December 18
From the Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can change
[change] Births
[change] Deaths
- 821 - Theodulf, Bishop of Orléans
- 1290 - King Magnus I of Sweden (b. 1240)
- 1737 - Antonio Stradivari, Italian violin maker
- 1803 - Johann Gottfried Herder, German writer (b. 1744)
- 1869 - Louis Moreau Gottschalk, American composer and pianist (b. 1829)
- 1936 - Andrija Mohorovičić, Croatian seismologist (b. 1857)
- 1971 - Bobby Jones, golfer (b. 1902)
- 1974 - Harry Hooper, Baseball Hall of Famer (b. 1887)
- 1980 - Alexei Kosygin, Soviet premier
- 1982 - Hans-Ulrich Rudel, highly decorated German pilot during World War II (b. 1916).
- 1990 - Paul Tortelier, French musician (b. 1914)
- 1991 - George Abecassis, English race car driver (b. 1913)
- 1992 - Mark Goodson, game show producer (b. 1915)
- 1993 - Sam Wanamaker, actor (b. 1919)
- 1995 - Konrad Zuse, German engineer and computing pioneer (b. 1910)
- 1997 - Chris Farley, American actor and comedian (b. 1964)
- 1998 - Lev Demin, cosmonaut (b. 1926)
- 1999 - Robert Bresson, French film director (b. 1907)
- 2000 - Kirsty MacColl, British musician (b. 1959)
- 2001 - Gilbert Bécaud, singer (b. 1927)
- 2002 - Ray Hnatyshyn, Governor-General of Canada (b. 1934)
- 2006 - Joseph Barbera, American animator (b. 1911)
[change] Events
- 218 BC - Battle of the Trebia, Hannibal's first great victory over the Roman Republic.
- 1352 - Innocent VI is elected Pope.
- 1642 - Abel Tasman lands at Mohua Golden Bay becoming the first European in New Zealand.
- 1776 - North Carolina's Constitution is ratified.
- 1787 - New Jersey becomes the third state to ratify the United States Constitution
- 1865 - Slavery is abolished in the United States, with the passing of the 13th Amendment
- 1894 - Women in South Australia become the first in Australia to gain the right to vote and to be elected to Parliament.
- 1912 - Piltdown Man is "discovered"
- 1916 - The Battle of Verdun ends in World War I
- 1926 - The Makropulos Affair, an opera by the Czech composer Leoš Janáček, premieres in Brno, the Czech Republic.
- 1958 - Niger becomes an autonomous state within the French Community on December 4, 1958, after the establishment of the Fifth French Republic. Following full independence on August 3, 1960, however, membership was allowed to lapse.
- 1961 - Indonesia invades New Guinea to annex western New Guinea, formerly known as Netherlands New Guinea.
- 1965 - Japan and South Korea begin formal relations
- 1966 - Saturn's moon Epimetheus is discovered by Richard L. Walker, and then lost for 12 years
- 1969 - Capital punishment is ended in the United Kingdom
- 1973 - The Soyuz 13 was launched.
- 1996 - "Ebonics" was declared a language or dialect by the outgoing school board of Oakland, California, whose vote was overturned by the incoming board.
- 1997 - HTML 4.0 is released by the World Wide Web Consortium
- 2002 - The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the second film in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, opens in theaters.
- 2002 - California Governor Gray Davis announces that the state would face a record budget deficit of $35 billion, roughly double the figure reported during his reelection campaign one month earlier; the budget issue was used to support his 2003 recall from office.
- 2003 - The Simple English Wikipedia began using the MediaWiki software.
