April 18
April 18 is the 108th day of the year (109th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 257 days remaining until the end of the year.
Events
- 1025 – Bolesław Chrobry is crowned in Gniezno, becoming the first King of Poland.
- 1506 – The cornerstone of the current St. Peter's Basilica is laid.
- 1518 – Bona Sforza is crowned as queen consort of Poland.
- 1689 – Bostonians rise up in rebellion against Sir Edmund Andros.
- 1738 – Real Academia de la Historia ("Royal Academy of History") is founded in Madrid.
- 1775 – American Revolution: The British advancement by sea begins; Paul Revere and other riders warn the countryside of the troop movements.
- 1797 – The Battle of Neuwied – French victory against the Austrians.
- 1831 – The University of Alabama is founded.
- 1848 – American victory at the battle of Cerro Gordo opens the way for invasion of Mexico.
- 1857 – "The Spirits Book" by Allan Kardec is published, marking the birth of Spiritualism in France.
- 1864 – Battle of Dybbøl: A Prussian-Austrian army defeats Denmark and gains control of Schleswig. Denmark surrenders the province in the following peace settlement.
- 1880 – An F4 tornado strikes Marshfield, Missouri, killing 99 people and injuring 100.
- 1881 – Billy the Kid escapes from the Lincoln County jail in Mesilla, New Mexico.
- 1897 – The Greco-Turkish War is declared between Greece and the Ottoman Empire.
- 1899 – The St. Andrew's Ambulance Association is granted a Royal Charter by Queen Victoria.
- 1902 – Quetzaltenango, the second largest city of Guatemala, is destroyed by an earthquake.
- 1906 – An earthquake and fire destroy much of San Francisco, California.
- 1909 – Joan of Arc is beatified in Rome.
- 1912 – The Cunard liner RMS Carpathia brings 705 survivors from the RMS Titanic to New York City.
- 1915 – French pilot Roland Garros is shot down and glides to a landing on the German side of the lines during World War I.
- 1923 – Yankee Stadium, "The House that Ruth Built", opens.
- 1924 – Simon & Schuster publishes the first crossword puzzle book.
- 1936 – The first Champions Day is celebrated in Detroit, Michigan.
- 1930 – BBC Radio announces that there is no news on that day.
- 1942 – World War II: The Doolittle Raid on Japan. Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe and Nagoya are bombed.
- 1942 – Pierre Laval becomes Prime Minister of Vichy France.
- 1943 – World War II: Operation Vengeance, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is killed when his aircraft is shot down by U.S. fighters over Bougainville Island.
- 1945 – Over 1,000 bombers attack the small island of Heligoland, Germany.
- 1946 – The International Court of Justice holds its inaugural meeting in The Hague, Netherlands.
- 1949 – The aircraft carrier USS United States is laid down at Newport News Drydock and Shipbuilding. However, construction is canceled five days later, resulting in the Revolt of the Admirals.
- 1954 – Gamal Abdal Nasser seizes power in Egypt.
- 1955 – 29 nations meet at Bandung, Indonesia, for the first Asian-African Conference.
- 1958 – A United States federal court rules that poet Ezra Pound be released from an insane asylum.
- 1961 – The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, a cornerstone of modern international relations, is adopted.
- 1961 – CONCP is founded in Casablanca as a united front of African movements opposing Portuguese colonial rule.
- 1974 – The Prime Minister of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto inaugurates Lahore dry port.
- 1980 – The Republic of Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) comes into being, with Canaan Banana as the country's first President. The Zimbabwe Dollar replaces the Rhodesian Dollar as the official currency.
- 1981 – The longest professional baseball game is begun in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The game is suspended at 4:00 the next morning and finally completed on June 23.
- 1983 – A suicide bomber destroys the United States embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 63 people.
- 1988 – The United States launches Operation Praying Mantis against Iranian naval forces in the largest naval battle since World War II.
- 1992 – General Abdul Rashid Dostum revolts against President Mohammad Najibullah of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and allies with Ahmed Shah Massoud to capture Kabul.
- 1996 – In Lebanon, at least 106 civilians are killed when the Israel Defense Forces shell the UN compound at Quana where more than 800 civilians had taken refuge.
- 2007 – The Supreme Court of the United States upholds the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in a 5-4 decision.
- 2007 – A series of bombings, two of them being suicides, occur in Baghdad, killing 198 and injuring 251.
