18 June

Events

Pre-1600

* 618 – Li Yuan becomes Emperor Gaozu of Tang, initiating three centuries of Tang dynasty rule over China.
* 656 – Ali becomes Caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate.
* 860 – Byzantine–Rus' War: A fleet of about 200 Rus' vessels sails into the Bosphorus and starts pillaging the suburbs of the Byzantine capital Constantinople.
*1053 – Battle of Civitate: Three thousand Norman horsemen of Count Humphrey rout the troops of Pope Leo IX.
*1178 – Five Canterbury monks see an event believed to have been the formation of the Giordano Bruno crater on the moon. It is believed that the current oscillations of the Moon's distance from the Earth (on the order of meters) are a result of this collision.
*1264 – The Parliament of Ireland meets at Castledermot in County Kildare, the first definitively known meeting of this Irish legislature.
*1265 – A draft Byzantine–Venetian treaty is concluded between Venetian envoys and Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos, but is not ratified by Doge Reniero Zeno.
*1429 – Charles VII's army defeats an English army under John Talbot at the Battle of Patay during the Hundred Years' War. The English lost 2,200 men, over half their army, crippling their efforts during this segment of the war.

1601–1900

*1633 – Charles I is crowned King of Scots at St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh.
* 1684 – The charter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony is revoked via a '' scire facias'' writ issued by an English court.
*1757 – Battle of Kolín between Prussian forces under Frederick the Great and an Austrian army under the command of Field Marshal Count Leopold Joseph von Daun in the Seven Years' War.
*1778 – American Revolutionary War: The British Army abandons Philadelphia.
* 1799 – Action of 18 June 1799: A frigate squadron under Rear-admiral Jean-Baptiste Perrée is captured by the British fleet under Lord Keith.
* 1803 – Haitian Revolution: The Royal Navy led by Rear-Admiral John Thomas Duckworth commence the blockade of Saint-Domingue against French forces.
*1812 – The United States declaration of war upon the United Kingdom is signed by President James Madison, beginning the War of 1812.
*1815 – Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Waterloo results in the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte by the Duke of Wellington and Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher forcing him to abdicate the throne of France for the second and last time.
*1822 – Konstantinos Kanaris blows up the Ottoman navy's flagship at Chios, killing the Kapudan Pasha Nasuhzade Ali Pasha.
*1858 – Charles Darwin receives a paper from Alfred Russel Wallace that includes nearly identical conclusions about evolution as Darwin's own, prompting Darwin to publish his theory.
*1859 – First ascent of Aletschhorn, second summit of the Bernese Alps.
*1873 – Susan B. Anthony is fined $100 for attempting to vote in the 1872 presidential election.
*1887 – The Reinsurance Treaty between Germany and Russia is signed.
*1900 – Empress Dowager Cixi of China orders all foreigners killed, including foreign diplomats and their families.

