Historical Events On August 18 - On This Day

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• 293 BC The oldest known Roman temple to Venus is founded, initiating the institution of Vinalia Rustica (grape harvest festival)
• 440 St Sixtus III ends his reign as Catholic Pope
• 1201 The city of Riga is founded

• 1217 First historical record of Scottish scholar Michael Scot, signs and dates his translation of al-Bitruji's "On the Sphere" in Toledo, Spain
• 1289 Pope Nicolas IV publishes decree "Supra montem"

1418 Competition is announced to design the dome of Florence Cathedral, with main competitors Lorenzo Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi (supported by Cosimo de' Medici)

• 1541 A Portuguese ship drifts ashore in the ancient Japanese province of Higo (modern-day Kumamoto Prefecture) (Traditional Japanese date: July 27, 1541)

1564 Spanish King Philip II joins Council of Trent

• 1587 Saul Wahl is elected King of Poland (according to legend)
• 1590 Governor of Roanoke Island colony John White returns from England to find no trace of the colonists he left there three years earlier
• 1605 Spanish army under of general Spinola conquers Lingen
• 1612 Pendle Witch Trial begins with 10 people accused of witchcraft in Lancaster, England; the key witness is a nine-year-old boy
• 1634 Urbain Grandier, accused and convicted of sorcery, is burned alive in Loudun, France
• 1636 The Covenant of the Town of Dedham, Massachusetts, is signed

1674 Jean Racine's dramatic tragedy "Iphigénie" premieres in Versailles

• 1686 Giovanni Cassini reports seeing a satellite orbiting Venus

1698 Russian Tsar Peter the Great arrives in Zaandam

• 1700 Denmark-Norway, Holstein-Gottorp, and the Swedish Empire sign the Treaty of Travendal
• 1700 Swedish army lands in Zealand, Denmark
• 1735 Evening Post begins publishing in Boston, Massachusetts
• 1737 First public admission to the Salon de Paris art exhibition at the Louvre in Paris
• 1759 Second Sea Battle of Lagos: England vs. France; ends the following day
• 1769 A lightning strike on the Bastion of San Nazaro in Brescia, Italy, ignites 90 tons of gunpowder, killing 3,000 people
• 1795 Curaçao Governor De Veer sends militia to stop rebellious enslaved people
• 1817 60-70 ft sea serpent sightings are reported offshore in Gloucester, Massachusetts
• 1826 Scottish explorer Alexander Gordon Laing travels across the Sahara and becomes the first European to reach the fabled trading city of Timbuktu; he is murdered near there a few weeks later
• 1835 Last Pottawatomie Indians leave Chicago

1838 United States Exploring Expedition headed by Charles Wilkes departs for the Pacific Ocean and Antarctica

• 1840 American Society of Dental Surgeons is founded in New York
• 1840 French colony established in Akaroa, South Island of New Zealand
• 1846 General Stephen W. Kearny's US forces capture Santa Fe, New Mexico
• 1848 Camila O'Gorman and Ladislao Gutiérrez are executed on the orders of Argentine dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas
• 1858 Netherlands and Japan sign a trade agreement

1862 Major General J.E.B. Stuart's is nearly captured by perusing Union forces who capture Stuart's plumed hat [1]

• 1862 Sioux Indians begin an uprising in Minnesota; it is later crushed
• 1864 Battle of Petersburg: Battle of Weldon Railroad, day 1 of a 3-day battle
• 1864 Sixth day of battle at Deep Bottom Run, Virginia: Confederate assault
• 1868 French astronomer Pierre Janssen discovers helium in the solar spectrum during an eclipse
• 1870 Battle of Gravelotte Privat: Prussia defeats France with 32,000 casualties
• 1872 Aaron Montgomery Ward issues the first catalog for his mail-order business; it is one sheet listing 163 available items
• 1873 First ascent of Mount Whitney, California (14,494 ft; 4,421 m)
• 1886 Carr Baker Neel and Samuel Neel win the US Lawn Tennis Association doubles
• 1891 Hurricane hits Martinique, killing about 700 people
• 1896 Adolph Ochs (39) buys The New York Times for $75,000

1904 Chris Watson resigns as Prime Minister of Australia and is succeeded by George Reid

1909 Mayor of Tokyo Yukio Ozaki presents Washington, D.C. with 2,000 cherry trees, which President William Howard Taft decides to plant near the Potomac River