Births
- 1480 – Lucrezia Borgia, Florentine ruler and daughter of Pope Alexander VI (d. 1519)
- 1580 – Thomas Middleton, English dramatist (d. 1627)
- 1590 – Ahmed I, Ottoman Emperor (d. 1617)
- 1605 – Giacomo Carissimi, Italian composer (d. 1674)
- 1740 – Sir Francis Baring, 1st Baronet, English merchant banker (d. 1810)
- 1771 – Karl Philipp Fürst zu Schwarzenberg, Austrian field marshal (d. 1820)
- 1797 – Adolphe Thiers, French statesman (d. 1877)
- 1813 – James McCune Smith, African-American doctor and abolitionist (d. 1865)
- 1819 – Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, Cuban Revolutionary (d. 1874)
- 1819 – Franz von Suppé, Austrian composer (d. 1895)
- 1838 – Paul Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran, French scientist (d. 1912)
- 1857 – Clarence Darrow, American attorney (d. 1938)
- 1857 – Alexander Shirvanzade, Armenian playwright and novelist (d. 1935)
- 1863 – Leopold Graf Berchtold, Austro-Hungarian foreign minister (d. 1942)
- 1864 – Richard Harding Davis, American author (d. 1916)
- 1874 – Oskar Ernst Bernhardt, German author (d. 1941)
- 1874 – Ivana Brlic-Mazuranic, Croatian writer (d. 1938)
- 1877 – Vicente Sotto, Filipino patriot, author (d. 1950)
- 1879 – Korneli Kekelidze, Georgian philologist (d. 1962)
- 1880 – Sam Crawford, baseball player (d. 1968)
- 1882 – Leopold Stokowski, Polish conductor (d. 1977)
- 1888 – Duffy Lewis, American baseball player (d. 1979)
- 1889 – Jessie Street, Australian suffragette, feminist, and human rights activist (d. 1970)
- 1893 – Violette Morris, French athlete (d. 1944)
- 1897 – Ardito Desio, Italian topographer (d. 2001)
- 1901 – Al Lewis, American lyricist (d. 1967)
- 1901 – László Németh, Hungarian writer (d. 1975)
- 1901 – Elene Akhvlediani, Georgian artist (d. 1975)
- 1902 – Giuseppe Pella, Prime Minister of Italy (d. 1981)
- 1902 – Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Hasidic Judaism leader (d. 1994)
- 1904 – Pigmeat Markham, American comedian (d. 1981)
- 1905 – George H. Hitchings, American scientist, Nobel laureate (d. 1998)
- 1907 – Miklós Rózsa, Hungarian-born composer (d. 1995)
- 1911 – Maurice Goldhaber, Austrian-born American physicist
- 1915 – Joy Gresham Lewis, American writer, wife of C. S. Lewis (d. 1960)
- 1917 – Ty LaForest, Canadian baseball player (d. 1947)
- 1917 – Frederika of Hanover, Queen Consort of Greece (d. 1981)
- 1918 – Clifton Hillegass, American publisher (d. 2001)
- 1918 – Tony Mottola, American guitarist (d. 2004)
- 1918 – Gabriel Axel, Danish film director
- 1918 – Shinobu Hashimoto, Japanese screenwriter
- 1919 – Virginia O'Brien, American singer and actress (d. 2001)
- 1921 – Jean Richard, French actor (d. 2001)
- 1922 – Barbara Hale, American actress
- 1924 – Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, American musician (d. 2005)
- 1924 – Henry Hyde, American politician (d. 2007)
- 1925 – Bob Hastings, American actor
- 1925 – Marcus Schmuck, Austrian mountaineer (d. 2005)
- 1927 – Samuel P. Huntington, American political scientist (d. 2008)
- 1930 – Clive Revill, New Zealand born actor
- 1934 – James Drury, American actor
- 1934 – George Shirley, American tenor
- 1935 – Costas Ferris, Greek director
- 1936 – Tommy Ivo, American race car driver
- 1937 – Jan Kaplický, British architect of Czech origin
- 1939 – Thomas J. Moyer, American judge
- 1940 – Joseph L. Goldstein, American scientist, Nobel laureate
- 1940 – Mike Vickers, British guitarist and saxophonist (Manfred Mann)
- 1942 – Jochen Rindt, German-Austrian racer and F1 (posthumous) world champion (d. 1970)
- 1942 – Steve Blass, American professional baseball player
- 1942 – Robert Christgau, American music critic
- 1944 – Robert Hanssen, American spy
- 1945 – Margaret Hassan, Irish-born aid worker (d. 2004)
- 1946 – Hayley Mills, English actress
- 1946 – Skip Spence, Canadian-born guitarist, singer and songwriter (Jefferson Airplane) (d. 1999)
- 1947 – Kathy Acker, American author (d. 1997)
