18 January History
- 1486 - Henry VII marries Elizabeth of York.
- 1701 - Frederick III, the elector of Brandenburg, becomes king of Prussia.
- 1778 - Captain James Cook discovers the Hawaiian Islands, naming them the 'Sandwich Islands' after the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Sandwich.
- 1836 - Jim Bowie arrives at the Alamo to assist its Texas defenders.
- 1862 - John Tyler, former president of the U.S., is buried at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond.
- 1902 - The Isthmus Canal Commission in Washington shifts its support from Nicaragua to Panama as a favored canal site.
- 1910 - Aviator Eugene Ely performs his first successful take off and landing from a ship in San Francisco.
- 1916 - The Russians force the Turkish 3rd Army back to Erzurum.
- 1942 - General MacArthur repels the Japanese in Bataan. The United States took the lead in the Far East war criminal trials.
- 1945 - The German Army launches its second attempt to relieve the besieged city of Budapest from the advancing Red Army.
- 1948 - Ghandi breaks a 121-hour fast after halting Muslem-Hindu riots.
- 1962 - The United States begins spraying foliage with herbicides in South Vietnam, in order to reveal the whereabouts of Vietcong guerrillas.
- 1964 - Plans are disclosed for the World Trade Center in New York.
- 1978 - The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) isolate the cause of Legionnaire's disease.
- 1991 - Iraq starts firing Scud missiles at Israeli cities.
18 January Birthdays
- 1782 - Daniel Webster, congressman from New Hampshire, Massachusetts senator, and secretary of state before the Civil War.
- 1813 - Joseph Glidden, inventor.
- 1858 - Daniel Hale Williams, physician who performed the first open heart surgery, founder of Chicago's Provident Hospital.
- 1882 - A.A. [Alan Alexander] Milne, novelist, humorist and journalist (Winnie the Pooh).
- 1892 - Oliver Hardy, film comedian, one half of Laurel and Hardy.
- 1904 - Cary Grant, U.S. film actor (Gunga Din, Bringing Up Baby, The Philadelphia Story, North by Northwest).