October 18

October 18 is the 291st day of the year (292nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 74 days remaining until the end of the year.

Events

• 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 Saxons in the Battle of Ashingdon.
• 1081 – The Normans defeat the Byzantine Empire in the Battle of Dyrrhachium.
• 1210 – Pope Innocent III excommunicates German leader Otto IV.
• 1356 – Basel earthquake, the most significant historic seismological event north of the Alps, destroyed the town of Basel, Switzerland.
• 1386 – Opening of the University of Heidelberg
• 1561 – Fourth Battle of Kawanakajima – Takeda Shingen defeats Uesugi Kenshin in the climax of their ongoing conflicts.
• 1599 – Michael the Brave, Prince of Wallachia, defeats the Army of Andrew Bathory in the Battle of Şelimbăr, leading to the first recorded unification of the Romanian people.
• 1648 – Boston Shoemakers form first U.S. labor organization.
• 1748 – Signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ends the War of the Austrian Succession.
• 1767 – Mason-Dixon line, survey separating Maryland from Pennsylvania is completed.
• 1775 – African-American poet Phillis Wheatley freed from slavery.
• 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 – United States takes possession of Puerto Rico.
• 1912 – The First Balkan War begins.
• 1914 – The Schoenstatt Movement is founded in Germany.
• 1921 – The Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic is formed as part of the RSFSR.
• 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.
• 1925 – The Grand Ole Opry opens in Nashville, Tennessee.
• 1929 – Women are considered "Persons" under Canadian law.
• 1936 – Adolf Hitler announces the Four Year Economic Plan to the German people. The plan details the rebuilding of the German military from 1936 to 1940.
• 1944 – Adolf Hitler orders the establishment of a German national militia.
• 1944 – Soviet Union invades Czechoslovakia.
• 1944 – Adolf Hitler orders the public funeral procession of Nazi field Marshall Erwin Rommel, commander of the Deutsches Afrika Korps
• 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, staged a coup d'état against then president Isaías Medina Angarita, who is overthrown by the end of the day.
• 1954 – Texas Instruments announces the first Transistor radio.
• 1964 – The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair closes for its first season after a six-month run.
• 1967 – The Soviet probe Venera 4 reaches Venus and becomes the first spacecraft to measure the atmosphere of another planet.
• 1968 – The U.S. Olympic Committee suspends Tommie Smith and John Carlos for giving a "black power" salute during a victory ceremony at the Mexico City games.
• 1968 – Bob Beamon sets a world record of 8.90 m in the long jump at the Mexico City games.
• 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.
• 1989 – East German leader Erich Honecker resigns.
• 1991 – Azerbaijan declares independence from USSR.
• 2003 – Bolivian Gas War: President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, is forced to resign and leave Bolivia.
• 2007 – Karachi bombings: attempted assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

