On July 18th...

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1323 Pope John XXII proclaimed Thomas Aquinas a saint.

1374 Poet Francesco Petrarch died.

1610Painter Caravaggio died.

1635 Scientist Robert Hooke was born.

1743 The first half-page newspaper ad was published, in the New York Weekly Journal.

1753 Lemuel Haynes escaped from a slave holder in Framingham, Massachusetts.

1768 The Boston Gazette published "Liberty Song," America's first patriotic song.

1792 John Paul Jones, naval hero of the American Revolutionary War, died.

1800 John Rutledge, Governor of South Carolina and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, died.

1811 Author William Makepeace Thackeray was born.

1817 Author Jane Austen died.

1872 The Ballot Act introduced the secret ballot in British elections.

1892 Travel agency founder Thomas Cook died.

1894 Blanche Bingley and Joshua Pim won their respective singles championships at Wimbledon.

1895 Bank robber George Kelly Barnes, aka "Machine Gun Kelly," was born.

1896 James Foulis won the U. S. Open.

1899 Author Horatio Alger died.

1911 Actor Hume Cronyn was born.

1913 Entertainer Red Skelton was born.

1914 The U. S. Army Air Service was established.

1918 The Allies began their offensive on the Western Front.
1918 South African anti-apartheid leader and President Nelson Mandela was born.

1921 The "Black Sox Trial" began in Chicago.
1921 Astronaut John H. Glenn was born.

1925 Adolf Hitler published Mein Kampf.

1926 Lucien Buysse won the Tour de France.

1929 Figure skater Dick Button was born.

1930 Actor Burt Kwouck was born.

1932 The United States and Canada signed a treaty to develop the St. Lawrence Seaway.

1938 Douglas Corrigan landed in Ireland after flying solo across the Atlantic Ocean; he was supposed to have been flying from New York to California.

1939 Singer Dion Di Mucci was born.

1940 Actor James Brolin was born.
1940 Baseball player Joe Torre was born.

1941 Singer Martha Reeves was born.

1943 The New York Giants and Philadelphia Phillies stranded a record 30 baserunners.

1947 U. S. President Harry Truman signed the Presidential Succession Act.
1947 King George VI signed the Indian Independence Bill, formally ending British rule over India.
1947 The United States began administering the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.
1947 Businessman Steve Forbes was born.

1950 Businessman Richard Branson was born.

1951 Jersey Joe Walcott became the oldest to win the heavyweight boxing championship (he was 37).

1954 Singer Ricky Skaggs was born.
1954 Bank robber George Kelly Barnes, aka "Machine Gun Kelly," died.

1959 Federico Bahamontes won the Tour de France.

1960 The Japanese House of Representatives accepted Hayato Ikeda as Premier to succeed Nobusuke Kishi.

1962 The armed forces of Peru seized control of the government.
1962 Dr. Ali Amini resigned as Prime Minister of Iran.
1962 Bob Allison and Harmon Killebrew of the Minnesota Twins both hit grand slam home runs in the first inning of a game against the Cleveland Indians.

1963 The United States and Mexico announced the settlement of a dispute over El Chamizal, a portion of the border between Texas and Mexico.

1964 Riots broke out in New York City, New York, after a black boy was shot by an off-duty policeman.

1966 The Gemini 10 mission was launched.
1966 Singer Bobby Fuller was found dead.

1967 Actor Vin Diesel was born.
1967 Former Brazilian President Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco was killed in a plane crash.

1968 The Intel Corporation was founded in Santa Clara, California.

1970 Ron Hunt got hit by a pitch for a record 119th time.

1971 Eddy Merckx won the Tour de France.

1976 Nadia Comaneci became the first person in Olympic Games history to score a perfect 10 in gymnastics.
1976 Lucien Van Impe won the Tour de France.

1980 Quett Masire was installed as President of Botswana.
1980 Rohini 1, the first Indian satellite, was launched.
1980 Actress Kristen Bell was born.

1982 Tom Watson won the British Open.

1984 James Oliver Huberty opened fire at a McDonald's restaurant in San Ysidro, California, killing 21 persons and injuring 19 others.

1986 Greg Norman won the British Open.

1988 Abu Nidal terrorists killed 9 persons on the cruise ship City of Poros.

1990 Psychiatrist Karl Menninger died.

1992 Cartoonist Rudolf Ising died.

1993 Afghan President Ishaq Khan and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif resigned.
1993 Greg Norman won the British Open.
1993 Actor Davis Roberts died.
1993 Cosmonaut Sergei Y. Vozovikov died.

1994 A bomb attack on a Jewish center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killed 86 persons.
1994 Crayola announed the introduction of scented crayons.

1995 A DC-3 crashed at Antananarivo, Madagascar, killing 34 persons.

1997 Geologist Eugene M. Shoemaker died.

1999 Paul Lawrie won the British Open.

2001 Automotive engineer Fabio Taglioni died.

2004 Todd Hamilton won the British Open.

2005 William Westmoreland, commander of U. S. forces in the Vietnam War, died.

2010 Louis Oosthuizen won the British Open.

2012 A bomb explosion at Pakistan's Orakzai Agency killed 14 persons.
2012 A ferry sank off the coast of Zanzibar, killing 24 persons.
2012 Kim Jong-un was officially appointed Supreme Leader of North Korea.

2013 Detroit, Michigan, filed for bankruptcy.

2015 PayPal was spun off from eBay as a separate publicly traded company on the NASDAQ Exchange.

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This page was last updated on July 18, 2018.