18 October

Events

Pre-1600

* 33 – Heartbroken by the deaths of her sons Nero and Drusus, and banished to the island of Pandateria by Tiberius, Agrippina the Elder dies of self-inflicted starvation.
* 320 – Pappus of Alexandria, Greek philosopher, observes an eclipse of the Sun and writes a commentary on ''The Great Astronomer'' (''Almagest'').
* 614 – King Chlothar II promulgates the Edict of Paris (''Edictum Chlotacharii''), a sort of Frankish Magna Carta that defends the rights of the Frankish nobles while it excludes Jews from all civil employment in the Frankish Kingdom.
* 629 – Dagobert I is crowned King of the Franks.
* 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 English in the Battle of Assandun.
*1081 – The Normans defeat the Byzantine Empire in the Battle of Dyrrhachium.
* 1281 – Pope Martin IV excommunicates King Peter III of Aragon for usurping the crown of Sicily (a sentence renewed on 7 May and 18 November 1282).
* 1356 – Basel earthquake, Switzerland.
* 1540 – Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto's forces destroy the fortified town of Mabila in present-day Alabama, killing Tuskaloosa.
* 1561 – In Japan the fourth Battle of Kawanakajima is fought between the forces of Uesugi Kenshin and Takeda Shingen, resulting in a draw.
* 1565 – Ships belonging to the Matsura clan of Japan fail to capture the Portuguese trading carrack in the Battle of Fukuda Bay, the first recorded naval battle between Japan and the West.
* 1597 – King Philip II of Spain send his third and final armada against England, but ends in failure due to storms. The remaining ships are captured or sunk by the English.
* 1599 – Michael the Brave, Prince of Wallachia, defeats the Army of Andrew Báthory in the Battle of Șelimbăr, leading to the first recorded unification of the Romanian people.

1601–1900

* 1630 – Frendraught Castle in Scotland, the home of James Crichton of Frendraught, burns down.
*1648 – Boston shoemakers form the first American labor organization.
* 1748 – Signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ends the War of the Austrian Succession.
*1775 – African-American poet Phillis Wheatley is freed from slavery.
* 1775 – American Revolutionary War: The Burning of Falmouth (now Portland, Maine).
* 1779 – American Revolutionary War: The Franco-American Siege of Savannah is lifted.
*1797 – Treaty of Campo Formio is signed between France and Austria
*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 after purchasing it from Russia for $7.2 million. Celebrated annually in the state as Alaska Day.
*1898 – The United States takes possession of Puerto Rico from Spain.
*1900 – Count Bernhard von Bülow becomes chancellor of Germany.

1901–present

*1912 – First Balkan War: King Peter I of Serbia issues a declaration "To the Serbian People", as his country joins the war.
*1914 – The Schoenstatt Apostolic Movement is founded in Germany.
*1921 – The Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic is formed as part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.
*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.
*1929 – The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council overrules the Supreme Court of Canada in '' Edwards v. Canada'' when it declares that women are considered "Persons" under Canadian law.
*1944 – World War II: Soviet Union begins the liberation of Czechoslovakia from Nazi Germany.
* 1944 – World War II: The state funeral of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel takes place in Ulm, Germany.
*1945 – The USSR's nuclear program receives plans for the United States 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, stages a coup d'état against president Isaías Medina Angarita, who is overthrown by the end of the day.
* 1945 – Argentine military officer and politician Juan Perón marries actress Eva Duarte.
* 1954 – Texas Instruments announces the first transistor radio.
*1963 – Félicette, a black and white female Parisian stray cat, becomes the first cat launched into space.
*1967 – The Soviet probe Venera 4 reaches Venus and becomes the first spacecraft to measure the atmosphere of another planet.
*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 murdered and various RAF members allegedly commit suicide.
*1979 – The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) begins allowing people to have home satellite earth stations without a federal government license.
*1991 – The Supreme Council of Azerbaijan adopts a declaration of independence from the Soviet Union.
*1992 – Merpati Nustantara Airlines Flight 5601 crashes into Mount Papandayan near the town of Garut in West Java, Indonesia, killing 31.
*2003 – Bolivian gas conflict: Bolivian President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada is forced to resign and leave Bolivia.
*2007 – Karachi bombing: A suicide attack on a motorcade carrying former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto kills 139 and wounds 450 more. Bhutto herself is uninjured.
*2019 – NASA Astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch take part in the first all-female spacewalk when they venture out of the International Space Station to replace a power controller.
* 2019 – Riots in Chile's capital Santiago escalate into open battles, with attacks reported at nearly all of the city's 164 Metro stations. President Sebastián Piñera later announces a 15-day state of emergency in the capital.

