On this day in History - Oct 18

• 0033 - Agripina dies. Calígula's mother
• 0707 - Pope John VII dies
• 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.
• 1035 - Sancho III of Navarre dies
• 1127 - Emperor Go-Shirakawa was born (d. 1192). Emperor of Japan.
• 1141 - Leopold IV of Austria dies
• 1210 - Pope Innocent III excommunicates German leader Otto IV
• 1405 - Pope Pius II was born (d. 1464)
• 1417 - Pope Gregory XII dies
• 1442 - João Duque de Aveiro dies (b. 13 Jan 1400). Prince of Portugal, son of the King D. João I and Queen Filipa de Lencastre.
• 1503 - Pope Pius III dies (b. 1439)
• 1517 - Manoel da Nóbrega was born (d. 18.Oct.1570). Portuguese Jesuit in Brazil.
• 1545 - John Taverner dies. English composer
• 1547 - Justus Lipsius was born (d. 1606). Flemish humanist.
• 1558 - Maria of Austria dies (b. 1505). Queen of Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia.
• 1561 - Fourth Battle of Kawanakajima - Takeda Shingen beats Uesugi Kenshin in the climax of their ongoing conflicts
• 1564 - Johannes Acronius Frisius dies (b. 1520). German physician and mathematician.
• 1569 - Giambattista Marini was born (d. 1625). Italian poet.
• 1570 - Manoel da Nóbrega dies (b. 18.Oct.1517). Portuguese Jesuit in Brazil.
• 1595 - Edward Winslow was born (d. 1655). Plymouth Colony founder.
• 1604 - Igram van Achelen dies (b. 1528). Dutch statesman.
• 1634 - Luca Giordano was born (d. 1705). Italian artist.
• 1646 - Isaac Jogues dies (b. 1607). French Jesuit missionary.
• 1653 - Abraham van Riebeeck was born (d. 1713). Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies
• 1662 - Matthew Henry was born (d. 1714). English non-conformist minister
• 1667 - Fasilidos dies. Emperor of Ethiopia
• 1668 - John George IV, Elector of Saxony was born (d. 1694)
• 1678 - Jacob Jordaens dies (b. 1593). Flemish painter.
• 1679 - Ann Putnam, Jr. was born (d. 1716). American accuser in the Salem Witch Trials.
• 1685 - Louis XIV of France revokes the Edict of Nantes, which has protected French Protestants
• 1701 - Charles le Beau was born (d. 1778). French historian
• 1706 - Baldassare Galuppi was born (d. 1785). Italian composer.
• 1739 - António José da Silva (O Judeu / The Jewish) dies (b. 1705). Brazilian-born Portuguese dramatist.
• 1741 - Pierre Choderlos de Laclos was born (d. 1803). French general and author.
• 1744 - Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough dies (b. 1660). English friend of Anne of England
• 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
• 1770 - John Manners, Marquess of Granby dies (b. 1721). British soldier.
• 1775 - Christian August Crusius dies (b. 1715). German philosopher and theologian
• 1777 - Heinrich von Kleist was born (d. 1811). German writer.
• 1785 - Thomas Love Peacock was born (d. 1866). English satirist.
• 1817 - Etienne-Nicolas Méhul dies (b. 1763). French composer.
• 1817 - Gomes Freire de Andrade dies hanged at Forte de São Julião da Barra (b. 27 Jan 1757). Portuguese militar.
• 1842 - Walhalla temple near Regensburg at the Danube is inaugurated
• 1851 - Herman Melville's Moby-Dick is first published as The Whale by Richard Bentley of London.
• 1854 - Billy Murdoch was born (d. 1911). Australian cricketer.
• 1859 - Henri Bergson was born (d. 1941). French philosopher, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature.
• 1860 - The Second Opium War finally ends at the Convention of Peking ith the ratification of the Treaty of Tientsin, an unequal treaty.
• 1860 - Casimiro de Abreu dies (4 Jan 1839). Brazilian poet.
• 1866 - Philipp Franz von Siebold dies (b. 1796). German physician.
