Today in History
By Bede
Today in History
| YEAR | DAY | EVENT |
| 310 | Apr 18 | St. Eusebius began his reign as Catholic Pope. |
| 1480 | Apr 18 | Lucretia Borgia (d.1519), murderess, was born. Lucrezia Borgia, Duchess of Ferrara, was the daughter of Pope Alexander VI, and the sister and political pawn of Cesare Borgia. She was also considered a patroness of the arts. |
| 1504 | Apr 18 | Fra Filippo Lippi (~52), painter, died. |
| 1518 | Apr 18 | Bona Sforza (1494-1558) was crowned Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania in Wawel Cathedral, Krakow. The Italian niece of Bianca Maria Sforza, who in 1493 married Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, became the 3rd consort of Lithuania’s Grand Duke Sigismund the Old (1467-1548). |
| 1521 | Apr 18 | Martin Luther confronted the emperor Charles V in the Diet of Worms and refused to retract his views which led to his excommunication. Cardinal Alexander questioned the Rev Martin Luther. |
| 1530 | Apr 18 | Francois Lambert d’Avignon (~43), French church reformer, died. |
| 1580 | Apr 18 | Thomas Middleton, English playwright (Game of Chess), was born. |
| 1590 | Apr 18 | Ahmed I, 14th sultan of Turkey (1603-17), was born. |
| 1605 | Apr 18 | Giacomo Carissimi, composer, was born. |
| 1610 | Apr 18 | Robert Parsons (63), English Jesuit leader, plotter, died. |
| 1663 | Apr 18 | Osman declared war on Austria. |
| 1676 | Apr 18 | Sudbury, Massachusetts, was attacked by Indians. |
| 1689 | Apr 18 | George Jeffreys, 1st Baron Jeffreys of Wem, infamous judge, died. |
| 1775 | Apr 18 | Several post riders set out to warn colonists of the British attack that started the American Revolution. One patriotic myth that grew out of that movement began with a poem Henry Wadsworth Longfellow called “Paul Revere’s Ride.” Paul Revere began his famous ride from Charlestown to Lexington, Mass., warning American colonists that the British were coming. American revolutionaries Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott warned that “the British are coming”. Only Prescott galloped all the way to Concord. Revere was corralled by a British cavalry patrol near Lexington, MA; Dawes and Prescott escaped. A company of over 700 British troops marched toward Concord. 23-year-old church sexton Robert Newman hung two lanterns in the Old North Church to warn riders that the British were leaving Boston by boat to march on Concord. Every April, a descendant of the 18th-century patriot still climbs to the steeple of Old North Church and hangs two small tin and glass lanterns. |
| 1778 | Apr 18 | John Paul Jones attacked the British revenue cutter Husar near the Isle of Man, but it escaped. Soon thereafter he raided Whitehaven and burned one coal ship. |
| 1791 | Apr 18 | National Guardsmen prevented Louis XVI and his family from leaving Paris. |
| 1797 | Apr 18 | Louis-Adolphe Thiers, president of France, was born. |
| 1797 | Apr 18 | France and Austria signed a cease fire. |
| 1807 | Apr 18 | Erasmus Darwin, physician, writer (Influence), died. |
| 1817 | Apr 18 | George Henry Lewes, philosophical writer, was born. |
| 1818 | Apr 18 | A regiment of Indians and blacks was defeated at the Battle of Suwanna, in Florida, ending the first Seminole War. |
| 1819 | Apr 18 | Franz von Suppa, composer (Light Cavalry Overture), was born in Spalato, Dalmatia. |
| 1834 | Apr 18 | William Lamb became the prime minister of England. |
| 1845 | Apr 18 | Wilhelm Gericke, composer, was born. |
| 1847 | Apr 18 | U.S. forces defeated the Mexicans at Cerro Gordo in one of the bloodiest battle of the war. |
| 1855 | Apr 18 | Jean-Baptiste Isabey, painter, died. |
| 1857 | Apr 18 | Clarence S. Darrow, defense attorney at the Scopes monkey trial, was born near Kinsman, Ohio. |
| 1861 | Apr 18 | US Colonel Robert E. Lee turned down an offer to command the Union armies. |
| 1862 | Apr 18 | Battle of Ft Jackson, Ft St. Philip and New Orleans, LA. |
| 1864 | Apr 18 | Richard Harding Davis, journalist, was born. |
| 1865 | Apr 18 | Confederate Gen Joseph Johnston surrendered to Gen W.T. Sherman in North Carolina. |
| 1874 | Apr 18 | David Livingstone was buried in Westminster Abbey. |
| 1876 | Apr 18 | Daniel O’Leary completed a 500 mile walk in 139 hours, 32 minutes. |
| 1882 | Apr 18 | Leopold Stokowski, conductor (Philadelphia Orchestra), was born in London England |
| 1885 | Apr 18 | The Sino-Japanese war ended. |
| 1902 | Apr 18 | Denmark became the 1st country to adopt fingerprinting to identify criminals. |
| 1906 | Apr 18 | The SF earthquake killed 119 people at Agnews State Hospital in San Jose. |
| 1907 | Apr 18 | The Fairmont Hotel opened in SF, exactly one year after the 1906 earthquake. It was designed by Julia Morgan and named after mining magnate James Graham Fair. |
| 1908 | Apr 18 | Joseph Keilberth, German conductor (Bayreuther Festspiele), was born. |