• 1914 Belgian army withdraws to Antwerp
• 1914 French troops under General Dubail occupy Sarrebourg
• 1914 Swiss track and road bicycle racer Oscar Egg sets a new hour world record of 44.247 km at the outdoor Vélodrome Buffalo in Paris; the record stands until 1933
• 1915 Braves Field opens in Boston to see Braves beat St. Louis Cardinals, 3-1
• 1917 The Great Fire in Thessaloniki, Greece, destroys 32% of the city, leaving 70,000 individuals homeless

1917 The Queen's Hospital opens to provide pioneering plastic surgery for WWI soldiers, led by Harold Gillies in Sidcup, England

• 1917 The Royal Netherlands Naval Air Service (MLD) forms
• 1919 Anti-Cigarette League of America forms in Chicago, Illinois
• 1920 First-class cricket debut of Walter Hammond

1920 State Representative Harry T. Burn (24) casts the deciding vote in Tennessee's and thus America's ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, allowing women's suffrage after reading a letter from his mother

• 1924 France begins withdrawing troops from the Ruhr
• 1925 Belgium and US sign treaty about war debts
• 1925 Cardinal Mercier warns Belgians against socialism and liberalism
• 1926 First televised weather map is broadcast by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Washington, DC
• 1930 Eastern Airlines begins passenger services

1931 Lou Gehrig is hitless in Detroit in his 1,000th consecutive game

• 1932 Auguste Piccard and Max Cosyns reach 16,201 meters in a balloon launched from Dübendorf, Switzerland
• 1932 Englishman James Mollison is the first to fly east to west over the Atlantic

1934 Don Bradman (244) and Bill Ponsford (205 not out) put on 451 in a world record partnership for Australia on Day 1 of the 5th cricket Test win against England at The Oval

• 1937 First FM radio construction permit is issued to W1XOJ (WGTR) in Boston, MA

1938 Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicates the Thousand Islands Bridge connecting the US and Canada

1940 Battle of Britain: Air battle known as "The Hardest Day" occurs; the Luftwaffe loses approximately 69 aircraft and the RAF 68 in one of the largest ever air battles

• 1941 German concentration camp Amersfoort opens
• 1941 Phillies commit eight errors in a baseball game
• 1942 Carlson's Raiders land on Makin in the Gilbert Islands and kill 350 Japanese

1943 Final convoy of Jews from Salonika, Greece, arrives at Auschwitz

1943 Giants' future Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Carl Hubbell wins his 253rd and final game as NY beats the Pittsburgh Pirates 3-2 at the Polo Grounds in NYC

• 1943 Otto Skorzeny's Heinkel-111 shot down at Sardinia

1944 Chartres is freed by US 3rd Army forces during WWII led by General George S. Patton

• 1944 Paris rail workers strike against Nazi occupiers
• 1944 US 15th Army Corps reaches Mantes-Gassicourt near Paris
• 1945 Scheduled demonstrations at Polo Grounds and Ebbets Field to end segregation in organized baseball are called off

1945 Sukarno is elected as the first President of Indonesia by the Preparatory Committee for Indonesian Independence (PPKI)

• 1946 Golf Writers Association of America forms
• 1947 Naval torpedo and mine factory explodes in Cadiz, Spain, killing 300
• 1949 Hungary adopts a constitution
• 1949 Ralph Flanagan and his Orchestra record "You're Breaking My Heart"
• 1950 Julien Lahaut, the chairman of the Communist Party of Belgium, is assassinated by far-right elements
• 1954 James E. Wilkins is the first Black person to attend a US cabinet meeting
• 1955 46.1 cm rainfall in Westfield, Massachusetts (state record)
• 1955 Hurricane Diane kills 400 people in the US
• 1955 Shukri al-Quwatli re-elected president of Syria
• 1956 Cincinnati Reds (8) and Cubs (2) combine to hit 10 home runs in a nine-inning game

1956 Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog" and "Don't Be Cruel" reach #1 on the charts, staying for 11 weeks (a record for a single release) [1]

• 1957 Amelia Wershoven sets a world record throwing a baseball 252 feet 4½ inches (76.92 meters)
• 1957 The US performs a nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site
• 1958 Actress Betsy Palmer joins Today Show panel

1958 Fidel Castro makes a speech on Cuban pirate radio Rebelde

1958 Floyd Patterson TKOs Roy Harris in the 13th round for the heavyweight boxing title at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, California

