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April 18 is the 108th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (109th in leap years). There are 257 days remaining.
Events 1506 - The cornerstone of the current St. Peter's Basilica is laid. 1518 - Bona Sforza is crowned as queen consort of Poland. 1775 - Two lanterns were hung from the steeple of the Old North Church in Boston, Massachusetts. Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott ride to warn of impending arrests of Samuel Adams and John Hancock and seizure of weapons. 1797 - Battle of Neuwied resulted in the victory of French under General Louis Lazare Hoche against Austrians under General Wermecek. 1880 - A F4 tornado strikes Marshfield, Missouri, killing 99 people and injuring 100. 1899 - St. Andrew's Ambulance Association is granted a Royal Charter by Queen Victoria. 1906 - An earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.9, destroys much of San Francisco, California. (See 1906 San Francisco earthquake) 1906 - The Los Angeles Times runs a front-page story on the Azusa Street Revival, launching Pentecostalism as a worldwide movement. 1915 - French pilot Roland Garros was shot down and glided to a landing on the German side of the lines during World War I. 1923 - Yankee Stadium, "The House that Ruth Built", opens. 1942 - World War II: The Doolittle Raid on Tokyo occurs. 1942 - Pierre Laval becomes Prime Minister of Vichy France. 1943 - World War II: "Operation Peacock", Isoroku Yamamoto is killed when his aircraft is shot down by U.S. fighers over the Solomon Islands. 1945 - World War II: Over 1,000 bombers attack the small island of Heligoland, Germany, leaving nothing standing. 1946 - The League of Nations is dissolved. 1949 - The Republic of Ireland Act comes into force. 1954 - Gamal Abdal Nasser seizes power in Egypt. 1958 - A U.S. federal court rules that poet Ezra Pound be released from an insane asylum. 1961 - CONCP is founded in Casablanca as a united front of African movements opposing Portuguese colonial rule. 1974 - Prime Minister Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto inaugurates Lahore Dry port. 1974 - Italian prosecutor Mario Sossi is kidnapped by the Red Brigades. 1980 - The Republic of Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) comes into being, with Canaan Banana as the country's first President. 1983 - A suicide bomber destroys the United States embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 63 people. 1987 - Mike Schmidt joins the 500 home run club. 1988 - U.S. launches Operation Praying Mantis against Iranian naval forces in retaliation for damage to 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. 1992 - General Abdul Rashid Dostum revolted against President Mohammad Najibullah of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and allied with Ahmed Shah Massoud to capture Kabul. 1993 - President of Pakistan, Ghulam Ishaq Khan dissolves the National Assembly and dismisses Cabinet. 1996 - In Lebanon, at least 106 Lebanese civilians are killed when the Israel Defense Forces shell the UN compound at Qana (see Qana Massacre). 2005 - Adobe Systems announced an agreement to acquire Macromedia in a stock swap valued at about $3.4 billion on the last trading day before the announcement.
Births 1480 - Lucrezia Borgia, Florentine ruler and daughter of Pope Alexander VI (d. 1519) 1580 - Thomas Middleton, English dramatist (d. 1627) 1590 - Ahmed I, Ottoman Emperor (d. 1617) 1605 - Giacomo Carissimi, Italian composer (d. 1674) 1771 - Karl Philipp Fürst zu Schwarzenberg, Austrian field marshal (d. 1820) 1772 - David Ricardo, English economist (d. 1823) 1797 - Adolphe Thiers, French statesman (d. 1877) 1819 - Franz von Suppé, Austrian composer (d. 1895) 1838 - Paul Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran, French scientist (d. 1912) 1857 - Clarence Darrow, American attorney (d. 1938) 1863 - Leopold Graf Berchtold, Austro-Hungarian foreign minister (d. 1942) 1864 - Richard Harding Davis, American author (d. 1916) 1874 - Oskar Ernst Bernhardt, German author (d. 1941) 1875 - Ivana Brlic-Mazuranic, Croatian writer (d. 1938) 1880 - Sam Crawford, baseball player (d. 1968) 1882 - Leopold Stokowski, Polish conductor (d. 1977) 1888 - Duffy Lewis, baseball player (d. 1979) 1893 - Violette Morris, French athlete (d. 1944) 1897 - Ardito Desio, Italian topographer (d. 2001) 1902 - Giuseppe Pella, Prime Minister of Italy (d. 1981) 1902 - Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Hasidic Judaism leader (d. 1994) 1904 - Pigmeat Markham, American comedian (d. 1981) 1905 - George H. Hitchings, American scientist, Nobel laureate (d. 1998) 1907 - Miklós Rózsa, Hungarian-born composer (d. 1995) 1915 - Joy Gresham, American writer (d. 1960) 1917 - Ty LaForest, Canadian baseball player (d. 1947) 1918 - Cliff Hillegass, American publisher (d. 2001) 1921 - Jean