October 18
is the 291st day of the year (292nd in
leap years). There are 74 days remaining.
*
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 (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 grams 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 - 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.
*
2005 - The second
Airbus A380 takes to the skies.
*
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)
*
1882 -
Lucien Petit-Breton, Argentine-French cyclist (d.
1917)
*
1893 -
Georges Ohsawa, Japanese founder of Macrobiotics (d.
1966)
*
1897 -
Isabel Briggs Myers, American pyschological theorist
*
1898 -
Lotte Lenya, Austrian singer and actress (d.
1981)
*
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)
*
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
*
1936 -
Cynthia Weil, American songriter (with husband,
Barry Mann)
*
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
*
1942 -
Larry Pickering Australian newspaper cartoonist
*
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
* 1951 -
Pam Dawber, American actress
*
1952 -
Bảo Ninh, Vietnamese novelist
*
1954 -
Liz Burch, Australian actress
*
1956 -
Martina Navrátilová, Czech-born tennis player
*
1956 -
Craig Bartlett, American animator
*
1959 -
Milčo Mančevski, Macedonian film director and screenwriter
*
1960 -
Jean-Claude Van Damme, Belgian actor
*
1961 -
Wynton Marsalis, American musician
* 1961 -
Erin Moran American actress
*
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
*
1994 -
Alessandro Iannella, Italian Singer
*
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)
*
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*
BBC: On This DayOctober 17 -
October 19 -
September 18 -
November 18 - more
historical anniversaries