1958 Novel "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov is published

• 1958 Pérez Prado, the "Mambo King," receives one of the first gold records
• 1958 TV game show scandal investigation begins
• 1958 United Kingdom issues regional stamps (Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales)
• 1958 US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands
• 1958 Verne Gagne defeats Edouard Carpentier in Omaha to become NWA champion

1959 Branch Rickey resigns as MLB Pittsburgh Pirates' CEO to become President of the new baseball Continental League

• 1960 Milwaukee Braves pitcher Lew Burdette no-hits the Philadelphia Phillies 1-0 at County Stadium in Milwaukee
• 1960 The Beatles make their first public performance at the Indra Club in Hamburg, Germany
• 1960 The first photograph bounces off a satellite between Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Richardson, Texas
• 1962 Peter, Paul & Mary release their first hit, "If I Had a Hammer"

1963 James Meredith becomes the first Black graduate from the University of Mississippi with a degree in political science

• 1964 Charles Helu is elected president of Lebanon
• 1964 South Africa is banned from the Olympic Games because of apartheid policies
• 1964 The Beatles arrive in San Francisco, California, on their second US visit, and first cross-country tour, encompassing 32 shows in 25 cities over 31 days
• 1964 USSR launch three Kosmos satellites
• 1965 Dutch soccer team FC Den Bosch (successor to BVV 1906 and Wilhelmina 1890) is established at 's-Hertogenbosch

1965 Hank Aaron loses a home run because he hits it out of the batter's box

1965 Orioles' Brooks Robinson hits into his third career triple play, tying George Sisler, Deacon McGuire, and Joe Start

• 1967 Boston Red Sox player Tony Conigliaro is beaned by Angels pitcher Jack Hamilton at Fenway Park; injuries including a fractured cheekbone, dislocated jaw, and eye damage keep him from returning for a year and a half and lead to improvements in batting helmets

1967 The Rolling Stones release the music single "We Love You," written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards as a message of thanks to fans for their support after the duo's recent drug arrests; the recording features backing vocals by John Lennon and Paul McCartney

• 1969 Mick Jagger accidentally shot while filming "Ned Kelly" in Australia; he survives

1971 New Zealand Prime Minister Keith Holyoake announces in Parliament that New Zealand’s combat force would be withdrawn from Vietnam before the end of the year, coinciding with a similar announcement by the Australian government

1972 Police fine Paul and Linda McCartney 800 Swedish kronor in Sweden for cannabis possession

1973 Drummer Gene Krupa plays for the final time, appearing with the Benny Goodman Quartet in Saratoga Springs, New York

• 1973 Hank Aaron's record of 1,378 extra-base hits surpasses Stan Musial's record

1976 Korean axe murder incident: two US soldiers tasked with cutting down a poplar tree blocking the view of UN observers are killed by North Koreans, claiming it was planted by Kim Il-Sung in the Korean Demilitarized Zone

• 1976 USSR's Luna 24 soft-lands on the Moon

1977 Dodgers pitcher Don Sutton throws his NL record-tying fifth one-hitter

• 1977 South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko is arrested at a roadblock and dies from a police beating on September 12
• 1977 Two girls are killed by a runaway car outside of Graceland
• 1978 Memphis, Tennessee, settles with striking police officers and firefighters

1979 Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran demands a Jihad against Kurdish separatists

• 1979 USSR performs a nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan

1980 KC Royals' George Brett's batting average reaches .400

• 1981 Football running back Herschel Walker of the University of Georgia takes out a Lloyd's of London insurance policy for $1 million

1981 Jerry Lewis appears on "Donahue" to defend telethons

• 1982 Japanese election law is amended to allow for proportional representation
• 1982 Longest baseball game at Wrigley Field in Chicago, IL, ends after 22 innings as LA Dodgers beat Cubs 2-1 (game started August 17th)

1982 MLB Philadelphia Phillies' Pete Rose sets a record with his 13,941st plate appearance

• 1982 NYSE tops 100 million shares traded for the first time, setting a new record of 132.69 million shares traded
• 1983 Hurricane Alicia batters Houston and Galveston, Texas

1983 KC Royals defeat NY Yankees 5-4, completing the "pine-tar" game in 12 minutes; Hal McRae strikes out and Dan Quisenberry retires Yankees in order

