18 April History


Month:                           Date:     

  • 310    -    St. Eusebius begins his reign as Catholic Pope.
  • 1521    -    Martin Luther confronts the emperor Charles V, refusing to retract the views which led to his excommunication.
  • 1676    -    Sudbury, Massachusetts is attacked by Indians.
  • 1775    -    American revolutionaries Paul Revere and William Dawes ride though the towns of Massachusetts warning that "the British are coming."
  • 1791    -    National Guardsmen prevent Louis XVI and his family from leaving Paris.
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  • 1818    -    A regiment of Indians and blacks is defeated at the Battle of Suwanna, in Florida, ending the first Seminole War.
  • 1834    -    William Lamb becomes prime minister of England.
  • 1838    -    The Wilkes' expedition to the South Pole sets sail.
  • 1847    -    U.S. forces defeat Mexicans at Cerro Gordo in one of the bloodiest battle of the war.
  • 1853    -    The first train in Asia begins running from Bombay to Tanna.
  • 1861    -    Colonel Robert E. Lee turns down an offer to command the Union armies.
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  • 1885    -    The Sino-Japanese war ends.
  • 1906    -    A massive earthquake hits San Francisco, measuring 8.25 on the Richter scale.
  • 1923    -    Yankee Stadium opens with Babe Ruth hitting a three-run homer as the Yankees beat the Red Sox 4-1.
  • 1937    -    Leon Trotsky calls for the overthrow of Soviet leader Josef Stalin.
  • 1942    -    James H. Doolittle bombs Tokyo and other Japanese cities.
  • 1943    -    Traveling in a bomber, Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the mastermind of the attack on Pearl Harbor, is shot down by American P-38 fighters.
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  • 1946    -    The League of Nations dissolves.
  • 1949    -    The Republic of Ireland withdraws from British Commonwealth.
  • 1950    -    The first transatlantic jet passenger trip is completed.
  • 1954    -    Colonel Nasser seizes power in Egypt.
  • 1978    -    The U.S. Senate approves the transfer of the Panama Canal to Panama.
  • 1980    -    Zimbabwe's (Rhodesia) formal independence from Britain is proclaimed.
  • 1983    -    A suicide bomber kills U.S. Marines at the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon.

  • 18 April Birthdays

  • 1480    -    Lucretia Borgia, daughter of Pope Alexander VI and a patron of the arts.
  • 1817    -    George Henry Lewes, philosophical writer.
  • 1857    -    Clarence S. Darrow, lawyer.
  • 1864    -    Richard Harding Davis, journalist.
  • 1918    -    Clifton Keith Hillegass, founder of the study guides known as Cliff's Notes.
  • 1940    -    Ed Garvey, labor leader.