April 18

is the 108th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (109th in leap years). There are 257 days remaining.

Events

1506 - The cornerstone of the current St. Peter's Basilica is laid.
1518 - Bona Sforza is crowned as queen consort of Poland.
1775 - Two lanterns were hung from the steeple of the Old North Church in Boston, Massachusetts. Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott ride to warn of impending arrests of Samuel Adams and John Hancock and seizure of weapons. Only Prescott finishes the ride.
1797 - Battle of Neuwied resulted in the victory of French under General Louis Lazare Hoche against Austrians under General Wermecek.
1880 - A F4 tornado strikes Marshfield, Missouri, killing 99 people and injuring 200.
1899 - St. Andrew's Ambulance Association is granted a Royal Charter by Queen Victoria.
1906 - An earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.9, destroys much of San Francisco, California. (See 1906 San Francisco earthquake)
1906 - The Los Angeles Times runs a front-page story on the Azusa Street Revival, launching Pentecostalism as a worldwide movement.
1912 - The RMS Carpathia arrives in New York Harbor with the 706 survivors of the Titanic disaster.
1915 - Early French aviator and a fighter aircraft pilot Roland Garros was shot down and glided to a landing on the German side of the lines during World War I.
1923 - Yankee Stadium, "The House that Ruth Built", opens.
1934 - The first washateria opens in Fort Worth, Texas.
1942 - World War II: The Doolittle Raid on Tokyo occurs.
1942 - Pierre Laval becomes Prime Minister of Vichy France.
1943 - Isoroku Yamamoto is killed when his transport aircraft is shot down by U.S. fighers over Bougainville in the Solomon Islands.
1945 - World War II: Over 1,000 bombers attack the small island of Heligoland, Germany, leaving nothing standing.
1946 - The League of Nations is dissolved.
1949 - The Republic of Ireland Act comes into force.
1954 - Gamal Abdal Nasser seizes power in Egypt.
1958 - A U.S. federal court rules that poet Ezra Pound be released from an insane asylum.
1961 - CONCP is founded in Casablanca as a united front of African movements opposing Portuguese colonial rule.
1974 - Prime Minister Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto inaugurates Lahore Dry port.
1974 - Italian prosecutor Mario Sossi is kidnapped by the Red Brigades.
1980 - The Republic of Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) comes into being, with Canaan Banana as the country's first President.
1981 - A Minor League baseball game between the Rochester Red Wings and the Pawtucket Red Sox at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, Rhode Island becomes the longest professional baseball game in history: 8 hours and 25 minutes/33 innings (the 33rd inning was not played until June 23rd).
1983 - A suicide bomber destroys the United States embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 63 people.
1988 - U.S. launches Operation Praying Mantis against Iranian naval forces in retaliation for the April 14 mining of the USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) in the Persian Gulf during Operation Earnest Will. The one-day action is the world's largest naval battle since World War II.
1992 - General Abdul Rashid Dostum revolted against President Mohammad Najibullah of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and allied with Ahmed Shah Massoud to capture Kabul.
1993 - President of Pakistan, Ghulam Ishaq Khan dissolves the National Assembly and dismisses Cabinet.
1996 - In Lebanon, at least 106 Lebanese civilians are killed when the Israel Defense Forces shell the UN compound at Qana (see Qana Massacre).
1998 - Toon Disney debuts.

