History of 18 April

1906 – San Francisco, CA, was hit with an earthquake. The original death toll was cited at about 700. Later information indicated that the death toll may have been 3 to 4 times the original estimate.

1910 – Walter R. Brookins made the first airplane flight at night.

1923 – Yankee Stadium opened in the Bronx, NY. The Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox 4-1. John Phillip Sousa’s band played the National Anthem.

1924 – Simon and Schuster, Inc. published the first “Crossword Puzzle Book.”

1934 – The first Laundromat opened in Fort Worth, TX.

1937 – Leon Trotsky called for the overthrow of Soviet leader Josef Stalin.

1938 – Superman made his debut when he appeared in the first issue of Action Comics. (Cover date June 1938)

1938 – U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt threw out the first ball preceding the season opener between the Washington Senators and the Philadelphia Athletics.

1942 – James H. Doolittle and his squadron, from the USS Hornet, raided Tokyo and other Japanese cities.

1942 – The Vichy government capitulated to Adolf Hitler and invited Pierre Laval to form a new government in France.

1943 – Traveling in a bomber, Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, was shot down by American P-38 fighters.

1945 – American war correspondent Ernie Pyle was killed by Japanese gunfire on the Pacific island of Ie Shima, off Okinawa. He was 44 years old.

1946 – The League of Nations was dissolved.

1949 – The Republic of Ireland was established.

1950 – The first transatlantic jet passenger trip was completed.

1954 – Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser seized power in Egypt.

1956 – Actress Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier of Monaco were married. The religious ceremony took place on April 19.

1960 – The Mutual Broadcasting System was sold to the 3M Company of Minnesota for $1.25 million.

1978 – The U.S. Senate approved the transfer of the Panama Canal to Panama on December 31, 1999.

1979 – The TV show “Real People” premiered.

1980 – Rhodesia became an independent nation of Zimbabwe.

1983 – The U.S. Embassy in Beirut was blown up by a suicide car-bomber. 63 people were killed including 17 Americans.

1984 – Daredevils Mike MacCarthy and Amanda Tucker made a skydive from the Eiffel Tower. The jump ended safely.

1985 – Ted Turner filed for a hostile takeover of CBS.

1985 – Tulane University abolished its 72-year-old basketball program. The reason was charges of fixed games, drug abuse, and payments to players.

1989 – Thousands of Chinese students demanding democracy tried to storm the Communist Party headquarters in Beijing.

1999 – Wayne Gretzky (New York Rangers) played his final game in the NHL. He retired as the NHL’s all-time leading scorer and holder of 61 individual records.

2000 – The Nasdaq had the biggest one-day point gain in its history.

2000 – Joan Lunden and Jeff Konigsberg were married.

2002 – Actor Robert Blake and his bodyguard were arrested in connection with the shooting death of Blake’s wife about a year before.

2002 – The Amtrack Auto Train derailed in a remote area of north Florida. Four people were killed and 133 were injured.

2002 – The city legislature of Berlin decided to make Marlene Dietrich an honorary citizen. Dietrich had gone to the United States in 1930. She refused to return to Germany after Adolf Hitler came to power.

2007 – A series of bombings, two of them being suicides, occur in Baghdad, killing 198 and injuring 251.

2013 – A suicide bombing in a Baghdad cafe kills 27 people and injures another 65.

2018 – King Mswati III of Swaziland announces that his country’s name will change to Eswatini.

2019 – A redacted version of the Mueller Report is released to the United States Congress and the public.

Celebrating Birthday Today

• 1981 – Brian Buscher, American baseball player
• 1981 – Milan Jovanović, Serbian footballer
• 1981 – Aldo Ramírez, Colombian footballer
• 1981 – Audrey Tang, Taiwanese computer scientist and academic
• 1982 – Ibrahim al-Asiri, Saudi Arabian terrorist
• 1982 – Greg Camarillo, American football player
• 1982 – Ricardo Colclough, Canadian-American football player
• 1982 – Simone Farina, Italian footballer
• 1982 – Scott Hartnell, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1982 – Blair Late, American singer-songwriter and journalist
• 1982 – Darren Sutherland, Irish boxer (d. 2009)
• 1982 – Marie-Élaine Thibert, Canadian singer
• 1983 – Miguel Cabrera, Venezuelan baseball player
• 1983 – Reeve Carney, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor
• 1984 – Red Bryant, American football player
• 1984 – America Ferrera, American actress, and producer
• 1985 – Łukasz Fabiański, Polish footballer
• 1986 – Billy Butler, American baseball player
• 1986 – Maurice Edu, American soccer player
• 1986 – Taylor Griffin, American basketball player
• 1986 – Conrad Logan, Irish footballer
• 1986 – Efraín Velarde, Mexican footballer
• 1987 – Brett Deledio, Australian footballer
• 1987 – Danny Guthrie, English footballer
• 1987 – Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, English model, and actress
• 1987 – Samantha Jade, Australian singer-songwriter and actress
• 1987 – Ivan Tričkovski, Macedonian footballer
• 1988 – Andre Frolov, Estonian footballer
• 1988 – Alexander Hauck, South African-German rugby player
• 1989 – Jessica Jung, Korean American singer, songwriter, actress, and fashion designer
• 1990 – Henderson Álvarez, Venezuelan baseball player
• 1990 – Anna van der Breggen, Dutch cyclist
• 1990 – Jake Howells, English footballer
• 1990 – Wojciech Szczęsny, Polish footballer
• 1990 – Junior Torunarigha, Nigerian footballer
• 1993 – Matt Salisbury, English cricketer
• 1993 – Nathan Sykes, English singer-songwriter
• 1995 – Divock Origi, Belgian footballer
• 1996 – Mariah Bell, American figure skater
• 1996 – Ioana Ducu, a Romanian tennis player
• 1997 – Matthias Blübaum, German chess grandmaster
• 1997 – Donny van de Beek, Dutch footballer