January 18
Events
Pre-1600
- 350 - General Magnentius is proclaimed emperor by Roman aristocrats discontent with the rule of emperor Constans.
- 474 - Seven-year-old Leo II succeeds his maternal grandfather Leo I as Byzantine emperor. He dies ten months later.
- 532 - Nika riots in Constantinople fail.
- 1126 - Emperor Huizong abdicates the Chinese throne in favour of his son Emperor Qinzong.
- 1486 - King Henry VII of England marries Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV, uniting the House of Lancaster and the House of York.
- 1562 - Pope Pius IV reopens the Council of Trent for its third and final session.
- 1586 - The magnitude 7.9 Tenshō earthquake strikes Honshu, Japan, killing 8,000 people and triggering a tsunami.
1601–1900
- 1670 - Henry Morgan captures Panama.
- 1701 - Frederick I crowns himself King in Prussia in Königsberg.
- 1778 - James Cook is the first known European to discover the Hawaiian Islands, which he names the "Sandwich Islands".
- 1788 - The first elements of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from Great Britain to Australia arrive at Botany Bay.
- 1806 - Jan Willem Janssens surrenders the Dutch Cape Colony to the British.
- 1866 - Wesley College is established in Melbourne, Australia.
- 1871 - Wilhelm I of Germany is proclaimed Kaiser Wilhelm in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles towards the end of the Franco-Prussian War. Wilhelm already had the title of German Emperor since the constitution of 1 January 1871, but he had hesitated to accept the title.
- 1886 - Modern field hockey is born with the formation of The Hockey Association in England.
- 1896 - An X-ray generating machine is exhibited for the first time by H. L. Smith.
1901–present
- 1911 - Eugene B. Ely lands on the deck of the anchored in San Francisco Bay, the first time an aircraft landed on a ship.
- 1913 - First Balkan War: A Greek flotilla defeats the Ottoman Navy in the Naval Battle of Lemnos, securing the islands of the Northern Aegean Sea for Greece.
- 1915 - Japan issues the "Twenty-One Demands" to the Republic of China in a bid to increase its power in East Asia.
- 1919 - World War I: The Paris Peace Conference opens in Versailles, France.
- 1919 - Ignacy Jan Paderewski becomes Prime Minister of the newly independent Poland.
- 1932 - Alt Llobregat insurrection breaks out in Central Catalonia, Spain.
- 1941 - World War II: British troops launch a general counter-offensive against Italian East Africa.
- 1943 - Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: The first uprising of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto.
- 1945 - World War II: Liberation of Kraków, Poland by the Red Army.
- 1958 - Willie O'Ree, the first Black Canadian National Hockey League player, makes his NHL debut with the Boston Bruins.
- 1960 - Capital Airlines Flight 20 crashes into a farm in Charles City County, Virginia, killing all 50 aboard, the third fatal Capital Airlines crash in as many years.
- 1967 - Albert DeSalvo, the "Boston Strangler", is convicted of numerous crimes and is sentenced to life imprisonment.
- 1969 - United Airlines Flight 266 crashes into Santa Monica Bay killing all 32 passengers and six crew members.
- 1972 - Members of the Mukti Bahini lay down their arms to the government of the newly independent Bangladesh, a month after winning the war against the occupying Pakistan Army.
- 1974 - A Disengagement of Forces agreement is signed between the Israeli and Egyptian governments, ending conflict on the Egyptian front of the Yom Kippur War.
- 1976 - Lebanese Christian militias kill at least 1,000 in Karantina, Beirut.
- 1977 - Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announce they have identified a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of the mysterious Legionnaires' disease.
- 1977 - Australia's worst rail disaster occurs at Granville, Sydney, killing 83.
- 1977 - SFR Yugoslavia's Prime minister, Džemal Bijedić, his wife and six others are killed in a plane crash in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
- 1978 - The European Court of Human Rights finds the United Kingdom's government guilty of mistreating prisoners in Northern Ireland, but not guilty of torture.
- 1981 - Phil Smith and Phil Mayfield parachute off a Houston skyscraper, becoming the first two people to BASE jump from objects in all four categories: buildings, antennae, spans, and earth.
- 1983 - The International Olympic Committee restores Jim Thorpe's Olympic medals to his family.
- 1986 - An Aerovías Sud Aviation Caravelle crashes on approach to Mundo Maya International Airport in Flores, Petén, Guatemala, killing all 94 people on board.
- 1988 - China Southwest Airlines Flight 4146 crashes near Chongqing Baishiyi Airport, killing all 98 passengers and 10 crew members.
- 1990 - Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion Barry is arrested for drug possession in an FBI sting.
- 1993 - Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is officially observed for the first time in all 50 US states.
