On June 18th...

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Waterloo Day

1234 Emperor Chukyo of Japan died.

1264 The first recorded meeting of the Parliament of Ireland took place at Castledermot in County Kildare.

1291 King Alfonso III of Aragon died.

1464 Painter Rogier van der Weyden died.

1541 The Irish Paarliament selected Henry VIII of England as King of Ireland.

1583 Richard Martin of London took out the first life insurance policy, on William Gibbons; the premium was £383.

1588 Poet Robert Crowley died.

1639 The Treaty of Berwick ended the First Bishops' War between England and Scotland.

1682 William Penn founded Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1704 Satirist Thomas Brown died.

1778 The British Army evacuated Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1812 The United States Congress declared war on Great Britain.

1815 Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo.

1864 The Siege of Petersburg (Virginia) began.

1873 Susan B. Anthony was fined $100 for voting for President.

1877 James Montgomery Flagg, creator of the "I Want You For U. S. Army" Uncle Sam, was born.

1879 W. H. Richardson patented the children's carriage.

1880 John Sutter, the man on whose land gold was discovered in 1849, died.

1886 Explorer George Mallory was born.

1892 Macadamia nuts were first planted in Hawaii.

1897 Musician Kay Kyser was born.

1898 The first amusement pier opened in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
1898 Fred Herd won the U. S. Golf Open.
1898 Juliette Atkinson defeated Marion Jones for the U. S. Women's National Championship.

1900 General Luigi Pelloux resigned as Premier of Italy.

1908 The first 781 Japanese immigrants to Brazil arrived at Santos aboard the Kasato-Maru.
1908 Game show host Bud Collyer was born.

1910 Alex Smith won the U. S. Golf Open.
1910 Actor E. G. Marshall was born.

1913 Songwriter Sammy Cahn was born.

1915 John Travers won the U. S. Golf Open.
1915 Red Adair, fighter of oil well fires, was born.

1923 The First Checker Cab was produced by the Checker Cab Manufacturing Company, in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

1928 Amelia Earhart completed a flight from Newfoundland to Wales, becoming the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean as a passenger.
1928 Arctic and Antarctic explorer Roald Amundsen died.

1936 The Polish Parliament gave President Ignacy Moscicki dictatorial power.
1936 Writer Maxim Gorky died.

1937 Gaston Doumergue, former President of France, died.

1940 Winston Churchill gave his "This was their finest hour" speech.

1942 Bernard W. Robinson became the first black ensign in the U. S. Navy.
1942 Film critic Roger Ebert was born.
1942 Musician Paul McCartney was born.

1948 Columbia Records publicly unveiled its new long-playing phonograph record, the 33-1/3, in New York City, New York.
1948 The United Nations Commission on Human Rights adopted an International Declaration of Human Rights.

1953 Egypt proclaimed itself a republic.
1953 A U. S. Air Force C-124 Globemaster crashed near Tokyo, Japan, killing 129 servicemen.

1959 Louisiana Governor Earl K. Long was committed to a state mental hospital.
1959 Actress Ethel Barrymore died.

1960 Arnold Palmer won the U. S. Golf Open.

1967 Jack Nicklaus won the U. S. Golf Open.

1972 A BEA Trident crashed soon after taking off from Heathrow Airport in London, England, killing 118 persons.
1972 The U. S. Supreme Court confirmed Major League Baseball's exemption from anti-trust laws.
1972 Jack Nicklaus won the U. S. Golf Open.

1973 The NCAA made drug testing mandatory for all participants in sanctioned sports.
1973 Composer Fritz Mahler died.

1975 Prince Faisal ibn Mussed Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia was beheaded in a Riyadh shopping center parking lot for killing his uncle, the King of Saudi Arabia.

1976 Singer Blake Shelton was born.

1977 The Space Shuttle test model Enterprise carried a crew aloft for the first time, while fixed to a modified Boeing 747.
1977 Billy Martin and Reggie Jackson got into a dug-out altercation during a game.

1978 Fifteen persons were killed when the showboat Whipporwill was flipped over by a tornado on Lake Pomona, near Topeka, Kansas.
1978 Andy North won the U. S. Golf Open.

1979 U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev signed a strategic arms limitation treaty (SALT II) in Vienna, Austria.
1979 The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ban on the interstate sale and distribution of laetrile.

1981 U. S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart retired.
1981 A vaccine to prevent hoof amd mouth disease was announced.
1981 The AIDS epidemic was formally recognized by medical professionals in San Francisco, California.

1982 The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was extended by the U. S. Senate.

1983 Sally Ride became the first American woman in space.

1984 Fuzzy Zoeller won the U. S. Golf Open.

1986 Frances Scott Fitzgerald, daughter of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre, died.

1987 ABC journalist Charles Glass was kidnapped in Lebanon.

1989 Curtis Strange won the U. S. Golf Open.

1990 Hale Irwin won the U. S. Golf Open in the first ever sudden death.

1991 A mud storm killed 80 persons in Antofagasta, Chile.

1995 Corey Pavin won the U. S. Golf Open.

1996 Ted Kaczynski, suspected of being the Unabomber, was indicted on ten criminal counts.

2000 Tiger Woods won the U. S. Golf Open.
2000 Actress Nancy Marchand died.

2001 Retief Goosen won the U. S. Golf Open.

2006 Geoff Ogilvy won the U. S. Golf Open.

2012 A suicide attack killed 15 persons and injured 40 others in Baquba, Iraq.

2013 Two suicide bombings in Baghdad, Iraq, killed 31 persons and injured 60 others.
2017 A suicide bomber killed 27 persons and injured 30 others in Sher Garh, Pakistan.

2014 King Juan Carlos of Spain abdicated in favor of his son Felipe.

2015 The accidental detonation of an explosive device in Monguno, Nigeria, killed 18 vigilantes and injured 53 others.

2017 Brooks Koepka won the U. S. Golf Open.

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This page was last updated on June 17, 2018.