September 18

Events

Pre-1600

• 96 - Emperor Domitian is assassinated as a result of a plot by his wife Domitia and two Praetorian prefects. Nerva is then proclaimed as his successor.
• 324 - Constantine the Great decisively defeats Licinius in the Battle of Chrysopolis, establishing Constantine's sole control over the Roman Empire.
• 1048 - Battle of Kapetron between a combined Byzantine-Georgian army and a Seljuq army.
• 1066 - Norwegian king Harald Hardrada lands with Tostig Godwinson at the mouth of the Humber River and begins his invasion of England.
• 1180 - Philip Augustus becomes king of France at the age of fifteen.
• 1454 - Thirteen Years' War: In the Battle of Chojnice, the Polish army is defeated by the Teutonic knights.
• 1544 - The expedition of Juan Bautista Pastene makes landfall in San Pedro Bay, southern Chile, claiming the territory for Spain.

  1601–1900

• 1618 - The twelfth baktun in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar begins.
• 1714 - George I arrives in Great Britain after becoming king on August 1.
• 1739 - The Treaty of Belgrade is signed, whereby Austria cedes lands south of the Sava and Danube rivers to the Ottoman Empire.
• 1759 - French and Indian War: The Articles of Capitulation of Quebec are signed.
• 1793 - The first cornerstone of the United States Capitol is laid by George Washington.
• 1809 - The Royal Opera House in London opens.
• 1810 - First Government Junta in Chile. Though supposed to rule only during the Peninsular War in Spain, it is in fact the first step towards independence from Spain, and is commemorated as such.
• 1812 - The 1812 Fire of Moscow dies down after destroying more than three-quarters of the city. Napoleon returns from the Petrovsky Palace to the Moscow Kremlin, spared from the fire.
• 1837 - Tiffany & Co. is founded by Charles Lewis Tiffany and Teddy Young in New York City. The store is called a "stationery and fancy goods emporium".
• 1838 - The Anti-Corn Law League is established by Richard Cobden.
• 1850 - The U.S. Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
• 1851 - First publication of The New-York Daily Times, which later becomes The New York Times.
• 1860 - Second Opium War: Battle of Zhangjiawan: Now heading towards Beijing after having recently occupied Tianjin, the allied Anglo-French force engages and defeats a larger Qing Chinese army at Zhangjiawan.
• 1860 - Wars of Italian Unification: Battle of Castelfidardo: Royal Sardinian Army defeats forces of the Papal States, resulting in the conquest of Umbria and Marche by the Kingdom of Italy.
• 1862 - The Confederate States celebrate for the first and only time a Thanksgiving Day.
• 1863 - American Civil War: The Battle of Chickamauga begins between Confederate and Union forces. It involves the second highest amount of casualties for any American Civil War battle apart from Gettysburg.
• 1864 - American Civil War: John Bell Hood begins the Franklin–Nashville Campaign in an unsuccessful attempt to draw William Tecumseh Sherman back out of Georgia.
• 1867 - The first provincial election for the Nova Scotia Legislative Assembly after Canada's Confederation returns a large majority for the Anti-Confederation Party, led by William Annand, who becomes Premier.
• 1867 - The fourth and current State Constitution of Maryland is ratified by voters.
• 1870 - During an expedition to the Wyoming Territory, Henry D. Washburn observes and names the Old Faithful Geyser.
• 1873 - The U.S. bank Jay Cooke & Company declares bankruptcy, contributing to the Panic of 1873.
• 1879 - The Blackpool Illuminations are switched on for the first time.
• 1882 - The Pacific Stock Exchange opens.
• 1885 – Five Chinese people were lynched outside of Pierce City in the Idaho Territory of the United States.
• 1897 - Veal Oscar, a dish of veal, seafood, asparagus, and Bernaise sauce, is first served at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm, in honour of the 25th anniversary of the reign of King Oscar II of Sweden and Norway.
• 1898 - The Fashoda Incident triggers the last war scare between Britain and France.