- 2002 - The Sierra Leone Civil War is declared over.
- 2003 - A bushfire kills four people and destroys more than 500 homes in Canberra, Australia.
- 2005 - The Airbus A380, the world's largest commercial jet, is unveiled at a ceremony in Toulouse, France
- 2007 - The strongest storm in the United Kingdom in 17 years kills 14 people and Germany sees the worst storm since 1999 with 13 deaths. Cyclone Kyrill causes at least 44 deaths across 20 countries in Western Europe.
- 2008 - The Euphronios Krater is unveiled in Rome after being returned to Italy by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- 2012 - More than 115,000 websites engage in an online protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act in the US. The websites involved viewed the laws as infringing on the right to free speech and many of them temporarily shut down in protest.
- 2018 - A bus catches fire on the Samara–Shymkent road in Yrgyz District, Aktobe, Kazakhstan. The fire kills 52 passengers, with three passengers and two drivers escaping.
- 2019 - An oil pipeline explosion near Tlahuelilpan, Hidalgo, Mexico, kills 137 people.
- 2023 - A helicopter crash in Ukraine leaves 14 people dead, including the country's Interior Minister, Denys Monastyrsky.
- 2025 - The popular social media app, TikTok, is banned in the United States, after the passing of PAFACA.
- 2026 - At least 45 people are killed and 292 others injured after two trains collide in Adamuz in the worst railway disaster in over a decade in Spain.
Births
Pre-1600
- 1404 - Sir Philip Courtenay, English noble
- 1457 - Antonio Trivulzio, seniore, Roman Catholic cardinal
- 1519 - Isabella Jagiellon, Queen of Hungary
- 1540 - Catherine, Duchess of Braganza
1601–1900
- 1641 - François-Michel le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois, French politician, Secretary of State for War
- 1659 - Damaris Cudworth Masham, English philosopher and theologian
- 1672 - Antoine Houdar de la Motte, French author
- 1688 - Lionel Sackville, 1st Duke of Dorset, English politician, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
- 1689 - Montesquieu, French lawyer and philosopher
- 1701 - Johann Jakob Moser, German jurist
- 1734 - Caspar Friedrich Wolff, German physiologist and embryologist
- 1743 - Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, French mystic and philosopher
- 1751 - Ferdinand Kauer, Austrian pianist and composer
- 1752 - John Nash, English architect
- 1764 - Samuel Whitbread, English politician
- 1779 - Peter Mark Roget, English physician, lexicographer, and theologian
- 1782 - Daniel Webster, American lawyer and politician, 14th United States Secretary of State
- 1793 - Pratap Singh Bhosle, Chhatrapati of the Maratha Empire
- 1815 - Constantin von Tischendorf, German theologian and scholar
- 1835 - César Cui, Russian general, composer, and critic
- 1840 - Henry Austin Dobson, English poet and author
- 1841 - Emmanuel Chabrier, French pianist and composer
- 1842 - A. A. Ames, American physician and politician, Mayor of Minneapolis
- 1843 - Marthinus Nikolaas Ras, South African farmer, soldier, and gun-maker
- 1848 - Ioan Slavici, Romanian journalist and author
- 1849 - Edmund Barton, Australian judge and politician, 1st Prime Minister of Australia
- 1850 - Seth Low, American academic and politician, 92nd Mayor of New York City
- 1854 - Thomas A. Watson, American assistant to Alexander Graham Bell
- 1856 - Daniel Hale Williams, American surgeon and cardiologist
- 1867 - Rubén Darío, Nicaraguan poet, journalist, and diplomat
- 1868 - Kantarō Suzuki, Japanese admiral and politician, 42nd Prime Minister of Japan
- 1877 - Sam Zemurray, Russian-American businessman, founded the Cuyamel Fruit Company
- 1879 - Henri Giraud, French general and politician
- 1880 - Paul Ehrenfest, Austrian-Dutch physicist and academic
- 1880 - Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster, Italian cardinal
- 1881 - Gaston Gallimard, French publisher, founded Éditions Gallimard
- 1882 - A. A. Milne, English author, poet, and playwright
- 1886 - Clara Nordström, Swedish-German author and translator
- 1888 - Thomas Sopwith, English ice hockey player, sailor, and pilot
- 1892 - Oliver Hardy, American actor and comedian
- 1892 - Bill Meanix, American hurdler and coach
- 1892 - Paul Rostock, German surgeon and academic
- 1893 - Jorge Guillén, Spanish poet, critic, and academic
- 1894 - Toots Mondt, American wrestler and promoter
- 1896 - C. M. Eddy Jr., American author
- 1896 - Ville Ritola, Finnish-American runner
- 1898 - Albert Kivikas, Estonian journalist and author