Previous Day - Next Day
“Instead … of saying that Man is the creature of Circumstance, it would be nearer the mark to say that Man is the architect of Circumstance. It is Character which builds an existence out of Circumstance.”
~ George Henry Lewes
Wikiquote (George Henry Lewes (April 18, 1817 – November 30, 1878) was an English philosopher and critic of literature and theatre.)
April 18th, 1025
1025 - Bolesław I Chrobry is crowned in Gniezno, becoming the first King of Poland.
1518 - Bona Sforza is crowned as queen consort of Poland.
Wikipedia Photo: Bolesław I Chrobry statue in Dziekanka, Gniezno, Poland ● Equesterian statue in Stare Miasto, Wrocław, Poland.
November 18th, 1506
Saint Peter's Basilica:
1506 - The cornerstone of the current Saint Peter's Basilica is laid.
Wikipedia Photo: Saint Peter's Basilica in the Vatican Panorama at night; The interior and exterior of Saint Peter's Basilica.
April 18th, 1521
Diet of Worms: Trial of Martin Luther begins its second day during the assembly of the Diet of Worms. He refuses to recant his teachings despite the risk of excommunication.
Wikipedia Painting: Diet of Worms 1521 ("Luther at the Diet of Worms"): was a diet (a formal deliberative assembly, specifically an Imperial Diet) that took place in Worms, Germany, and is most memorable for the Edict of Worms (Wormser Edikt), which addressed Martin Luther and the effects of the Protestant Reformation.
April 18th, 1689
Glorious Revolution:
1689 - Colonial Wars Boston revolt (1689); Bostonians rise up in rebellion against Sir Edmund Andros.
Wikipedia Painting: Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688: James II King of England & James VII King of Scots, King of Ireland and Duke of Normandy ● William III, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, stadtholder of Guelders, Holland, Zealand, Utrecht and Overijssel ● Henry Sydney, author of the Invitation to William, which was signed by six noblemen (both Whigs and Tories) and one bishop. He has been described as "the great wheel on which the Revolution rolled" ● Francisco Lopes Suasso, who partly financed the invasion ● William of Orange launched a colossal armada to seize the throne from Catholic King James II ● New England's Siege of Louisbourg (1745) by Peter Monamy.
April 18th, 1775
American Revolutionary War:
1775 - Battles of Lexington and Concord; The British advancement by sea begins - Paul Revere and other riders warn the countryside of the troop movements.
Wikipedia Paintings: Washington Crossing the Delaware, by Emanuel Leutz; Battle of the Chesapeake, French (left) and British (right) lines; Battle of Bunker Hill, The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill by John Trumbull; The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, September 13, 1782, by John Singleton Copley; Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau at Yorktown, 1781; "The surrender at Saratoga" shows General Daniel Morgan in front of a French de Vallière 4-pounder; Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown by (John Trumbull, 1797).
Grand Union - Stars and Stripes Flag
April 18th, 1797
French Revolutionary Wars / Napoleonic Wars:
1797 - Battle of Neuwied; French victory against the Austrians.
Wikipedia Painting: Battle of Trafalgar: The British HMS Sandwich fires to the French flagship Bucentaure (completely dismasted) in the battle of Trafalgar;
Napoleon in Berlin (Meynier). After defeating Prussian forces at Jena, the French Army entered Berlin on 27 October 1806;
Battle of the Bridge of Arcole Napoleon Bonaparte leading his troops over the bridge of Arcole, by Horace Vernet;
Napoleon as King of Italy (Appiani);
Napoleon Crossing the Alps (David). In 1800 Bonaparte took the French Army across the Alps, eventually defeating the Austrians at Marengo;
Charge of the Russian Imperial Guard cavalry against French cuirassiers at the Battle of Friedland, 14 June 1807;
Battle of Borodino as depicted by Louis Lejeune. The battle was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars;
Napoleon's withdrawal from Russia, a painting by Adolph Northen;
Wellington at Waterloo by Robert Alexander Hillingford;
Napoleon is often represented in his green colonel uniform of the Chasseur à Cheval, with a large bicorne and a hand-in-waistcoat gesture.
Battle of the Nile (Battle of Aboukir Bay).