• 1867 - United States takes possession of Alaska, celebrated annually in the state as (Alaska Day).
• 1867 - Eugénio de Paula Tavares was born in Ilha Brava, Cabo Verde. Journalist, writer, poet.
• 1868 - Ernst Didring was born (d. 1931). Swedish author.
• 1870 - Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki was born. Japanese scholar.
• 1871 - Charles Babbage dies (b. 1791). English mathematician and inventor.
• 1873 - Ivanoe Bonomi was born (d. 1951). Prime Minister of Italy.
• 1882 - Lucien Petit-Breton was born (d. 1917). Argentine-French cyclist.
• 1886 - Amílcar Ramada Curto dies (b. 1961). Portuguese writer.
• 1893 - Charles Gounod dies (b. 1818). French composer (Faust, Romeo et Juliette).
• 1893 - Georges Ohsawa was born (d. 1966). Japanese founder of Macrobiotics.
• 1897 - Isabel Briggs Myers was born (d. 1980). American pyschological theorist.
• 1898 - Lotte Lenya was born (d. 1981). Austrian singer and actress.
• 1898 - Shin'ichi Suzuki was born (d. 1998). Japanese violinist.
• 1898 - United States takes possession of Puerto Rico.
• 1898 - Leopoldo Neves de Almeida was born in Lisbon. Portuguese sculptor.
• 1902 - Miriam Hopkins was born (d. 1972). American actress.
• 1902 - Pascual Jordan was born (d. 1980). German physicist.
• 1903 - Lina Radke was born (d. 1983). German athlete.
• 1906 - James Brooks was born (d. 1992). American painter.
• 1908 - Belgium annexes the Congo Free State.
• 1909 - Norberto Bobbio was born (d. 2004). Italian philosopher and legal theorist.
• 1911 - Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was born. Indian guru
• 1911 - Alfred Binet dies (b. 1857). French psychologist.
• 1912 - The First Balkan War begins.
• 1913 - Robert Gilruth was born (d. 2000). American aviation and space pioneer.
• 1915 - Grande Otelo (Sebastião Bernardes de Sousa Prata) was born in Uberlândia, Minas Gerais. Brazilian actor.
• 1915 - Victor Sen Yung was born (d. 1980). American actor.
• 1918 - Bobby Troup was born (d. 1999). American musician.
• 1919 - Madrid opened a subway system.
• 1919 - Anita O'Day was born. American singer
• 1919 - Pierre Elliott Trudeau was born (d. 2000). Fifteenth Prime Minister of Canada
• 1920 - Melina Mercouri was born (d. 1994). Greek actress.
• 1921 - Jesse Helms was born. U.S. Senator from North Carolina
• 1921 - King Ludwig III of Bavaria dies (b. 1845)
• 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.
• 1924 - Hugh Allan "Buddy" MacMaster was born. Canadian musician
• 1925 - Ramiz Alia was born. Political leader of Albania
• 1925 - The Grand Ole Opry opens.
• 1926 - Chuck Berry was born. American musician
• 1926 - Klaus Kinski was born (d. 1991). German actor.
• 1927 - George C. Scott was born (d. 1999). American actor.
• 1928 - Keith Jackson was born. American football commentator
• 1928 - Hugh Allan "Buddy" MacMaster was born. Canadian musician
• 1929 - Violeta Chamorro was born. President of Nicaragua
• 1931 - Thomas Edison dies (b. 1847). American inventor.
• 1931 - Chris Albertson was born. American jazz historian.
• 1932 - Vytautas Landsbergis was born. Lithuanian politician, one of the political destroyers of the Soviet Union
• 1933 - Forrest Gregg was born. American football player
• 1934 - Inger Stevens was born (d. 1970). Swedish actress.
• 1934 - Chuck Swindoll was born. American evangelist
• 1935 - Peter Boyle was born. American actor
• 1939 - Mike Ditka was born. American football player, coach, and commentator
• 1939 - Lee Harvey Oswald was born (d. 1963). American assassin of John F. Kennedy.
