TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: OCT 18
1009 The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem is destroyed by the Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, who hacks the Church’s foundations down to bedrock
1469 Ferdinand II of Aragón married Isabella of Castile, uniting Spain and making it a dominant world power.
1648 The “shoemakers of Boston”–the first labor organization in what would become the United States–was authorized by the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
1685 Edict of Nantes lifted by Louis XIV. The edict, signed at Nantes, France, by King Henry IV in 1598, gave the Huguenots religious liberty, civil rights and security. By revoking the Edict of Nantes, Louis XIV abrogated their religious liberties.
1767 The boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania, the Mason-Dixon line, was agreed upon.
1776 In a NY bar decorated with bird tail, customer orders “cock tail”
1851 Moby Dick is Published for the First Time
1862 Morgan’s raiders capture the federal garrison at Lexington, KY
1867 The Alaska territory is formally transferred to the U.S. from Russian control.
1873 The first rules for intercollegiate football were drawn up by representatives from Rutgers, Yale, Columbia and Princeton Universities.
1883 The weather station at the top of Ben Nevis, Scotland, the highest mountain in Britain, is declared open. Weather stations were set up on the tops of mountains all over Europe and the Eastern United States in order to gather information for the new weather forecasts.
1898 The American flag was raised in Puerto Rico only one year after the Caribbean nation won its independence from Spain
1912 The First Balkan War breaks out between the members of the Balkan League–Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Montenegro–and the Ottoman Empire.
1921 Russian Soviets grant Crimean independence.
1929 The Judicial Committee of England’s Privy Council ruled that women were to be considered as persons in Canada.
1956 NFL commissioner Bert Bell disallowed the use of radio-equipped helmets by NFL quarterbacks.
1967 A Russian unmanned spacecraft makes the first landing on the surface of Venus.
1967 Walt Disney’s “Jungle Book” is released
1968 US athletes Tommi Smith and John Carlos suspended by US Olympic Committee for giving “black power” salute while receiving their medals at the Olympic Games in Mexico City.
1969 The U.S. government banned artificial sweeteners due to evidence that they caused cancer.
1985 South African authorities hanged black activist Benjamin Moloise. Moloise had been convicted of murdering a police officer.
1990 Iraq made an offer to the world that it would sell oil for $21 a barrel. The price level was the same as it had been before the invasion of Kuwait.
1997 A monument honoring U.S. servicewomen, past and present, was dedicated at Arlington National Cemetery.
1998 Jesse Pipeline Explosion in Nigeria Kills Over 200
The oil pipeline, which was owned by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, was situated just outside the city of Lagos. Over 200 people died in the resulting fire that raged for 6 days before it could be put out.
2007 Suicide attack on a motorcade in Karachi, Pakistan, kills at least 139 and wounds 450; the subject of the attack, Pakistan’s former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, is not harmed.
2011 Gilad Shalit, a 25-year-old Israeli soldier, is released after being held for more than five years by Hamas. He is exchanged for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. Shalit had been held in Gaza since Palestinian militants kidnapped him in 2006.
REFERENCE: HISTORY.NET, ONTHISDAY.COM, TIMEANDDATE.COM, INFOPLEASE.COM, FACTMONSTER.COM, SCOPESYS.COM, ON-THIS-DAY.COM, THEPEOPLEHISTORY.COM
