July 18

July 18 is the 199th day of the year (200th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 166 days remaining until the end of the year.

Events

Up to 1900

390 BC – Battle of the Allia: A Roman army is defeated by raiding Gauls, leading to the subsequent sacking of Rome.
64 – Great fire of Rome: A fire begins to burn in the merchant area of Rome and soon burns completely out of control while Emperor Nero reportedly plays his lyre and sings while watching the blaze from a safe distance.
362 – Roman-Persian Wars: Emperor Julian arrives at Antioch with a Roman expeditionary force of around 60,000 soldiers and stays for nine months to launch a campaign against the Persian Empire.
1195 – Battle of Alarcos, great victory of Almohad ruler Abu Yusuf Ya'qub al-Mansur over the Castilian King Alfonso VIII.
1290 – King Edward I of England issues the Edict of Expulsion against all Jews in England, saying that they have to leave the country.
1334 – The Bishop of Florence blesses the first foundation stone for the new Campanile (Bell tower) of Florence Cathedral, designed by architect Giotto di Bondone.
1389 – France and England agree to the Truce of Leulinghem, beginning a 13–year peace, the longest period of continued peace during the Hundred Years' War.
1656 – Polish–Lithuanian forces clash with Sweden and its Brandenburg allies in the start of what becomes known as the Battle of Warsaw, which becomes a decisive Swedish victory.
1830 – Uruguay adopts its first constitution.
1841 – Emperor Pedro II of Brazil is crowned.
1857 – Louis Faidherbe, French Governor of Senegal, arrives to relieve French forces at Kayes, effectively ending El Hajj Umar Tall's rebellion against the French.
1863 – American Civil War: The first formal African American military unit, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, unsuccessfully assaults Confederate–held Fort Wagner but their valiant fighting still proves the worth of African American soldiers during the war.
1873 – Oscar II of Sweden-Norway is crowned king of Norway in Trondheim.
1879 – Swedish explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskiold and his ship Vega escape from Arctic pack ice and continue on their route through the Northeast Passage.
1898 – Marie and Pierre Curie announce the discovery of a new element and proposed to call it polonium.

1901 – 2000

1914 – The United States Army's Signal Corps is formed, giving definite status to its air service for the first time.
1925 – Adolf Hitler publishes his personal manifesto Mein Kampf.
1936 – An army uprising in Spanish Morocco starts the Spanish Civil War.
1942 – World War II: The Germans test fly the Messerschmitt Me-262 using only its jets for the first time.
1944 – World War II: Hideki Tojo resigns as Prime Minister of Japan due to numerous setbacks in the war effort.
1947 – President Harry S. Truman signs the Presidential Succession Act into law which places the Speaker of the House and the Senate President Pro Tempore next in the line of succession after the United States Vice President.
1966 – Human spaceflight: Gemini 10 is launched from Cape Kennedy on a 70–hour mission that includes the docking with an orbiting Agena target vehicle.
1968 – Vietnam War: The two–day Honolulu Conference begins in Honolulu, Hawaii between US President Lyndon B. Johnson and South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu.
1968 – Intel is incorporated.
1969 – After a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator Ted Kennedy from Massachusetts drives an Oldsmobile off a wooden bridge into a tide–swept pond and his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, dies.
1969 – Apollo 11 makes preparations for landing on the Moon.
1976 – Gymnast Nadia Comaneci, aged 14, scores first ever perfect 10 at the Olympics.
1980 – India becomes the 6th country to send a rocket and a satellite into space.
1982 – 268 campesinos are slain in the Plan de Sánchez massacre in Ríos Montt's Guatemala.
1984 – McDonald's massacre in San Ysidro, California: In a fast–food restaurant, James Oliver Huberty kills 21 people and injures 19 others before being shot dead by police.
1986 – A tornado is broadcast live on KARE television in Minnesota when the station's helicopter pilot makes a chance encounter.
1986 – The movie Aliens opens in theaters.
1992 – The ten victims of the La Cantuta massacre disappeared from their university in Lima.
1994 – In Buenos Aires, an explosion destroys a building housing several Jewish organizations killing 96 and injuring many more.
1995 – On the Caribbean island of Montserrat, the Soufriere Hills volcano erupts. Over the course of several years, it devastates the island, destroying the capital and forcing most of the population to flee.
1995 – Fabio Casartelli is killed in a fall on the 15th stage of the Tour de France cycling race.
1996 – Storms provoke severe flooding on the Saguenay River in Quebec, beginning one of Canada's costliest natural disasters ever.
1996 – In an event very similar to the Oklahoma tornado that would occur three years later, a tornado ranking as a F5 hit the town of Oakfield, Wisconsin.
2000 – Queen Elizabeth II opens the new British Embassy in Berlin, as the first British Head of State to open a diplomatic mission.