- 1947 – Dorothy Lyman, American actress
- 1947 – Herbert Mullin, American serial killer
- 1947 – Cindy Pickett, American actress
- 1947 – James Woods, American actor
- 1947 – Jerzy Stuhr, Polish film director and actor
- 1949 – Geoff Bodine, American race car driver
- 1950 – Kenny Ortega, American film and TV producer and choreographer
- 1950 – Paul Callery, football player
- 1951 – Ricardo Fortaleza, Australian-Filipino boxer
- 1951 – Pierre Pettigrew, Canadian politician
- 1953 – Rick Moranis, Canadian comedian
- 1956 – Anna Kathryn Holbrook, American actress
- 1956 – Eric Roberts, American actor
- 1956 – Melody Thomas Scott, American actress
- 1956 – Poonam Dhillon, Indian actress
- 1958 – Malcolm Marshall, Barbadian West Indies cricketer (d. 1999)
- 1961 – Jane Leeves, British actress
- 1961 – Steve Lombardi, American wrestler
- 1961 – John Podhoretz, American columnist and political pundit
- 1962 – Jeff Dunham, American comedian
- 1963 – Eric McCormack, Canadian actor
- 1963 – Conan O'Brien, American comedian
- 1964 – Niall Ferguson, British historian
- 1964 – Rithy Panh, Cambodian film director
- 1964 – Jim Ellison, musician (d. 1996)
- 1964 – Mark Berry, aka Bez, dancer in Happy Mondays
- 1965 – Rob Stenders, Dutch radio discjockey
- 1966 – Trine Hattestad, Norwegian athlete
- 1966 – Valeri Kamensky, Russian ice hockey player
- 1967 – Maria Bello, American actress
- 1968 – Mary Birdsong, American actress
- 1968 – David Hewlett, English born Canadian actor
- 1969 – Princess Sayako of Japan
- 1969 – Keith R.A. DeCandido, American author
- 1969 – Stefan Schwarz, Swedish footballer
- 1970 – Rico Brogna, American baseball player
- 1970 – Saad Hariri, Prime Minister of Lebanon
- 1970 – Greg Eklund, American musician
- 1970 – Esther Schweins, German actress and comedienne
- 1970 – Tatiana Stefanidou, Greek television host
- 1971 – Tamara Braun, American actress
- 1971 – Russell Payne, English writer
- 1971 – Samantha Cameron, business executive; wife of UK Prime Minister David Cameron
- 1971 – David Tennant, Scottish actor
- 1971 – Oleg Petrov, Russian ice hockey player
- 1972 – Rosa Clemente, American activist and hip-hop artist
- 1972 – Eli Roth, American film director
- 1973 – Derrick Brooks, American football player
- 1973 – Haile Gebrselassie, Ethiopian athlete
- 1973 – Brady Clark, American baseball player
- 1973 – Jad Abumrad, American radio host and producer
- 1974 – Mark Tremonti, American musician
- 1974 – Millie Corretjer, Puerto Rican singer
- 1974 – Edgar Wright, British director
- 1976 – Fayray, Japanese singer
- 1976 – Jo Gibb, Scottish Actress
- 1976 – Melissa Joan Hart, American actress
- 1976 – Sean Maguire, British actor
- 1976 – Justin Ross, American politician
- 1977 – Dan Lacouture, NHL hockey player
- 1977 – Cindy Taylor, Paraguayan supermodel and actress
- 1979 – Michael Bradley, American basketball player
- 1979 – Anthony Davidson, British Formula One driver
- 1979 – Nuria Fergó, Spanish singer
- 1979 – Matthew Upson, English footballer
- 1979 – Kourtney Kardashian, American reality television star
- 1980 – Robyn Regehr, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1980 – Priit Võigemast, Estonian actor
- 1981 – Brian Buscher, American baseball player
- 1981 – Milan Jovanović, Serbian footballer
- 1982 – Simone Farina, Italian footballer
- 1982 – Scott Hartnell, NHL hockey player
- 1982 – Darren Sutherland, Irish boxer (d. 2009)
- 1982 – Marie-Élaine Thibert, Canadian singer
- 1983 – Miguel Cabrera, Venezuelan baseball player
- 1983 – Fodil Hadjadj, Algerian footballer
- 1984 – America Ferrera, American actress
- 1985 – Łukasz Fabiański, Polish footballer
- 1985 – Karl Reindler, Australian racing driver
- 1985 – Elena Temnikova, Russian singer (Serebro)
- 1986 – Maurice Edu, American soccer player
- 1986 – Billy Butler, American baseball player
- 1986 – Conrad Logan, Irish footballer
- 1987 – Brett Deledio, Australian Rules football player
- 1987 – Danny Guthrie, English footballer