  1901–present

• 1906 - The 1906 Hong Kong typhoon kills an estimated 10,000 people.
• 1910 - In Washington, D.C., George Owen Squier demonstrated the first system to allow multiplexing of telephone transmissions, sending a message between two laboratories of the U.S. Signal Corps.
• 1914 - The Irish Home Rule Act becomes law, but is delayed until after World War I.
• 1915 - The Saturday Evening Post publishes the short story "Extricating Young Gussie" by P.G. Wodehouse, featuring the first appearance of Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves.
• 1919 - Fritz Pollard becomes the first African American to play professional football for a major team, the Akron Pros.
• 1919 - In the Netherlands, a law granting full voting rights to women is granted royal assent by Queen Wilhelmina.
• 1921 - Rif War: In Ajdir, Spanish Morocco, a secessionist group of Berbers led by Abd el-Krim proclaim the Republic of the Rif, in rebellion against the Sultan of Morocco and the Spanish Army. French and Spanish forces suppress the Republic by May 1926.
• 1922 - The Kingdom of Hungary is admitted to the League of Nations.
• 1924 - The U.S. ends its military occupation of the Dominican Republic, after invading in May 1916 to force the Dominican government to pay its debts to European creditors.
• 1926 - A hurricane devastates Miami, Florida, killing 372 people.
• 1927 - The Columbia Broadcasting System goes on the air.
• 1928 - Juan de la Cierva makes the first Autogyro crossing of the English Channel.
• 1931 - Imperial Japan instigates the Mukden incident as a pretext to invade and occupy Manchuria.
• 1932 - The body of actress Peg Entwistle is discovered by police, two days after her suicide by jumping off of the Hollywoodland sign.
• 1934 - The Soviet Union is admitted to the League of Nations.
• 1939 - World War II: The Polish government of Ignacy Mościcki flees to Romania.
• 1939 - World War II: The radio show Germany Calling begins transmitting Nazi propaganda.
• 1941 - World War II: The Soviet Union introduces conscription for all males between the ages of 16 and 50.
• 1943 - World War II: Adolf Hitler orders the deportation of Danish Jews.
• 1944 - World War II: The British submarine torpedoes Jun'yō Maru, killing 5,600, mostly slave labourers and POWs.
• 1944 - World War II: Operation Market Garden results in the liberation of Eindhoven.
• 1944 - World War II: The Battle of Arracourt begins.
• 1945 - General Douglas MacArthur moves his general headquarters from Manila to Tokyo.
• 1947 - The National Security Act reorganizes the United States government's military and intelligence services.
• 1948 - Operation Polo is terminated after the Indian Army accepts the surrender of the army of Hyderabad.
• 1948 - Margaret Chase Smith of Maine becomes the first woman elected to the United States Senate without completing another senator's term.
• 1950 - Korean War: U.S. Eighth Army and United Nations forces break out of the Pusan Perimeter in southeast Korea.
• 1950 - TV Tupi Difusora, the first television station to broadcast in Brazil, begins transmissions on Channel 3 in São Paulo.
• 1954 - Finnish president J. K. Paasikivi becomes the first Western head of state to be awarded the highest honor of the Soviet Union, the Order of Lenin.
• 1955 - A four-person landing party, led by Lt.-Cdr. Desmond Scott RN, disembarks from a Royal Navy helicopter and raises the Union Flag on Rockall, claiming the uninhabited Atlantic island for the United Kingdom.
• 1958 - The Bank of America introduces its first credit card, the BankAmericard, in a test market in Fresno County, California.
• 1960 - Fidel Castro arrives in New York City as the head of the Cuban delegation to the United Nations.
• 1961 - United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld dies in an air crash while attempting to negotiate peace in the Katanga region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• 1962 - Burundi, Jamaica, Rwanda and Trinidad and Tobago are admitted to the United Nations.
• 1962 - Aeroflot Flight 213 crashes into a mountain near Chersky Airport, killing 32 people.
• 1964 - The wedding of Constantine II of Greece and Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark takes place in Athens.
• 1964 - The first television adaptation of Charles Addams's "The Addams Family" premieres on ABC Television.
• 1965 - Mel Brooks and Buck Henry's spy-comedy series Get Smart premieres on NBC Television.
• 1973 - The Bahamas, East Germany and West Germany are admitted to the United Nations.
• 1974 - Hurricane Fifi strikes Honduras with 110 mph winds, killing 5,000 people.
• 1977 - Voyager I takes the first distant photograph of the Earth and the Moon together.
• 1980 - Soyuz 38 carries two cosmonauts to the Salyut 6 space station.
• 1981 - The Assemblée Nationale votes to abolish capital punishment in France.
• 1984 - Joe Kittinger completes the first solo balloon crossing of the Atlantic.
• 1988 - The 8888 Uprising in Myanmar comes to an end.
• 1988 - General Henri Namphy, president of Haiti, is ousted from power in a coup d'état led by General Prosper Avril.
• 1988 - The Magna Charta Universitatum, asserting key principles essential to the free operation of universities, is signed in Bologna by the rectors of 388 institutions of higher learning, to commemorate the 900th anniversary of the University of Bologna.
• 1989 - An attempted coup d'état against Burkina Faso president Blaise Compaoré is uncovered and foiled.
• 1990 - Liechtenstein becomes a member of the United Nations.
• 1992 - An explosion rocks Giant Mine at the height of a labor dispute, killing nine replacement workers in Yellowknife, Canada.
• 1997 - United States media magnate Ted Turner donates US$1 billion to the United Nations.
• 1997 - The Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention is adopted.
• 2001 - First mailing of anthrax letters from Trenton, New Jersey in the 2001 anthrax attacks.
• 2006 - The CW Television Network debuts in the US, following the merger of UPN and The WB.
• 2007 - Buddhist monks join anti-government protesters in Myanmar, starting what some call the Saffron Revolution.
• 2009 - After 72 years on radio and television, CBS Television broadcasts the final episode of Guiding Light, the longest-running soap opera in American history.
• 2010 - Philippe Croizon becomes the first quadruple amputee to swim across the English Channel.
• 2011 - The 2011 Sikkim earthquake is felt across northeastern India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and southern Tibet.
• 2014 - Scotland votes against independence from the United Kingdom, by 55% to 45%.
• 2015 - Two security personnel, 17 worshippers in a mosque, and 13 militants are killed during a Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan attack on a Pakistan Air Force base on the outskirts of Peshawar.
• 2016 - The 2016 Uri attack in Jammu and Kashmir, India by terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed results in the deaths of nineteen Indian Army soldiers and all four attackers.
• 2017 - Toy retail chain Toys "R" Us files for bankruptcy protection in the United States and Canada.
• 2018 - Cannabis is legalized in South Africa, through a ruling of the Constitutional Court.