From 2001

2001 – In Baltimore, Maryland, a 60–car train derailment occurs in a tunnel sparking a fire that will last days and virtually shut down downtown Baltimore.
2003 – The body of British UN weapons inspector Dr. David Kelly is found.
2007 – Nelson Mandela (on his 89th birthday) and Desmond Tutu co–found The Elders, an influential group of Elder statesmen.
2013 – The city of Detroit declares bankruptcy with debts of over 20 billion dollars.
2019 – An arson attack on an anime studio in Fushimi of Kyoto, Japan, kills 34 people.

Births

Up to 1900

1439 – John V, Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg (d. 1507)
1501 – Isabella of Burgundy, Queen of Denmark (d. 1526)
1504 – Heinrich Bullinger, Swiss religious reformer (d. 1575)
1552 – Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1612)
1634 – Johannes Camphuys, Governor–General of the Dutch East Indies (d. 1695)
1635 – Robert Hooke, English scientist (d. 1703)
1659 – Hyacinthe Rigaud, French painter (d. 1743)
1670 – Giovanni Battista Bononcini, Italian composer (d. 1747)
1718 – Saverio Bettinelli, Italian writer (d. 1808)
1720 – Gilbert White, English naturalist and ornithologist (d. 1793)
1724 – Duchess Anna Antonia of Bavaria (d. 1780)
1797 – Immanuel Hermann Fichte, German philosopher (d. 1879)
1804 – Elizabeth Gould, English illustrator (d. 1841)
1811 – William Makepeace Thackeray, English writer (d. 1863)
1818 – Louis Gerard De Geer, first Prime Minister of Sweden (d. 1896)
1821 – Pauline Viardot, French soprano and composer (d. 1910)
1826 – Mariano Ignacio Prado, President of Peru (d. 1901)
1831 – Johann Martin Schleyer, German priest and poet (d. 1912)
1837 – Vasil Levski, Bulgarian revolutionary and national hero (d. 1873)
1848 – W. G. Grace, English cricketer (d. 1915)
1853 – Hendrik Lorentz, Dutch physicist (d. 1928)
1862 – Nikolai Yudenich, Russian general (d. 1933)
1864 – Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden, English politician (d. 1937)
1867 – Margaret Brown, American socialite and philanthropist (d. 1932)
1871 – Giacomo Balla, Italian painter (d. 1958)
1871 – Sada Yacco, Japanese dancer (d. 1946)
1883 – Jiang Kanghu, Chinese politician and activist (d. 1954)
1884 – Alberto di Jorio, head of the Vatican Bank (d. 1979)
1886 – Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr., American general (d. 1945)
1887 – Vidkun Quisling, Norwegian soldier, politician and traitor (d. 1945)
1890 – Frank Forde, 15th and shortest–serving Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1983)
1892 – Arthur Friedenreich, Brazilian footballer (d. 1969)
1895 – Olga Spessivtseva, Russian ballerina (d. 1991)
1895 – Machine Gun Kelly, American gangster (d. 1954)
1897 – Ernest Eldridge, English racing driver (d. 1935)
1900 – Nathalie Sarraute, French writer (d. 1999)

