February 18

February 18 is the 49th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 316 days remaining (317 in leap years).

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Events

• 3102 BC – Epoch (origin) of the Kali Yuga.
• 1229 – The Sixth Crusade: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor signed a ten-year truce with al-Kamil, regaining Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem with neither military engagements nor support from the papacy.
• 1478 – George, Duke of Clarence, convicted of treason against his older brother Edward IV of England, is privately executed in the Tower of London.
• 1685 – Fort St. Louis is established by a Frenchman at Matagorda Bay thus forming the basis for France's claim to Texas.
• 1797 – Trinidad is surrendered to a british fleet under the command of Sir Ralph Abercromby.
• 1814 – Battle of Montereau occurs.
• 1841 – The first ongoing filibuster in the United States Senate begins and lasts until March 11.
• 1856 – The American Party (Know-Nothings) convene in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to nominate their first Presidential candidate, former President (Millard Fillmore).
• 1861 – In Montgomery, Alabama Jefferson Davis is inaugurated as the first and only President of the Confederate States of America.
• 1861 – With the Italian unification almost complete, King Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont, Savoy and Sardinia assumes the title of King of Italy.
• 1865 – In the U.S., Delaware voters reject the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and vote to continue the practice of slavery. (Delaware finally ratified the amendment on February 12, 1901.)
• 1878 – The Lincoln County War begins in Lincoln County, New Mexico.
• 1885 – Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is published for the first time.
• 1911 – The first official flight with air mail took place in Allahabad, British India, when Henri Pequet, a 23-year-old pilot, delivered 6,500 letters to Naini, about 10 km away.
• 1913 – Raymond Poincaré becomes President of France.
• 1929 – First Academy Awards are announced.
• 1930 – While studying photographs taken in January, Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto.
• 1930 – Elm Farm Ollie becomes the first cow to fly in an airplane and also the first cow to be milked in an airplane.
• 1932 – The Empire of Japan declares Manzhouguo (obsolete Chinese name for Manchuria) independent from China.
• 1943 – The Nazis arrest the members of the White Rose movement.
• 1943 – Joseph Goebbels delivered the Sportpalast speech
• 1948 – Eamon de Valera resigns as Taoiseach of Ireland.
• 1953 – The first 3D film, Bwana Devil opens.
• 1953 – Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz sign an $8,000,000 contract to continue the I Love Lucy television series through 1955.
• 1965 – The Gambia becomes independent from the United Kingdom.
• 1970 – The Chicago Eight are found not guilty of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic Party national convention.
• 1972 – The California Supreme Court invalidates the state's death penalty and commutes the sentences of all death row inmates to life in prison.
• 1974 – The game show Tattletales debuts in the slot vacated by the long-running soap opera The Secret Storm.
• 1977 – The Space Shuttle Enterprise test vehicle goes on its maiden "flight" while sitting on top of a Boeing 747.
• 1983 – 13 people lose their lives and one is seriously injured in the Wah Mee Massacre in Seattle, Washington, said to be the largest robbery-motivated mass-murder in American history.
• 1985 – The legendary "mirror globe" ident, first used in 1969, is seen for the last time in regular rotation on BBC1.
• 1998 – Two white separatists were arrested in Nevada and accused of plotting a biological attack on New York City subways.
• 2001 – NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt is killed on the final lap of the Daytona 500.
• 2003 – Nearly 200 people die in the Daegu subway fire in South Korea
• 2004 – Up to 295 people, including nearly 200 rescue workers, die near Neyshabur in Iran when a run-away freight train carrying sulfur, petrol and fertiliser catches fire and explodes.
• 2005 – The United Kingdom law banning fox hunting, hare coursing and other sports which kill wild mammals is enforced from this date.

