January 18Birthdays & History

On this day: January 18 in history

Oldest first. Tap a year to see it on the World Chronicle timeline.

1. 350General Magnentius is proclaimed emperor by Roman aristocrats discontent with the rule of emperor Constans.Europe
2. 474Seven-year-old Leo II succeeds his maternal grandfather Leo I as Byzantine emperor. He dies ten months later.Europe
3. 532Nika riots in Constantinople fail.Middle East
4. 1126Emperor Huizong abdicates the Chinese throne in favour of his son Emperor Qinzong.Asia
5. 1486King Henry VII of England marries Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV, uniting the House of Lancaster and the House of York.Europe
6. 1562Pope Pius IV reopens the Council of Trent for its third and final session.Europe
7. 1586The magnitude 7.9 Tenshō earthquake strikes Honshu, Japan, killing 8,000 people and triggering a tsunami.Asia
8. 1670Henry Morgan captures Panama.Latin America
9. 1701Frederick I crowns himself King in Prussia in Königsberg.Europe
10. 1778James Cook is the first known European to discover the Hawaiian Islands, which he names the "Sandwich Islands".Europe
11. 1788The first elements of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from Great Britain to Australia arrive at Botany Bay.EuropeOceania
12. 1806Jan Willem Janssens surrenders the Dutch Cape Colony to the British.Europe
13. 1866Wesley College is established in Melbourne, Australia.Oceania
14. 1871Wilhelm I of Germany is proclaimed Kaiser Wilhelm in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles (France) towards the end of the Franco-Prussian War. Wilhelm already had the title of German Emperor since the constitution of 1 January 1871, but he had hesitated to accept the title.Europe
15. 1886Modern field hockey is born with the formation of The Hockey Association in England.Europe
16. 1896An X-ray generating machine is exhibited for the first time by H. L. Smith.North America
17. 1898British colonial engineer and estate manager William Claxton Peppé discovered the Buddha's remains in Piprahwa, Uttar Pradesh, India.EuropeAsia
18. 1911Eugene B. Ely lands on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania anchored in San Francisco Bay, the first time an aircraft landed on a ship.North America
19. 1913First Balkan War: A Greek flotilla defeats the Ottoman Navy in the Naval Battle of Lemnos, securing the islands of the Northern Aegean Sea for Greece.EuropeMiddle East
20. 1915Japan issues the "Twenty-One Demands" to the Republic of China in a bid to increase its power in East Asia.AsiaAsia
21. 1919Ignacy Jan Paderewski becomes Prime Minister of the newly independent Poland.Europe
22. 1919World War I: The Paris Peace Conference opens in Versailles, France.Europe
23. 1932Alt Llobregat insurrection breaks out in Central Catalonia, Spain.Europe
24. 1941World War II: British troops launch a general counter-offensive against Italian East Africa.EuropeAfrica
25. 1943Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: The first uprising of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto.Europe
26. 1945World War II: Liberation of Kraków, Poland by the Red Army.Europe
27. 1958Willie O'Ree, the first Black Canadian National Hockey League player, makes his NHL debut with the Boston Bruins.North America
28. 1960Capital Airlines Flight 20 crashes into a farm in Charles City County, Virginia, killing all 50 aboard, the third fatal Capital Airlines crash in as many years.North America
29. 1967Albert DeSalvo, the "Boston Strangler", is convicted of numerous crimes and is sentenced to life imprisonment.North America
30. 1969United Airlines Flight 266 crashes into Santa Monica Bay killing all 32 passengers and six crew members.North America
31. 1972Members of the Mukti Bahini lay down their arms to the government of the newly independent Bangladesh, a month after winning the war against the occupying Pakistan Army.Asia
32. 1974A Disengagement of Forces agreement is signed between the Israeli and Egyptian governments, ending conflict on the Egyptian front of the Yom Kippur War.Middle East
33. 1976Lebanese Christian militias kill at least 1,000 in Karantina, Beirut.Middle East
34. 1977Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announce they have identified a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of the mysterious Legionnaires' disease.North America
35. 1977SFR Yugoslavia's Prime minister, Džemal Bijedić, his wife and six others are killed in a plane crash in Bosnia and Herzegovina.Europe
36. 1977Australia's worst rail disaster occurs at Granville, Sydney, killing 83.Oceania
37. 1978The European Court of Human Rights finds the United Kingdom's government guilty of mistreating prisoners in Northern Ireland, but not guilty of torture.Europe
38. 1981Phil Smith and Phil Mayfield parachute off a Houston skyscraper, becoming the first two people to BASE jump from objects in all four categories: buildings, antennae, spans (bridges), and earth (cliffs).North America
39. 1983The International Olympic Committee restores Jim Thorpe's Olympic medals to his family.North America
40. 1986An Aerovías Sud Aviation Caravelle crashes on approach to Mundo Maya International Airport in Flores, Petén, Guatemala, killing all 94 people on board.Latin America
41. 1988China Southwest Airlines Flight 4146 crashes near Chongqing Baishiyi Airport, killing all 98 passengers and 10 crew members.Asia
42. 1990Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion Barry is arrested for drug possession in an FBI sting.North America
43. 1993Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is officially observed for the first time in all 50 US states.North America
44. 2002The Sierra Leone Civil War is declared over.Africa
45. 2003A bushfire kills four people and destroys more than 500 homes in Canberra, Australia.Oceania
46. 2005The Airbus A380, the world's largest commercial jet, is unveiled at a ceremony in Toulouse, FranceEurope
47. 2007The strongest storm in the United Kingdom in 17 years kills 14 people and Germany sees the worst storm since 1999 with 13 deaths. Cyclone Kyrill causes at least 44 deaths across 20 countries in Western Europe.Europe
48. 2008The Euphronios Krater is unveiled in Rome after being returned to Italy by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Europe
49. 2012More than 115,000 websites engage in an online protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act in the US. The websites involved viewed the laws as infringing on the right to free speech and many of them temporarily shut down in protest.North America
50. 2018A bus catches fire on the Samara–Shymkent road in Yrgyz District, Aktobe, Kazakhstan. The fire kills 52 passengers, with three passengers and two drivers escaping.Asia
51. 2019An oil pipeline explosion near Tlahuelilpan, Hidalgo, Mexico, kills 137 people.Latin America
52. 2023A helicopter crash in Ukraine leaves 14 people dead, including the country's Interior Minister, Denys Monastyrsky.Europe
53. 2025The popular social media app, TikTok, is banned in the United States, after the passing of PAFACA.North America
54. 2026At least 45 people are killed and 292 others injured after two trains collide in Adamuz in the worst railway disaster in over a decade in Spain.Europe

Source: Wikipedia "January 18" / CC BY-SA 4.0