1901 – 1950

1901 – Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, Polish politician (d. 1966)
1906 – Clifford Odets, American director, playwright and screenwriter (d. 1963)
1908 – Lupe Vélez, Mexican actress (d. 1944)
1909 – Andrei Gromyko, Soviet politician (d. 1989)
1909 – Mohammed Daoud Khan, President of Afghanistan (d. 1994)
1909 – Harriet Nelson, American singer and actress (d. 1994)
1910 – Mamadou Dia, Prime Minister of Senegal (d. 2009)
1911 – Hume Cronyn, Canadian actor (d. 2003)
1912 – Max Rousié, French rugby player (d. 1950)
1913 – Red Skelton, American actor and comedian (d. 1997)
1914 – Gino Bartali, Italian cyclist (d. 2000)
1914 – Jo Cals, 41st Prime Minister of the Netherlands (d. 1971)
1916 – Owen Woodhouse, New Zealand judge (d. 2014)
1917 – Henri Salvador, French singer (d. 2008)
1918 – Nelson Mandela, former President of South Africa, Nobel Peace Prize winner (d. 2013)
1921 – John Glenn, American astronaut and politician (d. 2016)
1921 – Aaron T. Beck, American psychiatrist
1922 – Thomas Kuhn, American physicist, historian and philosopher of science (d. 1996)
1923 – Michael Medwin, British actor
1924 – Norbert Tiemann, 32nd Governor of Nebraska (d. 2012)
1925 – Shirley Strickland, Australian athlete (d. 2004)
1926 – Joshua Fishman, American linguist (d. 2015)
1927 – Kurt Masur, Silesian–born conductor (d. 2015)
1928 – Andrea Gallo, Italian priest (d. 2013)
1928 – Billy Harrell, American baseball player (d. 2014)
1929 – Dick Button, American figure skater
1929 – Franca Rame, Italian actress and playwright (d. 2013)
1929 – Screamin' Jay Hawkins, American singer (d. 2000)
1930 – Burt Kwouk, English actor (d. 2016)
1930 – James I. Robertson Jr., American historian (d. 2019)
1932 – Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Russian poet (d. 2017)
1933 – Jean Yanne, French movie actor and director (d. 2003)
1935 – Jayendra Saraswathi, Indian guru
1937 – Roald Hoffmann, Polish–born American Nobel Prize–winning chemist
1937 – Hunter S. Thompson, American writer (d. 2005)
1938 – Paul Verhoeven, Dutch movie director
1938 – Perch Zeytuntsyan, Egyptian–Armenian playwright and screenwriter (d. 2017)
1938 – Ian Stewart, Scottish musician (d. 1995)
1940 – Joe Torre, American baseball player and manager
1940 – James Brolin, American actor
1941 – Frank Farian, German music producer
1941 – Lonnie Mack, American country musician (d. 2016)
1941 – Martha Reeves, American singer, actress and politician
1942 – Adolf Ogi, Swiss politician
1942 – Giacinto Facchetti, Italian footballer (d. 2006)
1945 – Boomer Castleman, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2015)
1948 – Hartmut Michel, German chemist
1950 – Richard Branson, British businessman
1950 – Glenn Hughes, American singer (Village People) (d. 2001)
1950 – Kostas Eleftherakis, Greek footballer
1950 – Jack Layton, Canadian politician, leader of the New Democratic Party (d. 2011)

1951 – 1975

1951 – Elio Di Rupo, 50th Prime Minister of Belgium
1951 – Margo Martindale, American actress
1951 – Bruce Lietzke, American golfer (d. 2018)
1952 – Ian Gibbons, English keyboardist (d. 2019)
1953 – Post Bahadur Bogati, Nepalese politician (d. 2014)
1954 – Ricky Skaggs, American musician, singer, producer and composer
1957 – Keith Levene, British musician
1957 – Nick Faldo, British golfer
1957 – Audrey Landers, American actress and singer
1959 – Pauline Quirke, English actress
1960 – Anne-Marie Johnson, American actress
1961 – David Irons, Scottish footballer and coach
1961 – Elizabeth McGovern, American actress
1961 – Alan Pardew, English football manager
1962 – Lee Arenberg, American actor
1962 – Jack Irons, American drummer
1963 – Martín Torrijos, former President of Panama
1964 – Wendy Williams, American talk show host, actress and author
1965 – Steve Webb, English politician
1966 – Lori Alan, American actress
1967 – Vin Diesel, American actor
1968 – Jonathan Gould, Scottish footballer and coach
1969 – Masanori Murakawa, Japanese wrestler
1970 – Gruff Rhys, Welsh musician, composer, producer, moviemaker and author
1971 – Sarah McLeod, New Zealand actress
1971 – Penny Hardaway, American basketball player
1971 – Sukhwinder Singh, Indian singer-songwriter and actor
1972 – Hannes Stefánsson, Icelandic chess player
1975 – Daron Malakian, Armenian–American musician (System of a Down)
1975 – Torii Hunter, American baseball player

