TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: AUG 18
1587 In the Roanoke Island colony, Ellinor and Ananias Dare become parents of a baby girl whom they name Virginia, the first English child born in what would become the United States.
1612 The Pendle witch trials begin
1686 Cassini reports seeing a satellite orbiting Venus
1698 After invading Denmark and capturing Sweden, Charles XII of Sweden forces Frederick IV of Denmark to sign the Peace of Travendal.
1834 Mt Vesuvius erupts
1838 United States Exploring Expedition headed by Charles Wilkes departs for the Pacific Ocean and Antarctica
1868 Pierre Janssan discovers helium in solar spectrum during eclipse
1894 Congress established the Bureau of Immigration, forerunner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
1898 Adolph Ochs takes over the New York Times, saying his aim is to give “the news, all the news, in concise and attractive form, in language that is permissible in good society, and give it early, if not earlier, than it can be learned through any other medium.”
1914 Germany declares war on Russia while President Woodrow Wilson issues his Proclamation of Neutrality.
1919 Anti-Cigarette League of America forms in Chicago, Illinois
1920 Tennessee becomes the thirty-sixth state to ratify the nineteenth amendment granting women’s suffrage, completing the three-quarters necessary to put the amendment into effect.
1938 The Thousand Islands Bridge was dedicated by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The bridge connects the U.S. and Canada.
1943 Final convoy of Jews from Salonika Greece arrive at Auschwitz
1958 Lolita is First Published in the US
1963 James Meredith, the first African American to attend University of Mississippi, graduates.
1965 Operation Starlite marks the beginning of major U.S. ground combat operations in Vietnam.
1969 Two concert goers die at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in Bethel, New York, one from an overdose of heroin, the other from a burst appendix.
1979 Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini demands a “Saint War” against Kurds.
1987 Ohio nurse Donald Harvey sentenced to triple life terms for poisoning 24 patients.
1991 A group of hard-line communist leaders unhappy with the drift toward the collapse of the Soviet Union seize control of the government in Moscow and place President Mikhail S. Gorbachev under house arrest
1992 Dennis Rader, the BTK (Bind, Torture, Kill) killer receives 10 consecutive life sentences. He had terrorized Wichita, Kansas, murdering 10 people between 1974 and 1991.
2004 Donald Trump unveiled his board game (TRUMP the Game) where players bid on real estate, buy big ticket items and make billion-dollar business deals.
2005 Indonesia suffers a Massive Power Outage
2010 Edelmiro Cavazos, mayor of Santiago, Nuevo Leon, is found handcuffed, blindfolded and dead following his abduction three days earlier. He had championed crackdowns on organized crime and police corruption.
REFERENCE: HISTORY.NET, ONTHISDAY.COM, TIMEANDDATE.COM, INFOPLEASE.COM, FACTMONSTER.COM, SCOPESYS.COM, ON-THIS-DAY.COM, THEPEOPLEHISTORY.COM