• 1983 Samantha Druce, age 12 years and 119 days, becomes the youngest woman to swim the English Channel
• 1983 Survey of recently discovered Bronze Age Uluburun shipwreck (ca. 1320 B.C.) off the coast of Turkey finds rich cargo of glass, spices, and enough tin and copper for 5,000 swords [1]
• 1983 USSR performs a nuclear test in Novaya Zemlya, USSR
• 1984 Triangle Oil Corp's above-ground storage tank in Jacksonville, Florida, spills 2.5 million gallons of oil after lightning ignites a fire
• 1985 Suisei Launch (Halley's Comet Flyby)

1986 American rock band Bon Jovi releases their third album "Slippery When Wet" (Billboard's top-selling album of 1987)

• 1986 Crockett's Tavern opens in Fort Wilderness
• 1986 Jim Kelly signs with the NFL's Buffalo Bills for $75 million over 5 years
• 1986 John Tesh's first appearance on Entertainment Tonight
• 1986 WYSP 94.1 FM in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, begins simulcasting the Howard Stern Radio Show from New York City's WXRK
• 1987 Houston Oiler Earl Campbell retires from the NFL
• 1987 Ohio healthcare worker Donald Harvey is sentenced to triple life for poisoning 24 patients
• 1987 Philip Rush of New Zealand sets a record for a triple crossing of the English Channel with a time of 28:21, 10 hours faster than the first man to do it
• 1987 Strasbourg: Manuela Stellmach, Astrid Strauss, Anke Mohring, and Heike Friedrich swim a women's world record in the 4 x 200 m freestyle (7:55.47)
• 1988 FDA approves Minoxidil as a hair loss treatment
• 1988 Largest house (130 rooms) on Long Island sold for $22 million
• 1988 Republican Convention in New Orleans selects Bush-Quayle ticket
• 1989 ArenaBowl III takes place at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit: Detroit Drive defeats Pittsburgh Gladiators 39-26, with George LaFrance as MVP
• 1989 Arturo Barrios of Mexico sets a 10 km record (27:08.23) in Berlin
• 1989 Bucky Dent replaces Dallas Green as the NY Yankees manager
• 1989 Leading presidential hopeful Luis Carlos Galán is assassinated near Bogotá in Colombia
• 1991 Hurricane Bob hits North Carolina with 115 mph winds
• 1991 Pan American Games close in Havana
• 1993 Kapellbrücke in Lucerne, Switzerland, is destroyed by fire
• 1994 15th Commonwealth Games open in Victoria, Canada
• 1994 5.6-magnitude earthquake in Algeria kills 171
• 1996 Record 6,654 tap dancers in a single routine at Macy's Tap-O-mania in New York City
• 2000 A Federal jury finds the US Environmental Protection Agency guilty of discrimination against Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, later inspiring passage of the No FEAR Act.
• 2004 Dutch swimmer Pieter van den Hoogenband wins the coveted 100 m freestyle gold medal in 48.17 ahead of Roland Schoeman of South Africa at the Athens Olympics
• 2004 Japanese swimmer Kosuke Kitajima wraps up the 100/200 m breaststroke double at the Athens Olympics as he wins the 200 m in 2:09.44, an Olympic record
• 2004 Shot put event at the Athens Olympics is held in Ancient Olympia, site of the ancient Olympic Games; first time women ever compete in the venue; Yumileidi Cumbá of Cuba wins women's gold; American Adam Nelson wins men's gold
• 2004 US women's 4 × 200 m freestyle relay team of Natalie Coughlin, Carly Piper, Dana Vollmer, and Kaitlin Sandeno smash the long-standing world record set by GDR in 1987 to win gold at the Athens Olympics (7:53.42)
• 2005 Dennis Rader is sentenced to 175 years in prison for the BTK (bind, torture, kill) serial killings in Sedgwick County, Kansas
• 2005 Massive power blackout hits the Indonesian island of Java, affecting almost 100 million people

2005 William H. Webster (81), former head of the FBI and later CIA director, becomes chairman of the Homeland Security Advisory Council, serving under three presidential administrations until 2020

