Historical Events on Monday, 18th August

18/08/2019

One hundred activists, officials, and other concerned citizens in Iceland hold a funeral for Okjökull glacier, which has completely melted after having once covered six square miles (15.5 km2).

Iceland is a Nordic island country between the Arctic Ocean and the North Atlantic Ocean, located on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between Europe and North America. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the region's westernmost and most sparsely populated country. Its capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which is home to about 35% of the country's roughly 395,000 residents. The official language of the country is Icelandic. Iceland is on a rift between tectonic plates, and its geologic activity includes geysers and frequent volcanic eruptions. The interior consists of a volcanic plateau with sand and lava fields, mountains and glaciers, and many glacial rivers flow to the sea through the lowlands. Iceland is warmed by the Gulf Stream and has a temperate climate, despite being at a latitude just south of the Arctic Circle. Its latitude and marine influence keep summers chilly, and most of its islands have a polar climate.

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18/08/2017

The Turku terror attack occurs in Finland when a knifeman kills two and injures eight.

The 2017 Turku attack occurred on 18 August 2017 at around 16:02–16:05 (UTC+3) when 10 people were stabbed in central Turku, Southwest Finland. Two women were killed in the attack and eight people sustained injuries.

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18/08/2011

A terrorist attack on Israel's Highway 12 near the Egyptian border kills 16 and injures 40.

On August 18, 2011, a series of cross-border attacks with parallel attacks and mutual cover was carried out in southern Israel on Highway 12 near the Egyptian border by a squad of presumably twelve militants in four groups. The attacks occurred after Israel's interior security service Shin Bet had warned of an attack by militants in the region and Israeli troops had been stationed in the area. The militants first opened fire at an Egged No. 392 bus as it was traveling on Highway 12 in the Negev near Eilat. Several minutes later, a bomb was detonated next to an Israeli army patrol along Israel's border with Egypt. In a third attack, an anti-tank missile hit a private vehicle, killing four civilians. Eight Israelis – six civilians, one Yamam special unit police sniper and one Golani Brigade soldier—were killed in the multiple-stage attack. The Israel Defense Forces reported eight attackers killed, and Egyptian security forces reported killing another two.

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18/08/2008

The President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, resigns under threat of impeachment.

Pervez Musharraf was a Pakistani politician and a military officer who served as the tenth president of Pakistan from 2001 to 2008. Against the background of immense pressure from civil society, the aggrieved public, the business community, and diplomats of friendly countries to address the economic mismanagement and bad governance, the Pakistan Armed Forces had finally overthrown Nawaz Sharif's government and proclaimed him the chief executive of Pakistan once Nawaz Sharif targeted Musharraf's life by directing the hijacking of his plane.

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War of Afghanistan: The Uzbin Valley ambush occurs.

French International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops were ambushed by Afghan Taliban insurgents, with heavy casualties, in the Uzbin Valley outside the village of Spēṟ Kunday in the Surobi District of Kabul province in eastern Afghanistan on 18 August 2008.

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18/08/2005

A massive power blackout hits the Indonesian island of Java; affecting almost 100 million people, it is one of the largest and most widespread power outages in history.

The 2005 Java–Bali Blackout was a power outage across Java and Bali on 18 August 2005, affecting some 100 million people.

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18/08/2003

One-year-old Zachary Turner is murdered in Newfoundland by his mother, who was awarded custody despite facing trial for the murder of Zachary's father. The case was documented in the film Dear Zachary and led to reform of Canada's bail laws.

Zachary Andrew Turner was a Canadian child from St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, who was killed by his mother, Shirley Jane Turner, in a murder–suicide. At the time, Shirley had been released on bail and awarded custody of the infant, even though she was in the process of being extradited to the United States to stand trial for the murder of Zachary's father, Andrew Bagby. The case led to a critical overview of Newfoundland's legal and child welfare systems as well as Canada's bail laws.

