Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/July 18
This is a list of selected July 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.
July 18: Constitution Day in Uruguay (1830)
- 64 – The Great Fire of Rome started among the shops around the Circus Maximus, eventually destroying four of fourteen Roman districts and severely damaging seven others.
- 1863 – American Civil War: Led by Union Army Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the first formal African American military unit, spearheaded an assault on Fort Wagner near Charleston, South Carolina (pictured).
- 1925 – The first volume of Adolf Hitler's personal manifesto Mein Kampf was published.
- 1969 – After a party on Chappaquiddick Island in Massachusetts, United States Senator Ted Kennedy drove his car off a wooden bridge into a tidal channel, killing his passenger Mary Jo Kopechne, a former campaign worker.
- 1982 – Guatemalan military forces and their paramilitary allies slaughtered over 250 Mayans in the village of Plan de Sánchez, Baja Verapaz.