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 Sanchez massacre in Rios 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 Velez, 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 Rousie, 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 Martin 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 Stefansson, 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 Alvarez, 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 Bartolome 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 Francois 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 Juarez, 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 Begin, 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 Vitezslav Novak, 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 Francois-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 Jose 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 Andre Lafargue, French journalist (b. 1917)
2017 Andrew Paulson, American executive (b. 1958)
2017 Gustavo Alessandri Valdes, 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