Births

• 1127 – Emperor Go-Shirakawa of Japan (d. 1192)
• 1405 – Pope Pius II (d. 1464)
• 1517 – Manoel da Nóbrega, Portuguese Jesuit in Brazil (d. 1570)
• 1547 – Justus Lipsius, Flemish humanist (d. 1606)
• 1569 – Giambattista Marini, Italian poet (d. 1625)
• 1595 – Edward Winslow, Plymouth Colony founder (d. 1655)
• 1634 – Luca Giordano, Italian artist (d. 1705)
• 1653 – Abraham van Riebeeck, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (d. 1713)
• 1662 – Matthew Henry, English non-conformist minister (d. 1714)
• 1668 – John George IV, Elector of Saxony (d. 1694)
• 1679 – Ann Putnam, Jr., American accuser in the Salem Witch Trials (d. 1716)
• 1701 – Charles le Beau, French historian (d. 1778)
• 1706 – Baldassare Galuppi, Italian composer (d. 1785)
• 1741 – Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, French general and author (d. 1803)
• 1777 – Heinrich von Kleist, German writer (d. 1811)
• 1785 – Thomas Love Peacock, English satirist (d. 1866)
• 1831 – Emperor Friedrich III of Germany (d. 1888)
• 1854 – Billy Murdoch, Australian cricketer (d. 1911)
• 1859 – Henri Bergson, French philosopher, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (d. 1941)
• 1865 – Arie de Jong, Dutch linguist (d. 1957)
• 1865 – Logan Pearsall Smith, American essayist and critic (d. 1946)
• 1868 – Ernst Didring, Swedish author (d. 1931)
• 1870 – Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, Japanese scholar (d. 1966)
• 1873 – Ivanoe Bonomi, Prime Minister of Italy (d. 1951)
• 1882 – Lucien Petit-Breton, Argentine-French cyclist (d. 1917)
• 1893 – Georges Ohsawa, Japanese founder of Macrobiotics (d. 1966)
• 1894 – H. L. Davis, American author (d. 1960)
• 1897 – Isabel Briggs Myers, American psychological theorist (d. 1980)
• 1898 – Lotte Lenya, Austrian singer and actress (d. 1981)
• 1902 – Miriam Hopkins, American actress (d. 1972)
• 1902 – Pascual Jordan, German physicist (d. 1980)
• 1903 – Lina Radke, German athlete (d. 1983)
• 1904 – A. J. Liebling, American journalist (d. 1963)
• 1904 – Haim Shirman, Russian-born Israeli professor of medieval Spanish Jewish poetry (d. 1981)
• 1905 – Jan Gies, Dutch resistance fighter (d. 1993)
• 1905 – Félix Houphouët-Boigny, first President of Côte d'Ivoire (d. 1993)
• 1906 – James Brooks, American painter (d. 1992)
• 1909 – Norberto Bobbio, Italian philosopher and legal theorist (d. 2004)
• 1914 – Raymond Lambert, Swiss mountaineer (d. 1997)
• 1915 – Victor Sen Yung, American actor (d. 1980)
• 1918 – Bobby Troup, American musician (d. 1999)
• 1919 – Ric Nordman, Canadian politician (d. 1996)
• 1919 – Anita O'Day, American singer (d. 2006)
• 1919 – Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 15th Prime Minister of Canada (d. 2000)
• 1920 – Melina Mercouri, Greek actress and Minister for Culture of Greece (d. 1994)
• 1921 – Jesse Helms, American politician (d. 2008)
• 1924 – Hugh Allan "Buddy" MacMaster, Canadian musician
• 1925 – Ramiz Alia, political leader of Albania
• 1926 – Chuck Berry, American musician
• 1926 – Klaus Kinski, German actor (d. 1991)
• 1927 – George C. Scott, American actor (d. 1999)
• 1928 – Keith Jackson, American football commentator
• 1929 – Violeta Chamorro, President of Nicaragua
• 1931 – Chris Albertson, American jazz historian
• 1932 – Vytautas Landsbergis, Lithuanian politician
• 1933 – Forrest Gregg, American football player
• 1934 – Calvin Lockhart, Bahamian actor (d. 2007)
• 1934 – Inger Stevens, Swedish actress (d. 1970)
• 1934 – Chuck Swindoll, American evangelist
• 1935 – Peter Boyle, American actor (d. 2006)
• 1938 – Dawn Wells, American actress
• 1939 – Mike Ditka, American football player, coach, and commentator
• 1939 – Lee Harvey Oswald, assassin of John F. Kennedy (d. 1963)
• 1939 – Flavio Cotti, member of the Swiss Federal Council
• 1940 – Cynthia Weil, American songwriter
• 1942 – Larry Pickering, Australian newspaper cartoonist
• 1943 – Birthe Rønn Hornbech, Danish politician
• 1944 – Peter Tosh, Jamaican musician (d. 1987)
• 1945 – Chris Shays, Former member of the United States Congress from Connecticut
• 1945 – Huell Howser, American TV host
• 1945 – Yıldo, Turkish famous showman and football player