• 1939 - Flavio Cotti was born. Member of the Swiss Federal Council
• 1940 - Cynthia Weil was born. American songriter (with husband, Barry Mann)
• 1941 - Manuel Teixeira Gomes dies (b. 1862). President of Portuguese Republic (1923 - 1925) and writer.
• 1942 - Larry Pickering was born. Australian newspaper cartoonist.
• 1942 - Mikhail Nesterov dies (b. 1862). Russian painter.
• 1944 - Adolf Hitler orders the establishment of a German national militia.
• 1944 - Soviet Union invades Czechoslovakia
• 1944 - Nelson Freire was born. Brazilian pianist.
• 1945 - The USSR's nuclear program receives plans for the USA's plutonium bomb from Klaus Fuchs at the Los Alamos National Laboratory
• 1945 - Nazi war crime trial opens in Nuremberg
• 1945 - A group of the Venezuelan Armed Forces, led by Mario Vargas, Marcos Pérez Jiménez and Carlos Delgado Chalbaud, staged a coup d'etát against then president Isaías Medina Angarita, who was definitely overthrown by the end of the day.
• 1945 - Huell Howser was born. American TV host
• 1946 - Howard Shore was born. Canadian film composer
• 1947 - Joe Morton was born. American actor.
• 1947 - Laura Nyro was born (d. 1997). American singer and songwriter.
• 1948 - Ntozake Shange was born. American author
• 1948 - Walther von Brauchitsch dies (b. 1881). German field marshall.
• 1949 - George Hendrick was born. Baseball player
• 1950 - Om Puri was born. Indian actor
• 1950 - Wendy Wasserstein was born. American playwright
• 1951 - Terry McMillan was born. American author
• 1951 - Pam Dawber was born. American actress
• 1952 - Bao Ninh was born. Vietnamese novelist
• 1954 - Liz Burch was born. Australian actress
• 1954 - Texas Instruments announces the first Transistor radio
• 1955 - Timmy Mallett was born. British TV presenter
• 1955 - José Ortega y Gasset dies (b. 1883). Spanish philosopher
• 1956 - Martina Navratilova was born. Czech-born tennis player. Wimbledon winner (1989, 79, 82-87).
• 1956 - Craig Bartlett was born. American animator .
• 1958 - Kjell Samuelsson was born. National Hockey League defenseman.
• 1959 - Milčo Mančevski was born. Macedonian film director and screenwriter
• 1959 - Boughera El Ouafi dies. Algerian athlete
• 1960 - Jean-Claude Van Damme was born. Belgian actor
• 1961 - Wynton Marsalis was born. American musician
• 1961 - Erin Moran was born. American actress
• 1961 - Tsuru Aoki dies (b. 1892). Japanese-born American actress.
• 1962 - Dr. James D. Watson of the United States and Dr. Francis Crick and Dr. Maurice Wilkins (d.2004) of Britain, were named winners of the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology for their work in determining the double-helix molecular structure of DNA.
• 1962 - Vincent Spano was born. American actor
• 1963 - Cláudio Carneyro dies (b. 27 Jan 1895). Portuguese composer. Son of the great painter António Carneiro and Rosa Queiroz Costa, Cláudio Carneyro was born on 27 January 1895, in Rua do Bonfim, Porto.
• 1964 - The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair closes for its first season after a six-month run.
• 1966 - Angela Visser was born in Netherland. Miss Universe 1989
• 1966 - Elizabeth Arden dies (b. 1878). Canadian businesswoman.
• 1966 - Sebastian S. Kresge dies (b. 1867). American merchant (Kmart).
• 1967 - Nobel prize for physics awarded to Hans A. Bethe
• 1968 - A police raid on John Lennon and Yoko Ono's flat finds 168 grains of marijuana. They later plead guilty and are fined £150.
• 1968 - The U.S. Olympic Committee suspended two black athletes for giving a "black power" salute during a victory ceremony at the Mexico City games.
