On this day: 18 October

Years ago today

Events · 18

• 1016(Julian date)
  Battle of Assandun — battle fought in Essex in 1016
• 1081(Julian date)
  Battle of Dyrrhachium — 1081 battle in present-day Albania
• 1356(Julian date)
  1356 Basel earthquake — natural disaster
• 1540(Julian date)
  Battle of Mabila — battle at a former small fortress town located in present-day Alabama, USA
• 1565(Julian date)
  Battle of Fukuda Bay — 1565 naval battle between the Portuguese and Japanese
• 1597
  Third Spanish Armada — 1597 fleet of Spanish ships, intended to attack England
• 1599(Julian date)
  Battle of Sellenberk — 1599 battle
• 1685
  Edict of Fontainebleau — 1685 French decree
• 1748
  Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle — peace treaty which ended the War of the Austrian Succession
• 1775
  Burning of Falmouth — attack by a fleet of Royal Navy vessels on the town of Falmouth, Massachusetts
• 1860
  Convention of Peking — Set of three treaties involving territorial changes
• 1873
  1873–74 Scottish Cup — Football (soccer) competition, played among 16 teams from October 1873 to March 1874
• 1922
  British Broadcasting Company Limited — British commercial radio broadcaster (1922–1926); predecessor to BBC
• 1945
  1945 Venezuelan coup d'état — coup d'état
• 1977
  Hijacking of Lufthansa Flight 181 — 1977 aircraft hijacking
• 1977
  German Autumn — 1977 season of politically-motivated terrorist crimes in Germany which lead to the formation of cross-party crisis committees by chancellor Helmut Schmidt; widely regarded as the most serious crisis in post-WWII Germany
• 1992
  Merpati Nusantara Airlines Flight 5601 — 1992 aviation accident
• 2007
  2007 Karachi bombing — attack on former prime minister of Pakistan

Births · 60

• 1127(Julian date)
  Emperor Go-Shirakawa — 77th emperor of Japan (1155–58)
• 1130(Julian date)
  Zhu Xi — Chinese historian, neo-Confucian philosopher, poet, and politician during the Song dynasty (1130–1200)
• 1405(Julian date)
  Pius II — pope of the Catholic Church from 1458 to 1464 (1405–1464)
• 1523(Julian date)
  Anna Jagiellon — Queen regnant of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania
• 1634
  Luca Giordano — Italian Baroque painter (1634–1705)
• 1663
  Eugene of Savoy — prince of the house of Savoy, then commander in chief of the armies of the Holy Roman Empire (1663-1736)
• 1697
  Canaletto — Italian painter of landscapes (1697–1768)
• 1706
  Baldassare Galuppi — Italian composer (1706-1785)
• 1741
  Pierre Choderlos de Laclos — French novelist, official and army general (1741–1803)
• 1777
  — German poet, dramatist, novelist and short story writer (1777–1811)
• 1804
  Mongkut — King of Siam from 1851 to 1868
• 1822
  Midhat Pasha — Ottoman grand vizier, reformist, and creator of the first Ottoman constitution (1822-1883)
• 1831
  Frederick III, German Emperor — as King of Prussia German Emperor (1831–1888)
• 1854
  Karl Kautsky — Czech-Austrian Marxist theorist (1854–1938)
• 1859
  Henri Bergson — French philosopher (1859–1941)
• 1870
  D. T. Suzuki — Japanese Buddhist scholar, Doctor of Letters (1870–1966)
• 1873
  Ivanoe Bonomi — Italian prime minister in 1921–22 and 1944–45
• 1882
  Lucien Petit-Breton — French cyclist
• 1898
  Lotte Lenya — Austrian singer and actress (1898-1981)
• 1902
  Miriam Hopkins — American actress (1902-1972)
• 1902
  Pascual Jordan — German physicist and politician (1902-1980)
• 1905
  Félix Houphouët-Boigny — First President of Ivory Coast, from 1960 to 1993 (1905-1993)
• 1909
  Norberto Bobbio — Italian legal scholar (1909–2004)
• 1918
  Konstantinos Mitsotakis — Greek politician, Prime Minister of Greece from 1990 to 1993 (1918–2017)
• 1919
  Pierre Trudeau — Prime Minister of Canada from 1968 to 1979 and 1980 to 1984 (1919–2000)

Deaths · 60

• 31(Julian date)
  Sejanus — confidant of the Roman Emperor Tiberius and prefect of the Roman imperial Praetorian Guard (20 BC - AD 31)
• 325
  Emperor Ming of Jin — Emperor of the Jin dynasty from 323 to 325
• 1035(Julian date)
  Sancho III of Navarre — King of Pamplona and ruler of Aragon from 1004 to 1035
• 1101(Julian date)
  Hugh I, Count of Vermandois — French noble
• 1141
  Leopold, Duke of Bavaria — Austrian noble
• 1417(Julian date)
  Gregory XII — pope of the Catholic Church from 1406 to 1415
• 1442(Julian date)
  John, Constable of Portugal — Portuguese prince and Constable of Portugal (1400–1442)
• 1480(Julian date)
  Uhwudong — Korean philosopher (1430-1480)
• 1503(Julian date)
  Pius III — pope of the Catholic Church from 22 September to 18 October 1503
• 1541(Julian date)
  Margaret Tudor — Scottish Queen consort (1489-1541)
• 1545
  John Taverner — English Renaissance composer and organist
• 1558
  Mary of Hungary — governor of the Netherlands and queen consort of Hungary and Bohemia (1505-1558)
• 1561(Julian date)
  Yamamoto Kansuke — Samurai of the Sengoku period (1501–1561)
• 1667
  Fasiladas — Ethiopian Emperor (1603-1667)
• 1678
  Jacob Jordaens — Flemish painter, draftsman and designer of prints and tapestries (1593-1678)
• 1744
  Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough — British duchess (1660-1744)
• 1817
  Étienne Méhul — French composer (1763–1817)
• 1865
  Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston — British statesman and prime minister (1784–1865)
• 1866
  Philipp Franz von Siebold — German biologist and traveller (1796-1866)
• 1871
  Charles Babbage — English mathematician, philosopher, and engineer (1791–1871)
• 1889
  Antonio Meucci — Italian inventor and telephone pioneer (1808–1889)
• 1893
  Charles Gounod — French composer (1818–1893)
• 1911
  Alfred Binet — French psychologist and inventor of the first usable intelligence test (1857–1911)
• 1921
  Ludwig III of Bavaria — King of Bavaria (1845-1921)
• 1931
  Thomas Edison — American inventor and businessman (1847–1931)