Births

1480 - Lucrezia Borgia, Florentine ruler and daughter of Pope Alexander VI (d. 1519)
1580 - Thomas Middleton, English dramatist (d. 1627)
1590 - Ahmed I, Ottoman Emperor (d. 1617)
1605 - Giacomo Carissimi, Italian composer (d. 1674)
1771 - Karl Philipp Fürst zu Schwarzenberg, Austrian field marshal (d. 1820)
1772 - David Ricardo, English economist (d. 1823)
1797 - Adolphe Thiers, French statesman (d. 1877)
1819 - Franz von Suppé, Austrian composer (d. 1895)
1838 - Paul Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran, French scientist (d. 1912)
1857 - Clarence Darrow, American attorney (d. 1938)
1863 - Leopold Graf Berchtold, Austro-Hungarian foreign minister (d. 1942)
1864 - Richard Harding Davis, American author (d. 1916)
1874 - Oskar Ernst Bernhardt, German author (d. 1941)
1875 - Ivana Brlic-Mazuranic, Croatian writer (d. 1938)
1880 - Sam Crawford, baseball player (d. 1968)
1882 - Leopold Stokowski, Polish conductor (d. 1977)
1888 - Duffy Lewis, baseball player (d. 1979)
1893 - Violette Morris, French athlete (d. 1944)
1897 - Ardito Desio, Italian topographer (d. 2001)
1902 - Giuseppe Pella, Prime Minister of Italy (d. 1981)
1902 - Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Hasidic Judaism leader (d. 1994)
1904 - Pigmeat Markham, American comedian (d. 1981)
1905 - George H. Hitchings, American scientist, Nobel laureate (d. 1998)
1907 - Miklós Rózsa, Hungarian-born composer (d. 1995)
1917 - Ty LaForest, Canadian baseball player (d. 1947)
1918 - Cliff Hillegass, American publisher (d. 2001)
1921 - Jean Richard, French actor (d. 2001)
1924 - Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, American musician
1924 - Henry Hyde, American politician
1927 - Samuel P. Huntington, American political scientist
1936 - Tommy Ivo, American race car driver
1939 - Thomas J. Moyer, American judge
1940 - Joseph L. Goldstein, American scientist, Nobel laureate
1940 - Robert N. Kucey, Canadian author
1945 - Margaret Hassan, Irish-born aid worker (d. 2004)
1946 - Hayley Mills, English actress
1947 - Kathy Acker, American author (d. 1997)
1947 - Dorothy Lyman, American actress
1947 - Cindy Pickett, American actress
1947 - James Woods, American actor
1947 - Herbert Mullin, American serial killer
1949 - Geoff Bodine, American race car driver
1951 - Ricardo Fortaleza, Australian-Filipino retired boxer
1954 - Rick Moranis, Canadian comedian
1956 - Anna Kathryn Holbrook, American actress
1956 - Eric Roberts, American actor
1956 - Melody Thomas Scott, American actress
1958 - Malcolm Marshall, West Indian cricketer (d. 1999)
1961 - Jane Leeves, British actress
1963 - Eric McCormack, Canadian actor
1963 - Conan O'Brien, American comedian
1964 - Niall Ferguson, British historian
1964 - Rithy Panh, Cambodian film director
1966 - Trine Hattestad, Norwegian athlete
1967 - Maria Bello, American actress
1968 - David Hewlett, Canadian actor
1969 - Princess Sayako of Japan
1969 - Keith R.A. DeCandido, American author
1970 - Greg Eklund, American musician (Everclear)
1971 - Tamara Braun, American actress
1971 - David Tennant, Scottish actor
1971 - Oleg Petrov, Russian ice hockey player
1973 - Derrick Brooks, American football player
1973 - Haile Gebrselassie, Ethiopian athlete
1974 - Mark Tremonti, American Musician
1976 - Melissa Joan Hart, American actress
1976 - Fayray, Japanese singer
1979 - Vahid Rahbani, Iranian actor and director
1979 - Michael Bradley, American basketball player
1979 - Matthew Upson, English footballer
1979 - Kourtney Kardashian, American reality series star
1980 - Robyn Regehr, Canadian hockey player
1981 - Audrey Tang, Taiwanese software programmer
1983 - Miguel Cabrera, Venezuelan Major League Baseball player
1985 - Łukasz Fabiański, Polish football player
1989 - Alia Shawkat, American actress

Deaths

1161 - Theobald of Bec, Archbishop of Canterbury
1552 - John Leland, English antiquarian (b. 1502)
1556 - Luigi Alamanni, Italian poet (b. 1495)
1567 - Wilhelm von Grumbach, German adventurer (b. 1503)
1558 - Roxelana, wife of Suleiman the Magnificent
1636 - Julius Caesar, English judge
1650 - Simonds d'Ewes, English antiquarian and politician (b. 1602)
1674 - John Graunt, English statistician (b. 1620)
1689 - George Jeffreys, British Chief Justice (b. 1648)
1690 - Charles IV, Duke of Lorraine, general of the Holy Roman Empire (b. 1643)
1794 - Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden, Lord Chancellor of Great Britain (b. 1714)
1796 - Johan Wilcke, Swedish physicist (b. 1732)
1802 - Erasmus Darwin, English physician and botanist (b. 1731)
1873 - Justus von Liebig, German chemist (b. 1803)
1898 - Gustave Moreau, French painter (b. 1826)
1935 - Panait Istrati, Romanian writer (b. 1884)
1936 - Ottorino Respighi, Italian composer (b. 1879)
1943 - Isoroku Yamamoto, Japanese admiral. (b. 1884)
1945 - John Ambrose Fleming, English physicist and electrical engineer (b. 1849)
1945 - Ernie Pyle, American journalist (b. 1900)
1947 - Josef Tiso, Slovakian leader (b. 1887)
1955 - Albert Einstein, German-born Jewish physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1879)
1964 - Ben Hecht, American playwright and screenwriter (b. 1894)
1967 - Karl Miller, German footballer (b. 1913)
1993 - Masahiko Kimura, Famous Judoka (b. 1917)
1996 - Piet Hein, Danish mathematician and inventor (b. 1905)
1996 - Bernard Edwards, American musician and record producer (b. 1952)
1998 - Terry Sanford, American politician (b. 1917)
2002 - Thor Heyerdahl, Norwegian explorer (b. 1914)
2002 - Wahoo McDaniel, American football player and wrestler (b. 1938)
2003 - Edgar F. Codd, English computer scientist (b. 1923)
2003 - Daijiro Kato, Japanese motorcycle racer (b. 1976)
2004 - Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, first Prime Minister of Fiji and President of Fiji (b. 1920)
2005 - Sam Mills, American football linebacker (b. 1959)

Gourt Home::Gourt :: April 18

Events

Births

Deaths

Holidays and observances

Liturgical Feast days

External links