Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/August 18
This is a list of selected August 18 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.
Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article, featured list or picture of the day.
To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
Images
Use only ONE image at a time
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Royal Australian Air Force helicopter -
Pierre Jules Janssen -
Helium atom nucleus -
title=Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony -
Margaret of Valois -
Phobos
Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| Paryushana begins (Svetambar Jains, 2017); | unreferenced section |
| 1868 – Astronomer Pierre Jules Janssen discovered helium while analysing the chromosphere of the sun during a total solar eclipse in Guntur, India. | refimprove section |
| 1917 – A fire destroyed about 9,500 homes in Thessaloniki, Greece, leaving 70,000 homeless. | refimprove |
| 1920 – The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing women's suffrage in America. | Alice Paul is POTD for 2020 |
| 1976 – North Korean soldiers killed two American soldiers in the Demilitarized Zone, heightening tensions over a poplar tree that blocked the line of sight between a UN Command checkpoint and an observation post. | refimprove section |
| 1989 – Leading Colombian presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán was assassinated during a public demonstration in the town of Soacha, Cundinamarca. | lots of CN tags in one section |
| 2008 – War in Afghanistan: French ISAF forces were ambushed by Afghan militants, suffering heavy casualties. | unreferenced section |
| Baji Rao I |b|1700 | multiple issues |
Eligible
- 684 – Second Fitna: Umayyad partisans defeated the supporters of Ibn al-Zubayr and cemented Umayyad control of Syria.
- 1572 – French Wars of Religion: Margaret of Valois married Huguenot King Henry of Navarre, in an attempt to reconcile Protestants and Catholics.
- 1612 – The trial of the Pendle and Samlesbury witches, among the most famous of England's witch trials, began at the assizes in Lancaster.
- 1783 – An unusually bright meteor procession blazed across the night sky over Great Britain.
- 1864 – American Civil War: At the Battle of Globe Tavern, Union forces attempted to sever the Weldon Railroad during the Siege of Petersburg.
- 1877 – American astronomer Asaph Hall discovered Phobos (pictured), the larger of Mars's two moons, six days after discovering Deimos, the smaller one.
- 1891 – A hurricane struck the Caribbean island of Martinique, killing about 700 people, injuring at least 1,000 others, and causing severe damage.
- 1948 – Australia won the fifth Test of the 1948 Ashes series, becoming the first Test cricket team to go undefeated in England, earning them the nickname "The Invincibles".
- 1964 – Hildegard Trabant was killed while attempting to cross the Berlin Wall, making her the only escapee killed at the wall with a record of loyalty to East Germany.
- 1966 – Vietnam War: Members of the 6th Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment were surrounded by a much larger Viet Cong unit at the Battle of Long Tan, but held them off for several hours until reinforcements arrived.
- 1983 – Hurricane Alicia made landfall near Galveston, Texas, U.S., causing $2.6 billion in damages and 21 deaths.
- 2008 – Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf resigned under impeachment pressure.
- Born/died this day: |Knut Alvsson |d|1502| Agneta Horn |b|1629| Maria Ulfah Santoso |b|1911| Robert Redford |b|1936| Edward Norton |b|1969| Cameron White |b|1983| Evan Gattis |b|1986
Notes
- Deimos (moon) appears on August 12, so Phobos should not appear in the same year
- 1915 Galveston hurricane appears on August 17, so Hurricane Alicia should not appear in the same year
August 18: Long Tan Day in Australia (1966)
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- 1487 – Reconquista: After a four-month siege, the Catholic Monarchs of Spain conquered the city of Málaga from the Emirate of Granada.
- 1590 – John White, governor of the Roanoke Colony, the first English settlement in North America (located in present-day North Carolina), returned after a three-year absence to find it deserted (depicted).
- 1940 – Second World War: During the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe made an all-out effort to destroy RAF Fighter Command, with both sides combined losing more aircraft on this day than at any other point during the campaign.
- 2017 – Two people were killed and eight others wounded when a rejected asylum seeker went on a knife rampage in Turku, Finland.
- Olaf I of Denmark (d. 1095)
- Ruth Norman (b. 1900)
- Jack Hobbs (b. 1988)