• 1968 - Bob Beamon sets a world record of 8.90m in the long jump at the Mexico City games. This becomes the longest unbroken track and field record in history, standing for 23 years, and is later named by Sports Illustrated magazine as one of the five greatest sporting moments of the 20th century.
• 1968 - Basil White was born. American comedian.
• 1968 - Michael Stich was born. German tennis star.
• 1969 - Jefferson Airplane member Paul Kantner is charged with possession of marijuana on Hawaii.
• 1969 - Álvaro Henríquez was born. Chilean musician.
• 1970 - Jose Padilla was born. American gang member and suspected terrorist.
• 1970 - Doug Mirabelli was born. Baseball player.
• 1973 - Nobel prize for economy awarded to Wassily Leontief
• 1973 - Leo Strauss dies (b. 1899). German-American Philosopher
• 1974 - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre opens in theaters.
• 1974 - Robbie Savage was born. Welsh footballer.
• 1975 - Alex Cora was born. Baseball player
• 1975 - Al Lettieri dies (b. 1928). American Actor.
• 1975 - Rebeca Tamez was born. Miss Mexico Universe 1997
• 1976 - Azlea Antistia was born. American actress
• 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 (West) German government states that it would never again negotiate with terrorists.
• 1977 - Reggie Jackson hits three consecutive home runs.
• 1977 - O filme Trás-os-Montes, dos realizadores António Reis e Margarida Martins Cordeiro, conquista o grande prémio da XXVI Semana Internacional de Cinema de Mannheim.
• 1977 - Ryan Nelsen was born. New Zealander football player
• 1978 - Ramón Mercader dies (b. 1914). Assassin of Leon Trotsky.
• 1981 - Poland General Jaruzelski was elected party leader.
• 1981 - Andreas Papandreous' PASOK wins Greek elections
• 1982 - Bess Truman dies (b. 1885). First Lady of the United States.
• 1982 - Dwain Esper dies (b. 1892). American film director.
• 1982 - Pierre Mendès-France dies (b. 1907). French politician.
• 1982 - John Robarts dies (b. 1917). Canadian politician, Premier of Ontario
• 1983 - Willie Jones dies (b. 1925). Baseball player.
• 1985 - Nintendo releases the Nintendo Entertainment System in the United States
• 1987 - Zac Efron was born. American actor
• 1988 - Green Day plays their first ever concert.
• 1989 - East German leader Erich Honecker resigns.
• 1989 - Hungary revises constitution
• 1991 - Azerbaijan declares independence from USSR
• 1993 - Andreas Papandreou begins his second term as Prime Minister of Greece.
• 1994 - Alessandro Iannella was born. Italian singer
• 1998 - In Oporto, Portugal, 21 member nations met for the Ibero-American summit. 19 Latin American countries were represented along with Spain and Portugal. A document was prepared urging the industrialized nations to help stave off economic recession / A Cimeira Ibero-Americana é aberta, no Porto, com a presença dos chefes de estado e de governo dos paises latino-americanos.
• 2000 - Julie London dies (b. 1926). American singer and actress.
• 2000 - Gwen Verdon dies (b. 1925). American dancer and actress.
• 2001 - Micheline Ostermeyer dies (b. 1922). French athlete and musician.
• 2002 - Nikolai Rukavishnikov dies (b. 1932). Cosmonaut.
• 2002 - Roman Tam dies (b. 1950). Hong Kong singer.
• 2003 - Bolivian Gas War: President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, is forced to resign and leave Bolivia. Carlos Mesa takes the place of President of Bolivia.
• 2003 - Manuel Vázquez Montalbán dies (b. 1939). Spanish writer.
• 2003 - Preston Smith dies (b. 1912). Governor of Texas.
• 2004 - Veerappan dies (b. 1945). Indian bandit and smuggler.
• 2005 - The Nameless Novel aka Book The Twelfth of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events is released to the public.
• 2005 - John Hollis dies (b. 1931). British actor.
• 2005 - Johnny Haynes dies (b. 1934). English footballer.
• Anglican communion, Roman Catholic Church, et al - Feast of Saint Luke
• Alaska: Alaska Day