1901–present

*1908 – Japanese immigration to Brazil begins when 781 people arrive in Santos aboard the ship ''Kasato-Maru''.
* 1908 – The University of the Philippines is established.
* 1928 – Aviator Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly in an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean (she is a passenger; Wilmer Stultz is the pilot and Lou Gordon the mechanic).
*1935 – Police in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, clash with striking longshoremen, resulting in a total of 60 injuries and 24 arrests.
*1940 – Appeal of 18 June by Charles de Gaulle.
* 1940 – The "Finest Hour" speech is delivered by Winston Churchill.
*1945 – William Joyce ("Lord Haw-Haw") is charged with treason for his pro-German propaganda broadcasting during World War II.
* 1946 – Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia, a Socialist, calls for a Direct Action Day against the Portuguese in Goa.
*1948 – Columbia Records introduces the long-playing record album in a public demonstration at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.
* 1948 – Britain, France and the United States announce that on June 21, the ''Deutsche Mark'' will be introduced in western Germany and West Berlin. Over the next six days, Communists increasingly restrict access to Berlin.
* 1953 – The Egyptian revolution of 1952 ends with the overthrow of the Muhammad Ali dynasty and the declaration of the Republic of Egypt.
* 1953 – A United States Air Force C-124 crashes and burns near Tachikawa, Japan, killing 129.
* 1954 – Carlos Castillo Armas leads an invasion force across the Guatemalan border, setting in motion the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état.
* 1958 – Benjamin Britten's one-act opera '' Noye's Fludde'' premiered at the Aldeburgh Festival.
*1965 – Vietnam War: The United States Air Force uses B-52 bombers to attack guerrilla fighters in South Vietnam.
*1972 – Staines air disaster: One hundred eighteen people are killed when a BEA H.S. Trident crashes minutes after takeoff from London's Heathrow Airport.
*1979 – SALT II is signed by the United States and the Soviet Union.
*1981 – The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk, the first operational aircraft initially designed around stealth technology, makes its first flight.
*1982 – Italian banker Roberto Calvi's body is discovered hanging beneath Blackfriars Bridge in London, England.
*1983 – Space Shuttle program: STS-7, Astronaut Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space.
* 1983 – Mona Mahmudnizhad, together with nine other women of the Baháʼí Faith, is sentenced to death and hanged in Shiraz, Iran over her religious beliefs.
*1984 – A major clash between about 5,000 police and a similar number of miners takes place at Orgreave, South Yorkshire, during the 1984–85 UK miners' strike.
*1994 – The Troubles: Members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) attack a crowded pub with assault rifles in Loughinisland, Northern Ireland. Six Catholic civilians are killed and five wounded. It was crowded with people watching the 1994 FIFA World Cup.
*1998 – Propair Flight 420 crashes near Montréal–Mirabel International Airport in Quebec, Canada, killing 11.
* 2006 – The first Kazakh space satellite, KazSat-1 is launched.
*2007 – The Charleston Sofa Super Store fire happened in Charleston, South Carolina, killing nine firefighters.
*2009 – The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), a NASA robotic spacecraft is launched.
*2018 – An earthquake of magnitude 6.1 strikes northern Osaka.

Births

Pre-1600

*1269 – Eleanor of England, Countess of Bar (d. 1298)
*1318 – Eleanor of Woodstock (d. 1355)
*1332 – John V Palaiologos, Byzantine Emperor (d. 1391)
* 1466 – Ottaviano Petrucci, Italian printer (d. 1539)
*1511 – Bartolomeo Ammannati, Italian architect and sculptor, designed the Ponte Santa Trinita (d. 1592)
*1517 – Emperor Ōgimachi of Japan (d. 1593)
*1521 – Maria of Portugal, Duchess of Viseu (d. 1577)

