April 18
is the 108th day of the year in the
Gregorian calendar (109th in
leap years). There are 257 days remaining.
*
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.
*
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
* 1961 -
Steve Lombardi, Wrestler better known as "Brooklyn Brawler" and "Kim Chee"
*
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
*
1984 -
America Ferrera, American actress
*
1985 -
Łukasz Fabiański, Polish football player
*
1989 -
Alia Shawkat, American actress
*
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)
*
1990 -
Gory Guerrero, wrestler (b.
1921)
*
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)
*
Iran - Army Day*
Zimbabwe –
Independence Day.
*
The Cheat's
Cheatday on
homestarrunner.com*
Saint Apollonius (d.
185/6)
*
Saint Eusebius (d.
526)
*
Saint Galdino (d.
1176)
*
Saint Perfecto (d.
850)
*
Saint Timon*
Saint Ursmarus (d. 713)
*
Saint Werner (d. 1287)
*
Blessed Idesbald van der Gracht (d. 1167), patron saint of fishermen and Flemish nobility
*
Saint Agia (Aya) (d.
707)
*
Saint Emma*
Marie de l'Incarnation (
1566 –
1618)
*
BBC: On This Day*
The New York Times: On This Day*
On This Day in CanadaApril 17 -
April 19 -
March 18 -
May 18 –
listing of all days