Births

• 1516 – Queen Mary I of England (d. 1558)
• 1530 – Uesugi Kenshin, Japanese samurai and warlord (d. 1578)
• 1559 – Isaac Casaubon, French classical scholar
• 1626 – February 18/19 – Francesco Redi, physician (d. 1697)
• 1745 – Alessandro Volta, physicist (d. 1827)
• 1835 – César Cui, Lithuanian composer (d. 1918)
• 1838 – Ernst Mach, Austrian physicist and philosopher (d. 1916)
• 1846 – Wilson Barrett, actor and playwright (d. 1904)
• 1848 – Louis Comfort Tiffany, American glass artist (d. 1933)
• 1849 – Alexander Kielland, Norwegian author (d. 1906)
• 1859 – Sholom Aleichem, humorist and author (d. 1916)
• 1867 – Hedwig Courths-Mahler, novelist (d. 1950)
• 1871 – Harry Brearley, inventor (d. 1948)
• 1883 – Nikos Kazantzakis, poet (d. 1957)
• 1890 – Adolphe Menjou, actor (d. 1963)
• 1890 – Edward Arnold, American actor (d. 1956)
• 1892 – Wendell Wilkie, U.S. Presidential candidate (d. 1944)
• 1896 – Andre Breton, French writer (d. 1966)
• 1898 – Enzo Ferrari, Italian auto racer and manufacturer (d. 1988)
• 1903 – Nikolai Podgorny, President of the Soviet Union (d. 1983)
• 1905 – Jan Gies, Dutch resistance fighter (d. 1993)
• 1907 – Billy De Wolfe, American actor and comedian (d.l 1974)
• 1912 – Heinz Kühn, politician (d. 1992)
• 1919 – Jack Palance, actor
• 1920 – Bill Cullen, game show host (d. 1990)
• 1920 – Eric Gairy, Grenadan politician (d. 1997)
• 1922 – Helen Gurley Brown, editor and publisher
• 1922 – Allan Melvin, American actor
• 1925 – George Kennedy, actor
• 1927 – John Warner, United States Senator
• 1929 – Len Deighton, author
• 1930 – Gahan Wilson, cartoonist
• 1931 – Johnny Hart, cartoonist
• 1931 – Toni Morrison, writer, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature 1993
• 1931 – Bob St. Clair, American football star
• 1932 – Milos Forman, film director
• 1933 – Yoko Ono, singer, artist, wife of John Lennon
• 1936 – Jean Auel, American writer
• 1938 – István Szabó, director
• 1943 – Graeme Garden, writer, comedian, actor
• 1945 – Judy Rankin, American golfer
• 1947 – Princess Christina of the Netherlands
• 1947 – Dennis DeYoung, musician (Styx)
• 1948 – Sinéad Cusack, Irish actress
• 1949 – Gary Ridgway, American serial killer
• 1950 – John Hughes, director, producer, and writer
• 1950 – Cybill Shepherd, actress
• 1952 – Juice Newton, country music entertainer
• 1954 – John Travolta, actor
• 1957 – Vanna White, game show presenter
• 1960 – Greta Scacchi, Italian actress
• 1964 – Matt Dillon, actor
• 1965 – Dr. Dre, rapper and record producer
• 1968 – Molly Ringwald, American actress
• 1967 – Roberto Baggio, Italian footballer
• 1979 – Tyrone Burton, American actor
• 1981 – Andrei Kirilenko, Russian basketball player
• 1985 – Lee Boyd Malvo, American serial killer

Deaths

• 806 – Tarasius, Patriarch of Constantinople (b. 1866)
• 814 – Angilbert, Frankish monk and confidant of Charlemagne
• 901 – Thabit ibn Qurra, Arab astronomer and mathematician (b. 826)
• 999 – Pope Gregory V (b. ca. 972)
• 1478 – George, Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV and Richard III of England (executed) (b. 1449)
• 1546 – Martin Luther, religious reformer (b. 1483)
• 1564 – Michelangelo Buonarroti, Italian artist (b. 1475)
• 1931 – Milan Sufflay, Croat politician (b. 1879)
• 1933 – James J. Corbett, boxer
• 1942 – Albert Payson Terhune, author (b. 1872)
• 1957 – Henry Norris Russell, American astronomer (b. 1877)
• 1967 – J. Robert Oppenheimer, American physicist (b. 1904)
• 1973 – Frank Costello, gangster (b. 1891)
• 1977 – Andy Devine, American actor (b. 1905)
• 1978 – Maggie McNamara, American actress (b. 1928)
• 1981 – John Knudsen Northrop, American aircraft designer (b. 1895)
• 1982 – Ngaio Marsh, mystery fiction author (b. 1895)
• 1993 – Kerry Von Erich, American professional wrestler
• 1997 – Emily Hahn, writer (b. 1905)
• 1998 – Harry Caray, TV and radio broadcaster for three Major League Baseball teams (b. 1917)
• 1999 – Noam Pitlik, actor/director (b. 1932)
• 2001 – Balthus, French/Polish painter (b. 1908)
• 2001 – Dale Earnhardt, NASCAR race car driver (b. 1951)
• 2001  – Eddie Mathews, Baseball Hall of Famer (b. 1931)
• 2001 – Roger Caras, writer, animal activist, President of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
• 2003 – Isser Harel, Mossad leader (b. 1912)
• 2003 – Johnny PayCheck, American country music singer (b. 1938)
• 2004 – Jean Rouch, French filmmaker and ethnologist (b. 1917)

Holidays and observances

• Independence Day in The Gambia, (1965)

External links

• BBC: On This Day

February 17 – February 19 – January 18 – March 18 — listing of all days