Births

Pre-1600

* 1127 – Emperor Go-Shirakawa of Japan (d. 1192)
* 1130 – Zhu Xi, Chinese philosopher (d. 1200)
*1405 – Pope Pius II (d. 1464)
*1444 – John de Mowbray, 4th Duke of Norfolk (d. 1476)
* 1482 – Philipp III, Count of Hanau-Lichtenberg (d. 1538)
*1517 – Manuel da Nóbrega, Portuguese-Brazilian priest and missionary (d. 1570)
* 1523 – Anna Jagiellon, daughter of Sigismund I of Poland (d. 1596)
*1536 – William Lambarde, English antiquarian and politician (d. 1601)
*1547 – Justus Lipsius, Belgian philologist and scholar (d. 1606)
* 1553 – Luca Marenzio, Italian composer (d. 1599)
*1569 – Giambattista Marino, Italian poet (d. 1625)
*1587 – Lady Mary Wroth, English poet (d. 1651)
* 1595 – Edward Winslow, American Pilgrim leader (d. 1655)

1601–1900

* 1616 – Nicholas Culpeper, English botanist (d. 1654)
* 1630 – Henry Powle, English politician (d. 1692)
*1634 – Luca Giordano, Italian painter and illustrator (d. 1705)
*1653 – Abraham van Riebeeck, South African-Dutch merchant and politician, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (d. 1713)
*1662 – Matthew Henry, Welsh minister and scholar (d. 1714)
* 1663 – Prince Eugene of Savoy (d. 1736)
* 1668 – John George IV, Elector of Saxony (d. 1694)
* 1701 – Charles le Beau, French historian and author (d. 1778)
*1706 – Baldassare Galuppi, Italian harpsichord player and composer (d. 1785)
* 1741 – Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, French general and author (d. 1803)
*1777 – Heinrich von Kleist, German author and poet (d. 1811)
* 1785 – Thomas Love Peacock, English author and poet (d. 1866)
*1792 – Lucas Alamán, Mexican politician and historian (d. 1853)
*1804 – Mongkut, Thai king (d. 1868)
*1822 – Midhat Pasha, Ottoman civil servant and politician, 238th Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire (d. 1883)
* 1831 – Frederick III, German Emperor (d. 1888)
*1836 – Frederick August Otto Schwarz, American businessman, founded FAO Schwarz (d. 1911)
*1850 – Basil Hall Chamberlain, English-Swiss historian, author, and academic (d. 1935)
*1854 – Billy Murdoch, Australian cricketer (d. 1911)
* 1859 – Henri Bergson, French philosopher and theologian, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1941)
*1862 – Mehmet Esat Bülkat, Ottoman general (d. 1952)
*1865 – Arie de Jong, Dutch linguist and author (d. 1957)
* 1865 – Logan Pearsall Smith, American-English author and critic (d. 1946)
*1868 – Ernst Didring, Swedish author (d. 1931)
* 1869 – Johannes Linnankoski, Finnish author (d. 1913)
* 1870 – D. T. Suzuki, Japanese author and scholar (d. 1966)
*1872 – Mikhail Kuzmin, Russian poet and author (d. 1936)
* 1873 – Ivanoe Bonomi, Italian lawyer and politician, 25th Prime Minister of Italy (d. 1951)
*1875 – Len Braund, English cricketer, coach, and umpire (d. 1955)
*1878 – James Truslow Adams, American historian and author (d. 1949)
*1880 – Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Ukrainian-Russian general, journalist, and theorist (d. 1940)
* 1881 – Max Gerson, German-born American physician (d. 1959)
* 1882 – Lucien Petit-Breton, French cyclist (d. 1917)
*1887 – Takashi Sakai, Japanese general and politician, Governor of Hong Kong (d. 1946)
*1888 – Paul Vermoyal, French actor (d. 1925)
*1893 – Sidney Holland, New Zealand lieutenant and politician, 25th Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 1961)
* 1893 – George Ohsawa, Japanese philosopher and academic (d. 1966)
* 1894 – H. L. Davis, American author and poet (d. 1960)
* 1894 – Tibor Déry, Hungarian author and translator (d. 1977)
*1897 – Isabel Briggs Myers, American theorist and author (d. 1980)
*1898 – Lotte Lenya, Austrian singer and actress (d. 1981)