1601–1900

*1667 – Ivan Trubetskoy, Russian field marshal (d. 1750)
*1673 – Antonio de Literes, Spanish composer (d. 1747)
*1677 – Antonio Maria Bononcini, Italian cellist and composer (d. 1726)
*1716 – Joseph-Marie Vien, French painter and educator (d. 1809)
*1717 – Johann Stamitz, Czech violinist and composer (d. 1757)
*1757 – Ignaz Pleyel, Austrian-French pianist and composer (d. 1831)
* 1757 – Gervasio Antonio de Posadas, Argentine lawyer and politician 1st Supreme Director of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata (d. 1833)
*1769 – Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, Irish-English politician, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (d. 1822)
* 1799 – William Lassell – Ivan Goncharov, Russian journalist and author (d. 1891)
*1815 – Ludwig Freiherr von und zu der Tann-Rathsamhausen, German general (d. 1881)
* 1816 – Hélène Napoleone Bonaparte, French daughter of Napoleon (d. 1907)
* 1816 – Jung Bahadur Rana, Nepali ruler (d. 1877)
*1833 – Manuel González Flores, Mexican general and President (1880-1884) (d. 1893)
* 1834 – Auguste-Théodore-Paul de Broglie, French philosopher and academic (d. 1895)
*1839 – William H. Seward Jr., American general and banker (d. 1920)
*1845 – Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran, French physician and parasitologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1922)
*1850 – Richard Heuberger, Austrian composer and critic (d. 1914)
*1854 – E. W. Scripps, American publisher, founded the E. W. Scripps Company (d. 1926)
*1857 – Henry Clay Folger, American businessman and philanthropist, founded the Folger Shakespeare Library (d. 1930)
*1858 – Andrew Forsyth, Scottish-English mathematician and academic (d. 1942)
* 1858 – Hector Rason, English-Australian politician, 7th Premier of Western Australia (d. 1927)
*1862 – Carolyn Wells, American novelist and poet (d. 1942)
*1863 – George Essex Evans, English-Australian poet and author (d. 1909)
*1868 – Miklós Horthy, Hungarian admiral and politician, Regent of Hungary (d. 1957)
*1870 – Édouard Le Roy, French mathematician and philosopher (d. 1954)
*1877 – James Montgomery Flagg, American painter and illustrator (d. 1960)
*1881 – Zoltán Halmay, Hungarian swimmer (d. 1956)
* 1882 – Georgi Dimitrov, Bulgarian compositor and politician, 32nd Prime Minister of Bulgaria (d. 1949)
* 1884 – Édouard Daladier, French captain and politician, Prime Minister of France (d. 1970)
*1886 – George Mallory, English lieutenant and mountaineer (d. 1924)
* 1886 – Alexander Wetmore, American ornithologist and paleontologist (d. 1978)
*1887 – Tancrède Labbé, Canadian businessman and politician (d. 1956)
*1896 – Blanche Sweet, American actress (d. 1986)
*1897 – Martti Marttelin, Finnish runner (d. 1940)
*1900 – Vlasta Vraz, Czech-American relief worker, editor, and fundraiser (d. 1989)

1901–present

* 1901 – Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia (d. 1918)
* 1901 – Llewellyn Rees, English actor (d. 1994)
*1902 – Louis Alter, American musician (d. 1980)
* 1902 – Paavo Yrjölä, Finnish decathlete (d. 1980)
*1903 – Jeanette MacDonald, American actress and singer (d. 1965)
* 1903 – Raymond Radiguet, French author and poet (d. 1923)
*1904 – Keye Luke, Chinese-American actor (d. 1991)
* 1904 – Manuel Rosenthal, French conductor and composer (d. 2003)
* 1905 – Eduard Tubin, Estonian composer and conductor (d. 1982)
*1907 – Frithjof Schuon, Swiss-American metaphysicist, philosopher, and author (d. 1998)
*1908 – Bud Collyer, American actor and game show host (d. 1969)
* 1908 – Stanley Knowles, American-Canadian academic and politician (d. 1997)
* 1908 – Nedra Volz, American actress (d. 2003)
*1910 – Dick Foran, American actor and singer (d. 1979)
* 1910 – Avon Long, American actor and singer (d. 1984)
* 1910 – Ray McKinley, American singer, drummer, and bandleader (d. 1995)
*1912 – Glenn Morris, American decathlete (d. 1974)
*1913 – Wilfred Gordon Bigelow, Canadian soldier and surgeon (d. 2005)
* 1913 – Sammy Cahn, American pianist and composer (d. 1993)
* 1913 – Sylvia Porter, American economist and journalist (d. 1991)
* 1913 – Françoise Loranger, Canadian playwright and producer (d. 1995)
* 1913 – Robert Mondavi, American winemaker and philanthropist (d. 2008)
* 1913 – Oswald Teichmüller, German mathematician (d. 1943)
* 1914 – E. G. Marshall, American actor (d. 1998)
* 1914 – Efraín Huerta, Mexican poet (d.1982)
*1915 – Red Adair, American firefighter (d. 2004)
* 1915 – Robert Kanigher, American author (d. 2002)
* 1915 – Alice T. Schafer