- 1987 – Sandra Lyng Haugen, Norwegian singer
- 1987 – Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, British model
- 1988 – Alexander Hauck, South African-born German rugby player
- 1989 – Alia Shawkat, American actress
- 1989 – Jessica (Jessica Jung), American-born South Korean singer (Girls' Generation)
- 1989 – Simas Buterlevičius, Lithuanian basketball player
- 1990 – Wojciech Szczęsny, Polish footballer
- 1994 – Moises Arias, American actor
- 2007 – Hayah bint Hamzah, Princess of Jordan
Deaths
- 1161 – Theobald of Bec, Archbishop of Canterbury
- 1552 – John Leland, English antiquarian (b. 1502)
- 1556 – Luigi Alamanni, Italian poet (b. 1495)
- 1567 – Wilhelm von Grumbach, German adventurer (b. 1503)
- 1558 – Roxelana, wife of Suleiman the Magnificent
- 1636 – Julius Caesar, English judge
- 1650 – Simonds d'Ewes, English antiquarian (b. 1602)
- 1674 – John Graunt, English statistician (b. 1620)
- 1689 – George Jeffreys, British Chief Justice (b. 1648)
- 1732 – Louis Feuillée, French explorer (b. 1660)
- 1794 – Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden, Lord Chancellor of Great Britain (b. 1714)
- 1796 – Johan Wilcke, Swedish physicist (b. 1732)
- 1802 – Erasmus Darwin, English physician and botanist (b. 1731)
- 1859 – Tantya Tope, Indian Revolutionary & General (b. 1814)
- 1873 – Justus von Liebig, German chemist (b. 1803)
- 1898 – Gustave Moreau, French painter (b. 1826)
- 1906 – Luis Martín, Spanish Superior-General of the Society of Jesus (b. 1846)
- 1917 – Vladimir Serbsky, Russian psychiatrist (b. 1858)
- 1935 – Panait Istrati, Romanian writer (b. 1884)
- 1936 – Ottorino Respighi, Italian composer (b. 1879)
- 1942 – Aleksander Mitt, Estonian speed skater (b. 1903)
- 1942 – Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, American socialite (b. 1875)
- 1943 – Isoroku Yamamoto, Japanese admiral. (b. 1884)
- 1945 – John Ambrose Fleming, English physicist and engineer (b. 1849)
- 1945 – Ernie Pyle, American journalist (b. 1900)
- 1945 – Prince William of Wied, sovereign Prince of Albania (b. 1876)
- 1947 – Jozef Tiso, Slovakian leader (b. 1887), Nazi collaborator and puppet ruler
- 1949 – Will Hay, English comedian and actor (b. 1888)
- 1951 – António Óscar Carmona, 97th Prime Minister of Portugal and 11th President of Portugal (b. 1869)
- 1955 – Albert Einstein, German physicist (b. 1879)
- 1958 – Maurice Gamelin, French general (b. 1872)
- 1963 – Meyer Jacobstein, American politician (b. 1880)
- 1964 – Ben Hecht, American writer (b. 1894)
- 1965 – Guillermo González Camarena, Mexican inventor (b. 1917)
- 1967 – Karl Miller, German footballer (b. 1913)
- 1974 – Marcel Pagnol, French novelist, playwright and filmmaker (b. 1895)
- 1976 – Mahmoud Younis, Suez Canal nationalization engineer (b. 1911)
- 1986 – Marcel Dassault, French aircraft industrialist (b.1892)
- 1988 – Pierre Desproges, French humorist (b. 1939)
- 1990 – Gory Guerrero, professional wrestler (b. 1921)
- 1990 – Victoria O'Keefe, British actress (b. 1969)
- 1992 – Frankie Howerd, English comedian and comic actor (b. 1917)
- 1993 – Masahiko Kimura, Japanese judoka (b. 1917)
- 1995 – Arturo Frondizi, President of Argentina (b. 1908)
- 1995 – Roza Makagonova, Russian actress (b. 1927)
- 1996 – Brook Berringer, American football player (b. 1973)
- 1996 – Bernard Edwards, American record producer (b. 1952)
- 1998 – Terry Sanford, American politician (b. 1917)
- 2002 – Thor Heyerdahl, Norwegian explorer (b. 1914)
- 2002 – Wahoo McDaniel, American football player and professional wrestler (b. 1938)
- 2003 – Edgar F. Codd, English computer scientist (b. 1923)
- 2004 – Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, first Prime Minister of Fiji and President of Fiji (b. 1920)
- 2005 – Sam Mills, American football player (b. 1959)
- 2007 – Iccho Itoh, mayor of Nagasaki (b. 1945)
- 2009 – Stephanie Parker, Welsh actress (b. 1987)
- 2011 – Olubayo Adefemi, Nigerian footballer (b. 1985)
Holidays and observances
External links