18 April

April 18 is the 108th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (109th in leap years). There are 257 days remaining.

Events

• 1025 Boleslaw I Chrobry is crowned as the first in history king of Poland.
• 1518 Bona Sforza is crowned as queen of Poland and married to Sigismund I of Poland.
• 1775 - Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott ride to warn of impending arrests of Samuel Adams and John Hancock and seizure of weapons. Only Prescott finishes the ride.
• 1906 - 1906 San Francisco earthquake, estimated magnitude 7.8, destroys much of San Francisco, California.
• 1942 - World War II: The Doolittle Raid on Tokyo occurs.
• 1942 - Pierre Laval becomes Prime Minister of France
• 1945 - A thousand-bomber raid on the small island of Heligoland leaves nothing standing; 128 people, mostly anti-aircraft crew, were killed.
• 1946 - The League of Nations dissolves.
• 1947 - While destroying German naval installations on Heligoland, the British Royal Navy detonate 6800 tons of explosive in an attempt to demolish the island.
• 1954 - Gamal Abdal Nasser seizes power in Egypt.
• 1958 - A federal court rules that poet Ezra Pound should be released from an insane asylum.
• 1972 - The Roland Corporation founded in Osaka.
• 1974 - Italian prosecutor Mario Sossi is kidnapped by the Red Brigades.
• 1980 - The Republic of Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) came into being.
• 1983 - A suicide bomber destroys the United States embassy in Beirut, Lebanon.
• 1989 - The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 begin.
• 1994 - Brian Lara scores 375 in an innings of a test cricket match, beating Garfield Sobers's previous record of 365.
• 1996 - Over 100 Lebanese civilians are killed when the Israel Defense Forces shell the UN compound at Qana.
• 2002 - A new order of insects, Mantophasmatodea, is announced.

Births

• 1480 - Lucrezia Borgia, Renaissance ruler and daughter of Pope Alexander VI
• 1819 - Franz von Suppé, Croatian - Austrian composer († 1895)
• 1857 - Clarence Darrow, attorney († 1938)
• 1864 - Richard Harding Davis, author († 1916)
• 1882 - Leopold Stokowski, conductor and founder of the American Symphony Orchestra († 1977)
• 1893 - Jo Swerling, writer († 1964)
• 1897 - Ardito Desio, Italian topographer and mountaineer († 2001)
• 1901 - László Németh, author († 1975)
• 1904 - Pigmeat Markham, comedian († 1981)
• 1921 - Jean Richard, actor
• 1921 - Barbara Hale, actress
• 1928 - Otto Piene, painter
• 1940 - Robert N. Kucey, author
• 1946 - Hayley Mills, actress
• 1947 - James Woods, actor
• 1949 - Geoff Bodine, automobile racer
• 1954 - Rick Moranis, comedian
• 1963 - Conan O'Brien, comedian
• 1966 - Trine Hattestad, javelin thrower

Deaths

• 1674 - John Graunt, statistician
• 1689 - George Jeffreys, British Chief Justice, presided over the "Bloody Assizes"
• 1873 - Justus von Liebig, chemist
• 1945 - Ernie Pyle, American journalist
• 1964 - Ben Hecht, playwright, screenwriter
• 1955 - Albert Einstein, scientist
• 2002 - Thor Heyerdahl, Norwegian explorer on the Kon-Tiki expedition
• 2003 - Edgar F. Codd, Founder of theory of relational databases
• 2003 - Daijiro Kato, Japanese motorcycle racer

Holidays and observances

• Good Friday (2003)

April 17 - April 19 - March 18 - May 18 -- listing of all days

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Referenced By