• 1946 – James Robert Baker, American novelist, screenwriter
• 1946 – Howard Shore, Canadian film composer
• 1946 – Frank Beamer, American football coach Virginia Tech Hokies football
• 1947 – Job Cohen, Dutch politician, mayor of Amsterdam
• 1947 – Joe Morton, American actor
• 1947 – Laura Nyro, American singer and songwriter (d. 1997)
• 1947 – Paul Chuckle, British comedian
• 1948 – Ntozake Shange, American author
• 1948 – Hans Köchler, Austrian philosopher
• 1949 – Joe Egan, British musician (Stealers Wheel)
• 1949 – George Hendrick, baseball player
• 1949 – Gary Richrath, American musician (REO Speedwagon)
• 1950 – Om Puri, Indian actor
• 1950 – Wendy Wasserstein, American playwright (d. 2006)
• 1950 – Sheila White, English actress
• 1951 – Mike Antonovich, American ice hockey player and executive
• 1951 – Terry McMillan, American author
• 1951 – Pam Dawber, American actress
• 1952 – Patrick Morrow, Canadian mountaineer, first to complete the Seven Summits
• 1952 – Bảo Ninh, Vietnamese novelist
• 1952 – Jerry Royster, American baseball player
• 1954 – Liz Burch, Australian actress
• 1954 – Arliss Howard, American actor
• 1955 – Timmy Mallett, British TV presenter
• 1955 – David Twohy, American movie director and screenwriter
• 1955 – Rita Verdonk, Dutch politician
• 1955 – Vanessa Briscoe Hay, American singer and songwriter (Pylon (band) & Supercluster)
• 1956 – Martina Navrátilová, Czech-American tennis player
• 1956 – Craig Bartlett, American animator
• 1956 – Jim Talent, American politician
• 1957 – Jon Lindstrom, American actor
• 1957 – Catherine Ringer, French singer and songwriter (Les Rita Mitsouko)
• 1958 – Corinne Bohrer, American actress
• 1958 – Thomas Hearns, American boxer
• 1958 – Kjell Samuelsson, National Hockey League defenseman
• 1959 – Kirby Chambliss, Aerobatic pilot
• 1959 – Milčo Mančevski, Macedonian film director and screenwriter
• 1959 – John Nord, former American pro wrestler
• 1959 – Chris "Mad Dog" Russo, American sports talk show host
• 1959 – Steve Swayne, Dartmouth Professor
• 1960 – Jean-Claude Van Damme, Belgian actor
• 1960 – Erin Moran, American actress
• 1961 – Wynton Marsalis, American jazz musician
• 1961 – Rick Moody, American author
• 1962 – Vincent Spano, American actor
• 1964 – Dan Lilker, American musician, bassist for Anthrax, S.O.D., Nuclear Assault, and Brutal Truth
• 1964 – Charles Stross, British speculative-fiction author
• 1965 – Curtis Stigers, American jazz vocalist and saxophonist
• 1965 – Zakir Naik, Indian Islamic speaker and doctor
• 1966 – Slavi Trifonov, Bulgarian showman
• 1967 – Eric Stuart, American voice actor and singer
• 1969 – Volker Neumüller, German music manager
• 1969 – Nelson Vivas, Argentine former footballer
• 1970 – José Padilla, American former gang member and alleged supporter of terrorism
• 1970 – Doug Mirabelli, American baseball player
• 1972 – Alex Tagliani, Quebec racing driver
• 1973 – Michalis Kapsis, Greek footballer
• 1974 – Robbie Savage, Welsh footballer
• 1974 – Peter Svensson, Swedish musician (The Cardigans)
• 1974 – Candy Lo, Hong Kong singer-songwriter and actress
• 1975 – Alex Cora, Puerto Rican baseball player
• 1976 – Zhou Xun, Chinese actress and singer
• 1977 – Ryan Nelsen, New Zealand footballer
• 1977 – David Vuillemin, pro motocross rider
• 1978 – Wesley Jonathan, American actor
• 1978 – Mike Tindall, English rugby union player
• 1978 – Priyanka Trivedi, Indian actress
• 1978 – Jake Farrow, American actor
• 1979 – Jothika, Indian actress
• 1980 – Josh Gracin, American singer
• 1981 – Greg Warren, American football player
• 1982 – Ne-Yo, American R&B singer
• 1982 – Thierry Amiel, French singer
• 1984 – Lindsey Vonn, American alpine skier
• 1984 – Freida Pinto, Indian actress and model
• 1985 – Derrick Tribbett, American musician (Twisted Method)
• 1987 – Zac Efron, American actor
• 1987 – Freja Beha Erichsen, Danish model
• 1989 – Joy Lauren, American actress
• 1990 – Bristol Palin, American political figure
• 1990 – Carly Schroeder, American actress
• 1991 – Tyler Posey, American actor
• 1998 – Julia Wróblewska, Polish actress
• 2001 – Annelise Manojlovic, English actress