From 1976

1978 – Tomas Danilevicius, Lithuanian footballer
1978 – Shane Horgan, Irish rugby player
1978 – Virginia Raggi, Italian politician, Mayor of Rome
1979 – Jason Weaver, American actor
1979 – Jermaine Paul, American singer-songwriter and musician
1980 – Kristen Bell, American actress
1980 – Ryoko Hirosue, Japanese actress and singer
1981 – Dennis Seidenberg, German ice hockey player
1982 – Priyanka Chopra, Indian actress
1982 – Ryan Cabrera, American musician and TV host
1983 – Carlos Diogo, Uruguayan footballer
1983 – Jan Schlaudraff, German footballer
1985 – Chace Crawford, American actor
1985 – Jan Hopsin, American rapper
1988 – Cesar Villaluz, Mexican footballer
1988 – Sofia Kvatsabaia, Georgian tennis player
1989 – Jamie Benn, Canadian ice hockey player
1989 – Yohan Mollo, French footballer
1990 – Canelo Álvarez, Mexican professional boxer
1991 – Karina Pasian, American singer and pianist
1993 – Nabil Fekir, French footballer
1993 – Lee Taemin, South Korean singer, dancer, rapper and actor
1996 – Yung Lean, Swedish rapper

Deaths

Up to 1900

707 – Emperor Monmu of Japan (b. 683)
715 – Muhammad bin Qasim al-Thaqafi, founded Islam in South Asia (b. 695)
912 – Zhu Wen, Emperor Taizu of Later Liang (b. 1852)
1488 – Alvise Cadamosto, Italian explorer (b. 1432)
1566 – Bartolomé de las Casas, Spanish bishop (b. 1484)
1591 – Jacobus Gallus, Slovenian composer (b. 1550)
1608 – Joachim Frederick III, Elector of Brandenburg (b. 1546)
1610 – Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Italian artist (b. 1573)
1695 – Johannes Camphuys, Governor–General of the Dutch East Indies (b. 1634)
1698 – Johann Heinrich Heidegger, Swiss theologian (b. 1633)
1721 – Antoine Watteau, French painter (b. 1684)
1730 – François de Neufville, duc de Villeroi, French soldier (b. 1644)
1792 – John Paul Jones, American naval commander (b. 1747)
1817 – Jane Austen, English novelist (b. 1775)
1826 – Isaac Shelby, 1st Governor of Kentucky (b. 1750)
1863 – Robert Gould Shaw Colonel of the 54th Massachusetts infantry (b. 1837).
1872 – Benito Juárez, President of Mexico (b. 1806)
1875 – Jane Franklin, British adventurer (b. 1791)
1890 – Lydia Becker, British activist (b. 1827)
1892 – Thomas Cook, British pioneer travel agent (b. 1808)