| 1909 | Apr 18 | Joan of Arc was declared a saint. |
| 1911 | Apr 18 | George Huntington Hartford II, heir (A&P), was born in NYC. |
| 1918 | Apr 18 | Clifton Keith Hillegass, founder of the study guides known as Cliff’s Notes, was born. |
| 1921 | Apr 18 | Junior Achievement, created to encourage business skills in young people, was incorporated. |
| 1923 | Apr 18 | Poland annexed Central Lithuania. |
| 1924 | Apr 18 | Henry J. Hyde, (Rep-R-IL), was born. |
| 1928 | Apr 18 | Jean-Francois Pailliard, conductor, was born in Vitry-le-Francois, France. |
| 1930 | Apr 18 | Clive Revill, actor (Legend of Hell House), was born in Wellington, NZ. |
| 1934 | Apr 18 | The 1st laundromat, called a “Washateria,” opened in Fort Worth, Tx. |
| 1936 | Apr 18 | Pan-Am Clipper began regular passenger flights from SF to Honolulu. |
| 1937 | Apr 18 | Leon Trotsky called for the overthrow of Soviet leader Josef Stalin. |
| 1939 | Apr 18 | Franz von Papen became German ambassador in Turkey. |
| 1940 | Apr 18 | Ed Garvey, labor leader for the Major League Baseball Players Association, was born. |
| 1942 | Apr 18 | First issue of the newspaper for U.S. armed forces, Stars and Stripes, was published. |
| 1943 | Apr 18 | Traveling in a bomber, Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (b.1884), the mastermind of the attack on Pearl Harbor, was shot down by American P-38 fighters. |
| 1944 | Apr 18 | The ballet “Fancy Free,” with music by Leonard Bernstein premiered in NYC. |
| 1945 | Apr 18 | Ernie Pyle (b.1900), famed American war correspondent, was killed at age 44 by Japanese gunfire on the Pacific island of Ie Shima, off Okinawa. He did a syndicated aviation column from 1928-1932, and served as a roving reporter from 1935-1939. In 1997 James Tobin published “Ernie Pyle’s War: America’s Eyewitness to World War II.” |
| 1946 | Apr 18 | Jackie Robinson debuted as 2nd baseman for the Montreal Royals. |
| 1947 | Apr 18 | James Woods, actor (Salvador, Against All Odds), was born in Warwick, RI. |
| 1948 | Apr 18 | Catherine Malfitano, soprano (Metropolitan Opera), was born in NYC. |
| 1949 | Apr 18 | The Republic of Ireland withdrew from the British Commonwealth and was officially proclaimed in Dublin on the anniversary of the 1916 Easter rebellion. King George VI sent his good wishes. |
| 1950 | Apr 18 | The first transatlantic jet passenger trip was made. |
| 1954 | Apr 18 | Colonel Nasser seized power in Egypt. |
| 1956 | Apr 18 | Actress Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier III of Monaco in a civil ceremony. A church wedding took place the next day. |
| 1961 | Apr 18 | Pamella Bordes, British parliament prostitute, was born in New Delhi, India. |
| 1963 | Apr 18 | Dr. James Campbell performed the 1st human nerve transplant. |
| 1964 | Apr 18 | Ben Hecht (71), playwright (Child of the Century), died. |
| 1968 | Apr 18 | There was a coup in Sierra Leone. A new government under Siaka Stevens was announced. |
| 1969 | Apr 18 | George Whittell, Jr. (b.1881), born in SF to wealth amassed in real estate and mining, died. His construction of a lakefront estate at lake Tahoe, the Thunderbird Lodge, began in 1937 and was completed in 1939. |
| 1974 | Apr 18 | In Genoa, Italy, the Red Brigade kidnapped deputy attorney Mario Sossi. He was held for 35 days. |
| 1975 | Apr 18 | Jesus Ibarra Piedra, a member of a Mexican leftist urban guerrilla group, was kidnapped and never seen again. On Nov 8, 2004, Juventino Romero Cisneros, a former agent of the Federal Security Directorate, was arrested for the kidnapping. Carlos Solana Macias, ex-director of the Judicial Police for the northern state of Nuevo Leon, was arrested Dec 29, 2005. In 2006 both Cisneros and Solano were released from prison. |
| 1978 | Apr 18 | The U.S. Senate voted 68-32 to turn the Panama Canal over to Panamanian control on Dec. 31, 1999. |
| 1983 | Apr 18 | Alice Walker (b.1944) won a Pulitzer Prize for “The Color Purple.” |
| 1987 | Apr 18 | President Reagan used his weekly radio address to express hope the superpowers could reach an agreement to sharply reduce the threat of intermediate-range nuclear weapons. |
| 1988 | Apr 18 | The United States destroyed two more Iraqi oil platforms, after a mine in the Persian Gulf injured 10 crewmen aboard a U.S. frigate. In 2003 a World Court in a 14-2 decision ruled the US was wrong but doesn’t need to pay damages. |
| 1989 | Apr 18 | Thousands of Chinese students demanding democracy tried to storm Communist Party headquarters in Beijing. |
| 1990 | Apr 18 | The US Supreme Court ruled that states may make it a crime to possess or look at child pornography, even in one’s home. |
| 1991 | Apr 18 | President Bush unveiled his “America 2000” education strategy, which included a voluntary nationwide exam system and aid pegged to academic results. |