April 18th, 1848
Mexican-American War: Battle of Cerro Gordo; Winfield Scott with an American victory opens the way for invasion of Mexico.
Wikipedia Painting: Battle of Cerro Gordo during Mexican-American War, credit National Parks System; Winfield Scott marching into Mexico City, by William Ellis.
April 18th, 1864
Wars of German unification: Second Schleswig War; Battle of Dybbøl - A Prussian - Austrian army defeats Denmark and gains control of Schleswig. Denmark surrenders the province in the following peace settlement.
Wikipedia Painting: Wars of German unification: Second Schleswig War; Battle of Dybbøl - by Jørgen Valentin Sonne, 1871.
April 18th, 1880
Tornadoes:
1880 - An F4 tornado strikes Marshfield, Missouri, killing 99 people and injuring 100.
Wikipedia Photo: Weather Front System; Tornado near Anadarko, Oklahoma; North Dakota Tornado; F3 Category Tornado Swirls Across A South Dakota Prairie by Carsten Peter; A waterspout parallels a lightning strike over Lake Okeechobee in Florida, by Fred K. Smith, National Geographics, Extream Instability.
April 18th, 1881
Billy the Kid escapes from the Lincoln County jail in Mesilla, New Mexico.
Wikipedia Image: Billy the Kid - Wanted Dead or Alive, credit PBS.org
April 18th, 1897
Greek War of Independence:
1897 - Greco-Turkish War is declared between Greece and the Ottoman Empire.
Wikipedia Image: Greece satellite image, credit NASA; Acrocorinth, looking north towards the Gulf of Corinth; The Acrocorinth in the background, behind the Temple of Apollo; Temple of Apollo Ancient Corinth; Early morning lightning illuminates the sky over the 2,500-year-old Ancient Parthenon temple, at the Acropolis hill during a heavy rainfall in Athens.
April 18th, 1902
Earthquake:
1902 - Quetzaltenango, the second largest city of Guatemala, is destroyed by an earthquake.
1906 - San Francisco earthquake (1906); An earthquake and fire destroy much of San Francisco, California.
Wikipedia Image: Preliminary Determination of Epicenters / Aleppo Syria; Anchorage, Alaska - March 28, 1964 Prince William Sound USA earthquake and tsunami; 8.9 Mega Earthquake Strikes Japan; Tsunami Swirls Japan's Ibaraki Prefecture March 12 2011. credit NOAA / NGDC, NOAA National Geophysical Data Center, USGS, National Geographics.
April 18th, 1909
Hundred Years' War, Joan of Arc:
1909 - Joan of Arc is beatified in Rome.
Wikipedia Painting: Joan of Arc: An artist's interpretation, since the only known direct portrait has not survived. (Centre Historique des Archives Nationales, Paris, AE II 2490) (1485); Joan of Arc's Death at the Stake, by Hermann Stilke (1843); Jeanne d' Arc, by Eugene Thirion (1876); Joan at the coronation of Charles VII, by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres in (1854); Joan of Arc and Prophet-French Pilgrimage; Joan interrogated in her prison cell by Cardinal Winchester, by Hippolyte Delaroche, (1824); Saint Joan of Arc, Vatican City; Joan of Arc in Battle, by Hermann Anton Stilke.
April 18th, 1912
The Cunard Liner RMS Carpathia brings 705 survivors from the RMS Titanic to New York City.
Wikipedia Image: RMS Titanic was a British passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on April 15, 1912 after colliding with an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, UK to New York City, US. The sinking of Titanic caused the deaths of 1,502 people in one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in modern history.
April 18th, 1915
World War I:
1915 - French pilot Roland Garros is shot down and glides to a landing on the German side of the lines.
Wikipedia Photo: Trenches on the Western Front; a British Mark IV Tank crossing a trench; Royal Navy battleship HMS Irresistible sinking after striking a mine at the Battle of the Dardanelles; a Vickers machine gun crew with gas masks, and German Albatros D.III biplanes. National Archives and Records Administration.
April 18th, 1923
The Yankee Stadium, "The House that Ruth Built", opens.
Wikipedia Image: Yankee Stadium ● Babe Ruth.
April 18th, 1924
Simon & Schuster publishes the first crossword puzzle book.
Wikipedia Image: The New York Times crossword puzzle edited by Will Shortz.