• 2008 An American 1-2-3 in the 400 m hurdles at the Beijing Olympics; Angelo Taylor wins gold in 47.25 ahead of Kerron Clement and Bershawn Jackson
• 2008 Belarusian weightlifter Andrei Aramnau breaks three world records in the snatch, clean and jerk, and total on his way to winning the men's 105 kg gold medal at the Beijing Olympics
• 2008 Emulating the Chinese women, the men win the team table tennis gold medal at the Beijing Olympics without losing a match, winning all 10 singles and all 5 doubles matches
• 2008 President of Pakistan Pervez Musharaf resigns due to pressure from opposition
• 2008 Russian pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva sets a new world record of 5.05m to win the gold medal at the Beijing Olympics, her 24th world record
• 2011 The "West Memphis Three" are released from prison after 18 years of imprisonment
• 2012 Al-Qaeda militants kill 14 people in an attack in Aden, Yemen
• 2012 NATO airstrikes kill at least 13 militants in Afghanistan
• 2013 Six people are killed by a bomb blast on a bus in West Bengal, India
• 2016 Great Britain's Alistair Brownlee records a time of 1:45:01 to retain his Olympic men's triathlon title at the Rio de Janeiro Games, finishing 0:06 ahead of second-place finisher, his brother Jonathan Brownlee

2016 Jamaica's Usain Bolt wins the gold medal in the men's 200 m for the third successive Summer Olympics, recording a time of 19.78 seconds in Rio de Janeiro

2016 New Zealand's 2017 America's Cup-winning helmsman Peter Burling teams with Blair Tuke to win the gold medal in the 49er class sailing at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics

• 2016 Ukrainian canoeist Yuriy Cheban sets an Olympic record of 39.279 to win the men's C-1 200 m gold at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics; retains the title he won in London 2012

2017 Civilian researchers led by Paul Allen rediscover USS Indianapolis 18,000 feet below the Pacific surface 72 years after it is sunk by Japanese torpedoes

2017 White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon is fired by US President Donald Trump

• 2018 Archaeologists confirm the first-ever cheese found from Ancient Egypt, 3200 years old, in the tomb of Ptahmes, mayor of Memphis
• 2018 Australian mare Winx wins her Australasian record 26th consecutive race, the renamed Winx Stakes at Royal Randwick in Sydney, achieving her 19th Group One win for thoroughbreds

2018 Imran Khan becomes the 22nd Prime Minister of Pakistan after gaining the support of independent members following his party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), winning the most votes but not a majority in the general election

2018 Indian actress Priyanka Chopra and American singer Nick Jonas confirm their engagement with a party in Mumbai, India

• 2019 1.7 million people participate in a peaceful pro-democracy protest in Hong Kong, representing a quarter of the population
• 2019 Iceland holds a formal ceremony for the first glacier lost to climate change at the site of the Okjökull Glacier

2020 California Governor Gavin Newsom declares a state of emergency as 27 fires burn across the state amid a continuing heat wave

2020 Joe Biden is formally nominated as the Democratic Party's presidential candidate during the second night of their first-ever virtual convention

• 2020 Mali's President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta resigns amid a military coup condemned by the UN Security Council

2021 MLB Los Angeles Angels pitcher Shohei Ohtani becomes the fastest player in team history to reach 40 home runs in a season and also pitches 8 innings in a 3-1 win at Detroit

• 2022 A huge megalithic complex of more than 500 standing stones is announced as discovered at La Torre-La Janera, Huelva, in southern Spain [1]
• 2022 New method to break down "forever chemicals" PFAS compounds, responsible for cancers, low birth weights, and lowered immunity, published by scientists in the journal "Science" [1]

2022 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and UN Secretary-General António Guterres warn of "another Chernobyl" due to fighting near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant at a summit in Lviv [1]

• 2023 Canadian province of British Columbia declares a state of emergency as two major wildfires combine near Adams Lake, forcing the evacuation of 30,000 people [1]
• 2023 English neonatal nurse Lucy Letby is found guilty of the murder of seven babies and the attempted murder of six more between June 2015 and June 2016 at a Manchester court [1]
• 2024 Paetongtarn Shinawatra is sworn in as Thailand's youngest-ever Prime Minister at 37 years old [1]
• 2025 Leaders from across Europe join Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a hastily arranged summit meeting with US President Trump at the White House [1]
• 2025 Marius Borg Høiby, son of the Norwegian Crown Princess, is charged with 32 offenses, including rape and domestic violence [1]
• 2025 New York Yankees hit 9 home runs during 13-3 win over the Rays at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa Bay, Florida, becoming first franchise in MLB history to record two games with nine homers

• 17 Aug
• Historical Events Calendar
• Aug 19

• 

  Why The King Became a Party Pooper

  August 17, 1661
• 

  What Happened To America's Lost Colony?

  August 18, 1587
• 

  Diamond That Says I Love You

  August 19, 1477
• 

  The Battle For Western Civilisation

  August 20, 480 AD

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