1901–present

* 1902 – Miriam Hopkins, American actress (d. 1972)
* 1902 – Pascual Jordan, German physicist and theorist (d. 1980)
*1903 – Lina Radke, German runner and coach (d. 1983)
*1904 – Aarne Juutilainen, Finnish army captain (d. 1976)
* 1904 – A. J. Liebling, American journalist and author (d. 1963)
* 1904 – Haim Shirman, Ukrainian-Israeli scholar and academic (d. 1981)
*1905 – Jan Gies, Dutch activist (d. 1993)
* 1905 – Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Ivorian union leader and politician, 1st President of Côte d'Ivoire (d. 1993)
*1906 – James Brooks, American painter and educator (d. 1992)
*1909 – Norberto Bobbio, Italian philosopher and theorist (d. 2004)
*1914 – Raymond Lambert, Swiss mountaineer (d. 1997)
*1915 – Victor Sen Yung, American actor (d. 1980)
*1918 – Molly Geertsema, Dutch lawyer and politician, Deputy Prime Minister of the Netherlands (d. 1991)
* 1918 – Konstantinos Mitsotakis, Greek lawyer and politician, 178th Prime Minister of Greece (d. 2017)
* 1918 – Bobby Troup, American singer-songwriter, pianist, and actor (d. 1999)
*1919 – Ric Nordman, Canadian captain and politician (d. 1996)
* 1919 – Anita O'Day, American singer (d. 2006)
* 1919 – Pierre Trudeau, Canadian lawyer, academic, and politician, 15th Prime Minister of Canada (d. 2000)
* 1919 – Camilla Williams, American soprano and educator (d. 2012)
*1920 – Melina Mercouri, Greek actress, singer, and politician, 9th Greek Minister of Culture (d. 1994)
*1921 – Jerry Cooke, Ukrainian-American photographer and journalist (d. 2005)
* 1921 – Jesse Helms, American journalist and politician (d. 2008)
* 1921 – Beatrice Helen Worsley, Mexican-Canadian computer scientist and academic (d. 1972)
* 1923 – Jessie Mae Hemphill, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2008)
*1924 – Buddy MacMaster, Canadian singer-songwriter and fiddler (d. 2014)
*1925 – Ramiz Alia, Albanian politician, 1st President of Albania (d. 2011)
*1926 – Chuck Berry, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2017)
* 1926 – Klaus Kinski, German-American actor, director, and screenwriter (d. 1991)
*1927 – Marv Rotblatt, American baseball player (d. 2013)
* 1927 – George C. Scott, American actor and director (d. 1999)
*1928 – Keith Jackson, American sportscaster and actor (d. 2018)
* 1928 – Maurice El Mediouni, Algerian pianist and composer
* 1928 – Dick Taverne, English lawyer and politician
*1929 – Violeta Chamorro, Nicaraguan publisher and politician, President of Nicaragua
* 1929 – Hillard Elkins, American producer and manager (d. 2010)
* 1929 – Kees Fens

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