April 18th, 1942
World War II:
1942 - The Doolittle Raid on Japan. Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe and Nagoya are bombed.
1942 - The Pierre Laval becomes Prime Minister of Vichy France.
1943 - The Operation Vengeance; Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is killed when his aircraft is shot down by U.S. fighters over Bougainville Island.
1945 - Over 1,000 bombers attack the small island of Heligoland, Germany.
Post World War II:
1946 - The International Court of Justice holds its inaugural meeting in The Hague, Netherlands.
Wikipedia Photo: Bombing of Dresden in World War II; August Schreitmüller's sculpture 'Goodness' surveys Dresden after a firestorm started by Allied bombers in 1945.
USS Bunker Hill was hit by kamikazes piloted by Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa and another airman on 11 May 1945. 389 personnel were killed or missing from a crew of 2,600; Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, who flew his aircraft into the USS Bunker Hill during a Kamikaze mission on 11 May 1945; Kamikaze Missions - Lt Yoshinori Yamaguchi's Yokosuka D4Y3 (Type 33 Suisei) "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the non-self-sealing port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and/or smoke 25 November 1944.
German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944), credit German History in Documents and Images GHDI.
Eastern Front (World War II); Germans race towards Stalingrad. August 1942; Soviet children during a German air raid in the first days of the war, June 1941, by RIA Novosti archive; Soviet sniper Roza Shanina in 1944. About 400,000 Soviet women served in front-line duty units Caucasus Mountains, winter 1942/43; Finnish ski patrol: the invisible enemy of the Soviet Army with an unlimited supply of skis; Men of the German Engineers Corps cross a river which is swollen after the first autumn rains, to strengthen bridges linking the German positions on the central front in Russia. by Keystone / Getty Images. October 1942; Russian snipers fighting on the Leningrad front during a blizzard. Photo by Hulton Archive / Getty Images, 1943; German soldiers surrendering to the Russians in Stalingrad, the soldier holding the white flag of surrender is dressed in white so that there could be no doubt of his intentions, a Russian soldier is on the right of the photograph. by Keystone / Getty Images, January 1943.
April 18th, 1988
Iran–Iraq War: Operation Praying Mantis; The United States launches the largest naval battle since World War II against Iranian naval forcesnaval forces.
Wikipedia Photo: Iran–Iraq War (also known as the First Persian Gulf War and by various other names) was an armed conflict between the armed forces of Iraq and Iran, lasting from September 1980 to August 1988, making it the longest conventional war of the 20th century.
April 18th, 2013
Modern conflicts in the Middle East and terrorist attacks:
2013 - Baghdad suicide bombing; A suicide bombing in a Baghdad cafe kills 27 people and injures another 65.
2007 - Baghdad bombings; A series of bombings, two of them being suicides, occur in Baghdad, killing 198 and injuring 251.
1996 - Shelling of Qana In Lebanon, at least 106 civilians are killed when the Israel Defense Forces shell the United Nations compound at Quana where more than 800 civilians had taken refuge.
1992 - General Abdul Rashid Dostum revolts against President Mohammad Najibullah of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and allies with Ahmed Shah Massoud to capture Kabul.
1983 - United States embassy bombing: A suicide bomber destroys the United States embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 63 people.
Wikipedia Photo: Middle East satellite image, NASA. ● Camels are seen early morning on a beach in the Marina area of Dubai October 16, 2008. (Steve Crisp, Reuters) ● A portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad burns during clashes between rebels and Syrian troops in Selehattin, near Aleppo, on July 23, 2012. (Bulent Kilic, AFP / GettyImages) ● Egyptians gather in their thousands in Tahrir Square to mark the one year anniversary of the revolution on Jan. 25, 2012 in Cairo Egypt. Tens of thousands have gathered in the square on the first anniversary of the Arab uprising which toppled President Hosni Mubarak. (Jeff J Mitchell, Getty Images) ● Black smoke rises above the Tehran skyline as supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi burn tires and other material in the streets as they fight running battles with police to protest the declared results of the Iranian presidential election in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 13, 2009. (Ben Curtis, AP) ● The Iron Dome defense system fires to interecpt incoming missiles from Gaza in the port town of Ashdod, Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012. (Tsafrir Abayov, AP)