July 18



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)

Days of the year