Richard, French actor (d. 2001) 1924 - Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, American musician (d. 2005) 1924 - Henry Hyde, American politician 1927 - Samuel P. Huntington, American political scientist 1930 - Clive Revill, New Zealand born actor 1936 - Tommy Ivo, American race car driver 1939 - Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran 1939 - Thomas J. Moyer, American judge 1940 - Joseph L. Goldstein, American scientist, Nobel laureate 1945 - Margaret Hassan, Irish-born aid worker (d. 2004) 1946 - Hayley Mills, English actress 1947 - Kathy Acker, American author (d. 1997) 1947 - Dorothy Lyman, American actress 1947 - Cindy Pickett, American actress 1947 - James Woods, American actor 1947 - Herbert Mullin, American serial killer 1949 - Geoff Bodine, American race car driver 1951 - Ricardo Fortaleza, Australian-Filipino retired boxer 1954 - Rick Moranis, Canadian comedian 1956 - Anna Kathryn Holbrook, American actress 1956 - Eric Roberts, American actor 1956 - Melody Thomas Scott, American actress 1958 - Malcolm Marshall, West Indian cricketer (d. 1999) 1961 - Jane Leeves, British actress 1961 - Steve Lombardi, wrestler better known as "Brooklyn Brawler" and "Kim Chee" 1963 - Eric McCormack, Canadian actor 1963 - Conan O'Brien, American comedian 1964 - Niall Ferguson, British historian 1964 - Rithy Panh, Cambodian film director 1965 - Rob Stenders, Dutch radio discjockey 1966 - Trine Hattestad, Norwegian athlete 1967 - Maria Bello, American actress 1968 - David Hewlett, Canadian actor 1969 - Princess Sayako of Japan 1969 - Keith R.A. DeCandido, American author 1970 - Greg Eklund, American musician (Everclear) 1971 - Tamara Braun, American actress 1971 - David Tennant, Scottish actor 1971 - Oleg Petrov, Russian ice hockey player 1972 - Eli Roth, American film director 1973 - Derrick Brooks, American football player 1973 - Haile Gebrselassie, Ethiopian athlete 1974 - Mark Tremonti, American musician 1976 - Melissa Joan Hart, American actress 1976 - Fayray, Japanese singer 1979 - Vahid Rahbani, Iranian actor and director 1979 - Michael Bradley, American basketball player 1979 - Matthew Upson, English footballer 1979 - Kourtney Kardashian, American reality series star 1979 - Anthony Davidson, British formula 1 driver 1980 - Robyn Regehr, Canadian hockey player 1981 - Audrey Tang, Taiwanese software programmer 1983 - Miguel Cabrera, Venezuelan Major League Baseball player 1984 - America Ferrera, American actress 1985 - Łukasz Fabiański, Polish football player 1986 - Denice Klarskov, Danish porn star 1989 - Alia Shawkat, American actress
Deaths 1161 - Theobald of Bec, Archbishop of Canterbury 1552 - John Leland, English antiquarian (b. 1502) 1556 - Luigi Alamanni, Italian poet (b. 1495) 1567 - Wilhelm von Grumbach, German adventurer (b. 1503) 1558 - Roxelana, wife of Suleiman the Magnificent 1636 - Julius Caesar, English judge 1650 - Simonds d'Ewes, English antiquarian (b. 1602) 1674 - John Graunt, English statistician (b. 1620) 1689 - George Jeffreys, British Chief Justice (b. 1648) 1794 - Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden, Lord Chancellor of Great Britain (b. 1714) 1796 - Johan Wilcke, Swedish physicist (b. 1732) 1802 - Erasmus Darwin, English physician and botanist (b. 1731) 1873 - Justus von Liebig, German chemist (b. 1803) 1898 - Gustave Moreau, French painter (b. 1826) 1906 - Luis Martín, Spanish Superior-General of the Society of Jesus (b. 1846) 1935 - Panait Istrati, Romanian writer (b. 1884) 1936 - Ottorino Respighi, Italian composer (b. 1879) 1942 - Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, American socalite (b. 1875) 1943 - Isoroku Yamamoto, Japanese admiral. (b. 1884) 1945 - John Ambrose Fleming, English physicist and engineer (b. 1849) 1945 - Ernie Pyle, American journalist (b. 1900) 1947 - Josef Tiso, Slovakian leader (b. 1887) 1955 - Albert Einstein, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1879) 1964 - Ben Hecht, American writer (b. 1894) 1967 - Karl Miller, German footballer (b. 1913) 1990 - Gory Guerrero, wrestler (b. 1921) 1993 - Masahiko Kimura, Famous Judoka (b. 1917) 1995 - Arturo Frondizi, President of Argentina (b. 1908) 1996 - Piet Hein, Danish mathematician (b. 1905) 1996 - Brook Berringer, American football player (b. 1973) 1996 - Bernard Edwards, American record producer (b. 1952) 1998 - Terry Sanford, American politician (b. 1917) 2002 - Thor Heyerdahl, Norwegian explorer (b. 1914) 2002 - Wahoo McDaniel, American football player and wrestler (b. 1938) 2003 - Edgar F. Codd, English computer scientist (b. 1923) 2003 - Daijiro Kato, Japanese motorcycle racer (b. 1976) 2004 - Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, first Prime Minister of Fiji and President of Fiji (b. 1920) 2005 - Sam Mills, American football linebacker (b. 1959)
Holidays and observances
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