| July 18 is the 199th day (200th in leap years) of the year in the
Gregorian Calendar, with 166 days remaining.
Events
- 390 BC - Battle of the Allia: A Roman army is defeated by raiding Gauls, leading to the subsequent sacking of Rome.
- AD 64 - Great fire of
Rome: A fire begins to burn in the merchant area of Rome and soon burns completely out
of control while Emperor Nero reportedly plays his lyre and sings while watching the blaze from a safe distance.
- 1830 - Uruguay adopts its first constitution.
- 1863 - American Civil
War: The first formal African American military unit, the
54th Massachusetts Volunteer
Infantry, unsuccessfully assaults Confederate-held Fort Wagner but their
valiant fighting still proves the worth of African American soldiers during the war.
- 1873 - Oscar II of
Sweden-Norway is crowned king of Norway in Trondheim
- 1898 - Marie Curie and Pierre Curie announce the discovery of a new element and proposed to call it
polonium.
- 1914 - The United States
Army's Signal Corps is formed, giving definite status to its air
service for the first time.
- 1925 - Adolf Hitler publishes his
personal manifesto Mein Kampf.
- 1942 - World War II: The Germans test fly the Messerschmitt Me-262 using only its jets for the first time.
- 1944 - World War II: Hideki Tojo
resigns as Prime Minister of Japan due to numerous setbacks in the war effort.
- 1947 - President Harry S. Truman signs
the Presidential Succession Act into law
which places the Speaker of the House and the Senate President Pro Tempore next in the line of
succession after the United States Vice
President.
- 1968 - Vietnam War: The two-day
Honolulu Conference
begins in Honolulu, Hawaii between US President Lyndon B. Johnson and South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van
Thieu.
- 1968 - Intel incorporated.
- 1969 - After a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator Ted Kennedy from
Massachusetts drives an Oldsmobile off a wooden bridge into a tide-swept pond and his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, dies.
- 1969 - Apollo 11 makes preparations for landing on the Moon.
- 1976 - Gymnast Nadia
Comaneci, aged 14, scores first ever perfect 10 at the Olympics.
- 1982 - 268 campesinos are slain in the Plan de Sánchez massacre in Ríos Montt's Guatemala.
- 1984 - McDonald's
massacre in San Ysidro, California: James Oliver Huberty kills 21 people in a fast-food emporium before
being shot dead by police.
- 1986 - A tornado is broadcast live on
KARE television in Minnesota when the station's helicopter
pilot makes a chance encounter.
- 1986 - The motion picture Aliens opens in
theaters.
- 1992 - The ten victims of the La Cantuta massacre are disappeared from their
university in Lima.
- 1994 - In Buenos Aires, an
explosion destroys a building housing several Jewish organizations killing 96 and injuring
many more.
- 1995 - On the Caribbean island of Montserrat, the Soufriere Hills
volcano erupts. Over the course of several years, it devastates the island, destroying the capital and forcing most of the
population to flee.
- 1996 - Storms provoke severe flooding on the
Saguenay River in Quebec,
beginning one of Canada's costliest natural disasters ever.
- 1996 - In an event very similar to the Oklahoma tornado that would occur three
years later, a tornado ranking as a F5 hit the town of Oakfield, Wisconsin.
- 2001 - In Baltimore,
Maryland, a 60-car train derailment occurs in a tunnel sparking a fire that will last days and virtually shut down downtown
Baltimore.
Births
- 1552 - Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor
- 1635 - Robert Hooke, scientist
(d. 1703)
- 1811 - William Makepeace Thackeray, author (d. 1863)
- 1821 - Pauline
Garcia-Viardot, singer/composer (d. 1910)
- 1853 - Hendrik Lorentz,
Dutch physicist and Nobel laureate (d. 1928)
- 1863 - Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria (d. 1914)
- 1864 - Ricarda Huch, writer (d. 1947)
- 1864 - Phillip Snowden, British politician (d. 1937)
- 1887 - Vidkun Quisling,
Norwegian politician and famous traitor (d. 1945)
- 1890 - Frank Forde, fifteenth
Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1983)
20th century
- 1902 - Nathalie
Sarraute, writer (d. 1999)
- 1902 - Jessamyn West, writer
(d. 1984)
- 1902 - Chill Wills, actor (d. 1978)
- 1906 - Clifford Odets,
author, playwright (d. 1963)
- 1906 - S. I. Hayakawa, semanticist and politician (d. 1992)
- 1909 - Andrei Gromyko,
Soviet diplomat and President 1985-1989 (d. 1989)
- 1909 - Mohammed Daoud Khan, Afghani President (1973-1978)
(d. 1978)
- 1911 - Hume Cronyn, actor (d.
2003)
- 1913 - Red Skelton, actor, comedian
(d. 1997)
- 1918 - Nelson Mandela,
South Africa revolutionary and president
- 1921 - John Glenn, American astronaut
and politician
- 1922 - Thomas Kuhn,
philosopher (d. 1996)
- 1925 - Shirley
Strickland, Australian athlete
- 1927 - Ludwig Harig, writer
- 1927 - Kurt Masur, Silesian-born conductor
- 1929 - Dick Button, Olympic gold medal figure
skater
- 1929 - Screamin' Jay Hawkins (d. 2000)
- 1933 - Yevgeny
Yevtushenko, poet
- 1935 - Jayendra
Saraswathi, Hindu religious leader
- 1937 - Roald Hoffman, Nobel prize-winning theoretical chemist
- 1937 - Hunter S. Thompson, journalist and author (d.
2005)
- 1940 - James Brolin, actor
- 1940 - Joe Torre, baseball
player, manager, New York Yankees
- 1941 - Martha Reeves,
singer
- 1947 - Steve Forbes,
entrepreneur, politician
- 1950 - Sir Richard Branson,
entrepreneur
- 1963 - Martín Torrijos
Espino, Panamanian president-elect
- 1963 - Mike Greenwell,
baseball player
- 1967 - Vin Diesel, American actor,
writer, and director
- 1975 - Torii Hunter, baseball player
- 1975 - Daron Malakian, guitarist for System of a Down
- 1978 - Ben Sheets, baseball player
Deaths
- 1374 - Petrarch, Italian Humanist
- 1623 - Pope Gregory XV
- 1721 - Antoine Watteau,
French painter
- 1792 - John Paul Jones,
American naval commander
- 1817 - Jane Austen, novelist
- 1949 - Vitezslav Novák,
composer
- 1988 - Nico (Christa Paffgen), German and
American model and singer
- 1990 - Yoon Boseon, President of
South Korea
- 2001 - Fabio Taglioni,
automotive engineer
- 2003 - Jane Barbe, voice of the
telephone operator recording in the United States
- 2004 - Paul Foot, radical British
investigative journalist
Holidays and observances
External links
July 17 - July 19 - June 18 - August 18 -- listing of all days
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