anglican communion, et alii - Feast of Saint Luke the Evangelist
Also see October 18 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
USA : Alaska: Alaska Day
French Republican Calendar - Piment (Chili Pepper) Day, twenty-seventh day in the Month of Vendémiaire

External links

BBC: On This Day

October 17 - October 19 - September 18 - November 18 - more historical anniversaries

Gourt Home::Gourt :: October 18

Events

Births

Deaths

Holidays and observances

External links