18 April
April 18 is the 108th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (109th in leap years). There are 257 days remaining.
Events
- 1518 - Bona Sforza is crowned as queen of Poland and married to Sigismund I of Poland.
- 1775 - Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott ride to warn of impending arrests of Samuel Adams and John Hancock and seizure of weapons. Only Prescott finishes the ride.
- 1906 - 1906 San Francisco earthquake, estimated magnitude 7.8, destroys much of San Francisco, California.
- 1934 - The first "washateria" opens in Fort Worth, Texas.
- 1942 - World War II: The Doolittle Raid on Tokyo occurs.
- 1942 - Pierre Laval becomes Prime Minister of France.
- 1945 - A thousand-bomber raid on the small island of Heligoland leaves nothing standing; 128 people, mostly anti-aircraft crew, were killed.
- 1946 - The League of Nations dissolves.
- 1947 - While destroying German naval installations on Heligoland, the British Royal Navy detonate 6800 tons of explosive in an attempt to demolish the island.
- 1949 - The Republic of Ireland Act comes into force.
- 1954 - Gamal Abdal Nasser seizes power in Egypt.
- 1958 - A federal court rules that poet Ezra Pound should be released from an insane asylum.
- 1972 - The Roland Corporation founded in Osaka.
- 1974 - Italian prosecutor Mario Sossi is kidnapped by the Red Brigades.
- 1980 - The Republic of Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) came into being.
- 1983 - A suicide bomber destroys the United States embassy in Beirut, Lebanon.
- 1988 - U.S. launches Operation Praying Mantis against Iranian naval forces in retaliation for the April 14 mining of the USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) in the Persian Gulf during Operation Earnest Will. The one-day action is the world's largest naval battle since World War II.
- 1994 - Brian Lara scores 375 in an innings of a test cricket match, beating Garfield Sobers's previous record of 365.
- 1996 - Over 100 Lebanese civilians are killed when the Israel Defense Forces shell the UN compound at Qana (see Qana Massacre).
- 2002 - A new order of insects, Mantophasmatodea, is announced.
Births
- 1480 - Lucrezia Borgia, Renaissance ruler and daughter of Pope Alexander VI (d. 1519)
- 1590 - Ahmed I, Ottoman Emperor (d. 1617)
- 1605 - Giacomo Carissimi, Baroque era composer
- 1819 - Franz von Suppé, Croatian - Austrian composer (d. 1895)
- 1857 - Clarence Darrow, attorney (d. 1938)
- 1864 - Richard Harding Davis, author (d. 1916)
- 1874 - Ivana Brlic-Mazuranic, Croatian writer (d. 1938)
- 1880 - Sam Crawford, Baseball Hall of Famer (d. 1968)
- 1882 - Leopold Stokowski, conductor and founder of the American Symphony Orchestra (d. 1977)
- 1893 - Jo Swerling, writer (d. 1964)
- 1897 - Ardito Desio, Italian topographer and mountaineer (d. 2001)
- 1901 - László Németh, author (d. 1975)
- 1904 - Pigmeat Markham, comedian (d. 1981)
- 1921 - Jean Richard, actor (d. 2001)
- 1921 - Barbara Hale, actress
- 1928 - Otto Piene, painter
- 1940 - Robert N. Kucey, author
- 1946 - Hayley Mills, actress
- 1947 - James Woods, actor (Ghosts of Mississippi, Salvador, Any Given Sunday)
- 1949 - Geoff Bodine, automobile racer
- 1954 - Rick Moranis, comedian
- 1956 - Anna Kathryn Holbrook, soap opera actress
- 1956 - Melody Thomas Scott, soap opera actress
- 1961 - Jane Leeves, actress
- 1963 - Conan O'Brien, comedian
- 1966 - Trine Hattestad, javelin thrower
- 1979 - Michael Bradley, NBA basketball player
- 1983 - Miguel Caberra, MLB baseball player
- 1988 - Michael David Stamper, comedian
Deaths
- 1674 - John Graunt, statistician
- 1689 - George Jeffreys, British Chief Justice, presided over the "Bloody Assizes" (b. 1648)
- 1873 - Justus von Liebig, chemist (b. 1803)
- 1945 - Ernie Pyle, American journalist (b. 1900)
- 1964 - Ben Hecht, playwright, screenwriter (b. 1894)
- 1955 - Albert Einstein, scientist (b. 1879)
- 2002 - Thor Heyerdahl, Norwegian explorer on the Kon-Tiki expedition (b. 1914)
- 2003 - Edgar F. Codd, Founder of theory of relational databases (b. 1923)
- 2003 - Daijiro Kato, Japanese motorcycle racer (b. 1976)
- 2004 - Kamisese Mara, first Prime Minister of Fiji (b. 1920)
Holidays and observances
April 17 - April 19 - March 18 - May 18 -- listing of all days