| 1992 | Apr 18 | Democrat Jerry Brown met with black leaders in Philadelphia while front-runner Bill Clinton visited a Phillies-Pirates ballgame as the two courted Pennsylvania primary voters. |
| 1993 | Apr 18 | In Pakistan Nawaz Sharif’s government was dismissed by Ishaq Khan on corruption charges. The interim government was led by Balkh Sher Mazari. |
| 1995 | Apr 18 | Quarterback Joe Montana retired from professional football. |
| 1996 | Apr 18 | President Clinton addressed the Japanese Parliament, hailing security ties between the two countries as the cornerstone of stability in Asia. Congress passed and sent to President Clinton long-awaited legislation giving federal law officers new powers to use against terrorism. |
| 1997 | Apr 18 | President Clinton held a news conference in which he warned Republicans that a balanced-budget deal may not come quickly, while reassuring nervous Democrats that he would not abandon the party’s prized social programs. |
| 1998 | Apr 18 | A 34-nation trade summit was held over the weekend in Santiago, Chile. Some $45 billion from the Inner-America Development Bank, The World Bank and the US Agency for Int’l. Development was to be made available for an array of development projects. |
| 1999 | Apr 18 | During a speech on the 19th anniversary of independence Pres. Mugabe said that over 1200 Zimbabweans were dying each week from AIDS. |
| 2000 | Apr 18 | In his first game back following a 12-game suspension for making disparaging remarks about minorities, gays and immigrants, Atlanta’s John Rocker pitched a scoreless ninth inning in a 4-to-3, 12-inning victory over Philadelphia. |
| 2001 | Apr 18 | US negotiators said China agreed to discuss the return of the US spy plane following a day of unproductive talks. Beijing and Washington staked out opposing positions on who was to blame for the incident. |
| 2002 | Apr 18 | The WSJ announced the end of its expert vs. dartboard portfolio following a 14-year contest. |
| 2003 | Apr 18 | Scott Peterson was arrested in San Diego for the death of his wife, Laci, who was eight months pregnant when she vanished on Christmas Eve. Genetic testing proved that two bodies found Apr 13-14 near the SF Bay Berkeley Marina were Laci Peterson and her baby. |
| 2004 | Apr 18 | Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara (83), Fiji’s first prime minister and a key U.S. ally in the South Pacific during the Cold War, died. The paramount chief of the Lau Islands of eastern Fiji, he was revered for holding together bickering tribes as he welded Fiji into a stable, multiracial nation after 96 years of colonial British rule. |
| 2005 | Apr 18 | The UN Security Council voted unanimously to widen the arms embargo in Congo as part of stepped-up efforts to bring peace to the African country’s volatile east. |
| 2006 | Apr 18 | Pres. Bush nominated former Ohio Rep. Rob Portman to head the White House budget office. |
| 2007 | Apr 18 | The US Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, upheld the 2003 nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure known as dilation and extraction, handing abortion opponents the long-awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench. |
| 2008 | Apr 18 | A magnitude 5.2 earthquake hit southern Illinois in the Ozark Dome region and was felt across the Midwest. |
| 2009 | Apr 18 | The Obama administration said it will boycott the April 20-25 UN conference on racism due to objectionable language in the meeting’s final draft document. |
| 2010 | Apr 18 | The Int’l. Cannabis and Hemp Expo closed at the Cow Palace, Daly City, Ca. it was the first trade show in the US to allow on-site pot smoking and attracted some 15,000 enthusiasts over the weekend. |
| 2011 | Apr 18 | Two airline employees came to the aid of a woman that was being raped at Denver Int’l. Airport. Noel Bertrand (26) was later charged with sexual assault. |
| 2012 | Apr 18 | The Los Angeles Times published 2 pictures, dating back to 2010, showing US soldiers posing with the remains of Taliban insurgents. One showed members of the 82nd Airborne Division posing in 2010 with Afghan police holding the severed legs of a suicide bomber. The 2nd appeared to show the hand of a dead insurgent resting on a US soldier’s shoulder as the soldier smiles. |
| 2013 | Apr 18 | The New York Public Service Commission approved a plan to build the Champlain Hudson transmission line, which will be capable of moving 1,000 megawatts of hydropower from Québec to New York City. |
| 2014 | Apr 18 | The US federal government said farms stricken with a deadly pig virus must report outbreaks as part of a new program to help monitor and possibly control the disease. Porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED), believed to have come from China, has killed millions of pigs in 27 states since it began showing up in the US last May. |
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