October 18
October 18 is the 291st day of the year (292nd in Leap years). There are 74 days remaining. Events 1009 - The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a Christian church in Jerusalem, is completely destroyed by the "mad" 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. 1561 - Fourth Battle of Kawanakajima -- Takeda Shingen beats Uesugi Kenshin in the climax of their ongoing conflicts 1685 - Louis XIV of France revokes the Edict of Nantes, which has protected French Protestants 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 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, celebrated annually in the state as (Alaska Day). 1898 - United States takes possession of Puerto Rico. 1908 - Belgium annexes the Congo Free State. 1912 - The First Balkan War begins. 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. 1944 - Adolf Hitler orders the establishment of a German national militia. 1944 - Soviet Union invades Czechoslovakia 1945 - The USSR's nuclear program receives plans for the USA's plutonium bomb from Klaus Fuchs at the Los Alamos National Laboratory 1954 - Texas Instruments announces the first Transistor radio 1968 - A police raid on John Lennon and Yoko Ono's flat finds 168 grains of marijuana. They later plead guilty and are fined Ł150. 1969 - Jefferson Airplane member Paul Kantner is charged with possession of marijuana on Hawaii. 1974 - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre opens in theaters. 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 executed and various RAF members commit suicide. The German government states that it would never again negotiate with terrorists. 1993 - Andreas Papandreou begins his second term as Prime Minister of Greece. 2003 - Bolivian Gas War: President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, is forced to resign and leave Bolivia.
Births1405 - Pope Pius II (d. 1464)1706 - Baldassare Galuppi, composer (d. 1785)1741 - Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, French general and author (d. 1803)1785 - Thomas Love Peacock, English satirist (d. 1866)1859 - Henri Bergson, French writer (d. 1941)1873 - Ivanoe Bonomi, former Prime Minister of Italy (d. 1951)1898 - Lotte Lenya, Austiran singer, actress (d. 1981) 1898 - Shin'ichi Suzuki, violin player and teacher, creator of the Suzuki method (d. 1998)1902 - Miriam Hopkins, actress (d. 1972)1903 - Lina Radke, German athlete (d. 1983)1911 - Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, guru1913 - Evelyn Venable Mohr, actress (d. 1993)1918 - Bobby Troup, musician (d. 1999)1919 - Anita O'Day, jazz singer 1919 - Pierre Elliott Trudeau, fifteenth Prime Minister of Canada (d. 2000)1920 - Melina Mercouri, Greek actress (d. 1994)1921 - Jesse Helms, Senator from North Carolina1926 - Chuck Berry, musician 1926 - Klaus Kinski, actor (d. 1991)1927 - George C. Scott, actor (d. 1999)1928 - Keith Jackson, American football commentator 1928 - Hugh Allan "Buddy" MacMaster, musician1929 - Violeta Chamorro, President of Nicaragua1934 - Inger Stevens, actress (d. 1970) 1934 - Chuck Swindoll, American evangelist1935 - Peter Boyle, actor1939 - Mike Ditka, American football player, coach, commentator 1939 - Lee Harvey Oswald, American assassin of John F. Kennedy (d. 1963)1947 - Joe Morton, actor 1947 - Laura Nyro, singer, songwriter (d. 1997)1948 - Ntozake Shange, author1950 - Om Puri, actor 1950 - Wendy Wasserstein, playwright1951 - Terry McMillan, author1956 - Martina Navratilova, tennis player1960 - Jean-Claude Van Damme, Belgian actor1961 - Wynton Marsalis, American jazz musician1962 - Vincent Spano, actor1976 - Azlea Antistia, erotic actress
Deaths707 - Pope John VII1141 - Leopold IV, Margrave of Austria and Duke of Bavaria1216 - John of England (or October 19)1417 - Pope Gregory XII1503 - Pope Pius III1545 - John Taverner, English composer1817 - Etienne-Nicolas Méhul, French composer (b. 1763)1871 - Charles Babbage, mathematician and inventor of computing machines1893 - Charles Gounod, French composer1921 - King Ludwig III of Bavaria1931 - Thomas Edison, American inventor1959 - Boughera El Ouafi, Algerian athlete1982 - Bess Truman, wife of U. S. President Harry S. Truman (b. 1885)1983 - Willie Jones, Major League Baseball player (b. 1925)2000:*Julie London, singer, actress*Gwen Verdon, dancer, actress2001 - Micheline Ostermeyer, French athlete and musician2002:*Nikolai Rukavishnikov, cosmonaut*Roman Tam, a canto-pop singer (b. 1950)2003:*Preston Smith, Governor of Texas (b. 1912) *Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Spanish writer 2004 - Veerappan, Indian forest bandit and sandalwood smuggler (b. 1945)
Holidays and obervancesRoman Catholic Church - Feast of Saint LukeAlaska: Alaska Day
External links BBC: On This Day
October 17 - October 19 - September 18 - November 18 - more historical anniversaries
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