1901 – 2000

1918 – Princess Elizabeth of Hesse and by Rhine (b. 1864)
1919 – Raymonde de Laroche, French pilot (b. 1886)
1925 – Louis-Nazaire Bégin, Canadian cardinal and archbishop (b. 1840)
1938 – Queen Marie of Romania (b. 1875)
1947 – Heiti Talvik, Estonian poet (b. 1904)
1947 – Evald Tipner, Estonian footballer, ice hockey and bandy player (b. 1906)
1949 – Vítězslav Novák, Czech composer (b. 1870)
1953 – Lucy Booth, daughter of William Booth and Catherine Booth (b. 1868)
1954 – Machine Gun Kelly, American gangster (b. 1895)
1966 – Bobby Fuller, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1942)
1967 – Humberto Alencar Castelo Branco, President of Brazil (b. 1897)
1968 – Corneille Heymans, Belgian doctor, won the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, (b. 1892)
1969 – Mary Jo Kopechne, American Robert F. Kennedy campaign worker (b. 1940)
1982 – Roman Jakobson, Russian philologist and linguist (b. 1896)
1985 – Louisa Ghijs, Belgian stage actress (b. 1902)
1988 – Nico, German–American model and singer (b. 1938)
1988 – Joly Braga Santos, Portuguese composer and conductor (b. 1924)
1989 – Rebecca Schaeffer, American actress (b. 1967)
1990 – Yun Poson, President of South Korea (b. 1897)
1990 – Johnny Wayne, Canadian actor and screenwriter (b. 1918)
1995 – Fabio Casartelli, Italian professional cyclist (b. 1970)
1995 – Srinagarindra, Queen Mother of Thailand (b. 1900)
1997 – Eugene Shoemaker, American astronomer (b. 1928)

From 2001

2001 – Fabio Taglioni, Italian automotive engineer (b. 1920)
2001 – James Hatfield, American author (b. 1958)
2004 – Paul Foot, British journalist (b. 1937)
2005 – William Westmoreland, American military officer (b. 1914)
2005 – Bill Hicke, Canadian ice hockey player, coach and manager (b. 1938)
2009 – Henry Allingham, British World War I veteran and supercentenarian, oldest man in the world at the time of his death (b. 1896)
2012 – Rajesh Khanna, Indian actor, producer and politician (b. 1942)
2012 – Jean François-Poncet, French politician (b. 1928)
2013 – Nobuyuki Aihara, Japanese gymnast (b. 1934)
2014 – Andreas Biermann, German footballer (b. 1980)
2014 – Joao Ubaldo Ribeiro, Brazilian writer (b. 1941)
2014 – James Govan, American singer (b. 1949)
2015 – Alex Rocco, American actor (b. 1936)
2015 – George Coe, American actor (b. 1929)
2016 – Manuel G. Batshaw, Canadian social worker (b. 1915)
2016 – Uri Coronel, Dutch sports director (b. 1946)
2016 – Bloeme Evers-Emden, Dutch teacher, child psychologist and Holocaust survivor (b. 1926)
2016 – Agata Karczmarek, Polish long jumper (b. 1963)
2016 – Jeffrey Montgomery, American LGBT rights activist (b. 1953)
2016 – Billy Name, American photographer (b. 1940)
2017 – José Bragato, Italian–Argentine cellist, composer and conductor (b. 1915)
2017 – Max Gallo, French writer, historian and politician (b. 1932)
2017 – Shigeaki Hinohara, Japanese physician (b. 1911)
2017 – André Lafargue, French journalist (b. 1917)
2017 – Andrew Paulson, American executive (b. 1958)
2017 – Gustavo Alessandri Valdés, Chilean lawyer and politician (b. 1929)
2017 – Red West, American actor, stuntman and songwriter (b. 1936)
2017 – Ben's Cat, American racehorse (b. 2006)
2018 – Adrian Cronauer, American disc jockey (b. 1938)
2018 – Gopaldas Neeraj, Indian poet and writer (b. 1925)
2018 – Burton Richter, American physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics (b. 1918)
2018 – Geoffrey Wellum, British fighter pilot (b. 1921)
2018 – Anne Olivier Bell, English literary editor and arts scholar (b. 1916)
2018 – John Banks Elliott, Ghanaian diplomat (b. 1917)
2018 – Ronald H. Griffith, American military officer (b. 1936)
2018 – Rob van Mesdag, Dutch rower (b. 1930)
2019 – Charles Ceccaldi-Raynaud, French lawyer and politician (b. 1925)
2019 – Luciano De Crescenzo, Italian screenwriter (b. 1928)
2019 – Kurt Julius Isselbacher, German–born American physician (b. 1925)
2019 – Roelof Nelissen, Dutch politician and banker (b. 1931)
2019 – Yukiya Amano, Japanese diplomat (b. 1947)
2019 – David Hedison, American actor (b. 1927)

Observances

Mandela Day
Constitution Day (Uruguay)