Deaths

• 1035 – Sancho III of Navarre
• 1101 – Hugh of Vermandois, son of Henry I of France (b. 1053)
• 1141 – Margrave Leopold IV of Austria
• 1382 – James Butler, 2nd Earl of Ormonde (b. 1331)
• 1417 – Pope Gregory XII
• 1503 – Pope Pius III (b. 1439)
• 1541 – Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scotland (b. 1489)
• 1545 – John Taverner, English composer
• 1558 – Maria of Austria, wife of Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia (b. 1505)
• 1564 – Johannes Acronius Frisius, German physician and mathematician (b. 1520)
• 1570 – Manoel da Nóbrega, Portuguese Jesuit in Brazil (b. 1517)
• 1604 – Igram van Achelen, Dutch statesman (b. 1528)
• 1646 – Isaac Jogues, French Jesuit missionary (b. 1607)
• 1667 – Fasilides, Emperor of Ethiopia (b. 1603)
• 1678 – Jacob Jordaens, Flemish painter (b. 1593)
• 1739 – Antônio José da Silva, Brazilian-born dramatist (b. 1705)
• 1744 – Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, close friend of Queen Anne of Great Britain (b. 1660)
• 1770 – John Manners, Marquess of Granby, British soldier (b. 1721)
• 1775 – Christian August Crusius, German philosopher and theologian (b. 1715)
• 1817 – Etienne-Nicolas Méhul, French composer (b. 1763)
• 1871 – Charles Babbage, English mathematician and inventor (b. 1791)
• 1865 – Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1784)
• 1886 – Philipp Franz von Siebold, German physician (b. 1796)
• 1889 – Antonio Meucci, Italian inventor (b. 1808)
• 1892 – William W. Chapman, American politician (b. 1808)
• 1893 – Charles Gounod, French composer (b. 1818)
• 1911 – Alfred Binet, French psychologist (b. 1857)
• 1921 – King Ludwig III of Bavaria (b. 1845)
• 1931 – Thomas Edison, American inventor (b. 1847)
• 1932 – Ioannis Chrysafis, Greek gymnast (b. 1873)
• 1941 – Manuel Teixeira Gomes, 7^th President of Portugal (b. 1860)
• 1942 – Mikhail Nesterov, Russian painter (b. 1862)
• 1948 – Walther von Brauchitsch, German field marshal (b. 1881)
• 1959 – Boughera El Ouafi, Algerian athlete (b. 1898)
• 1961 – Tsuru Aoki, Japanese-born American actress (b. 1892)
• 1965 – Henry Travers, British actor (b. 1874),
• 1966 – Elizabeth Arden, Canadian businesswoman (b. 1878)
• 1966 – Sebastian S. Kresge, American merchant (Kmart) (b. 1867)
• 1973 – Margaret Caroline Anderson, American magazine publisher (b. 1886)
• 1973 – Walt Kelly, American cartoonist, (Pogo) (b. 1913)
• 1973 – Leo Strauss, German-American philosopher (b. 1899)
• 1975 – Al Lettieri, American actor (b. 1928)
• 1976 – Kavi Samrat Viswanatha Satyanarayana, Telugu writer (b. 1895)
• 1977 – Red Army Faction Stammheim Prison suicides

• Andreas Baader (b. 1943)
• Gudrun Ensslin (b. 1940)
• Jan-Carl Raspe (b. 1944)

• 1978 – Ramón Mercader, Assassin of Leon Trotsky (b. 1914)
• 1982 – Bess Truman, First Lady of the United States (b. 1885)
• 1982 – Dwain Esper, American film director (b. 1892)
• 1982 – Pierre Mendès-France, French politician (b. 1907)
• 1982 – John Robarts, Canadian politician, Premier of Ontario (b. 1917)
• 1983 – Willie Jones, baseball player (b. 1925)
• 1983 – Diego Abad de Santillán, Spanish anarchist (b. 1897)
• 1984 – Jon-Erik Hexum, American actor (b. 1957)
• 1984 – Henri Michaux, French painter and poet (b. 1899)
• 2000 – Julie London, American singer and actress (b. 1926)
• 2000 – Gwen Verdon, American dancer and actress (b. 1925)
• 2001 – Micheline Ostermeyer, French athlete and musician (b. 1922)
• 2002 – Nikolai Rukavishnikov, cosmonaut (b. 1932)
• 2002 – Roman Tam, Hong Kong singer (b. 1950)
• 2003 – Preston Smith, Governor of Texas (b. 1912)
• 2003 – Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Spanish writer (b. 1939)
• 2004 – Veerappan, Indian bandit and smuggler (b. 1945)
• 2005 – John Hollis, British actor (b. 1931)
• 2005 – Johnny Haynes, English footballer (b. 1934)
• 2005 – Bill King, American sports broadcaster (b. 1927)
• 2006 – Mario Francesco Pompedda, cardinal (b. 1929)
• 2006 – Anna Russell, English music satirist (b. 1911)
• 2007 – Alan Coren, English writer and satirist (b. 1938)
• 2007 – William J. Crowe, American admiral and ambassador (b. 1925)
• 2007 – Vincent DeDomenico, American entrepreneur (b. 1915)
• 2007 – Lucky Dube, South African musician (b. 1964)
• 2008 – Dee Dee Warwick, American soul singer (b. 1945)

Holidays and observances

• Alaska Day (Alaska)
• Christian Feast Day
  • Justus of Beauvais
  • Luke the Evangelist
  • October 18 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)

External links

• BBC: On This Day
• On This Day in Canada
• The New York Times: On This Day