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18/08/1993

American International Airways Flight 808 crashes at Leeward Point Field at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, injuring the three crew members.

American International Airways Flight 808 was a cargo flight operated by American International Airways that crashed on 18 August 1993, while attempting to land at Leeward Point Field at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. All three crew members on board survived with serious injuries.

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18/08/1989

Leading presidential hopeful Luis Carlos Galán is assassinated near Bogotá in Colombia.

Luis Carlos Galán Sarmiento was a Colombian liberal politician and journalist who ran for the Presidency of Colombia on two occasions, the first time for the political movement New Liberalism that he founded in 1979. The movement was an offspring of the mainstream Colombian Liberal Party, and with mediation of former Liberal president Julio César Turbay Ayala, Galán returned to the Liberal party in 1989 and sought the nomination for the 1990 presidential election, but was assassinated before the vote took place.

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18/08/1983

Hurricane Alicia hits the Texas coast, killing 21 people and causing over US$1 billion in damage (1983 dollars).

Hurricane Alicia was a small but powerful tropical cyclone that caused significant destruction in the Greater Houston area of Southeast Texas in August 1983. Although Alicia was a relatively small hurricane, its track over the rapidly growing metropolitan area contributed to its $3 billion damage toll, making it the costliest Atlantic hurricane at the time. Alicia spawned from a disturbance that originated from the tail-end of a cold front over the northern Gulf of Mexico in mid-August 1983. The cyclone was named on August 14 when it became a tropical storm, and the combination of weak steering currents and a conducive environment allowed Alicia to quickly intensify as it drifted slowly westward. On August 17, Alicia became a hurricane and continued to strengthen, topping out as a Category 3 major hurricane as it made landfall on the southwestern end of Galveston Island. Alicia's eye passed just west of Downtown Houston as the system accelerated northwestwards across East Texas; Alicia eventually weakened into a remnant area of low pressure over Oklahoma on August 20 before they were last noted on August 21 over eastern Nebraska.

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18/08/1977

Steve Biko is arrested at a police roadblock under Terrorism Act No. 83 of 1967 in King William's Town, South Africa. He later dies from injuries sustained during this arrest, bringing attention to South Africa's apartheid policies.

Bantu Stephen Biko OMSG was a South African anti-apartheid activist. Ideologically an African nationalist and African socialist, he was at the forefront of a grassroots anti-apartheid campaign known as the Black Consciousness Movement during the late 1960s and 1970s. His ideas were articulated in a series of articles published under the pseudonym Frank Talk.

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18/08/1976

The Korean axe murder incident in Panmunjom results in the deaths of two US Army officers.

The Panmunjom axe murder incident, also known as the Korean axe atrocity incident, was the killing of two United Nations Command officers, Captain Arthur Bonifas and First Lieutenant Mark Barrett, by North Korean soldiers on August 18, 1976, in the Joint Security Area (JSA) in the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The officers, from the United States Army, had been part of a work party trimming a poplar tree in the JSA.

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The Soviet Union's robotic probe Luna 24 successfully lands on the Moon.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), also known as the Soviet Union, was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. It was the world's third-most populous country, largest by area, and bordered twelve countries. A diverse multinational state, it was organized as a federal union of national republics, the largest and most populous being the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. In practice, its government and economy were highly centralized. As a one-party state governed by the Communist Party, it was the flagship communist state. Its capital and largest city was Moscow.

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18/08/1973

Aeroflot Flight A-13 crashes after takeoff from Baku-Bina International Airport in Azerbaijan, killing 56 people and injuring eight.

Aeroflot Flight A-13 was a scheduled Soviet domestic passenger flight from Baku, Azerbaijan to Fort-Shevchenko in Kazakhstan that crashed on 18 August 1973 shortly after takeoff, killing 56 of the 64 passengers and crew aboard. The Antonov An-24 had suffered an engine failure on takeoff and was attempting to return to the airport when it struck an oil rig cable at low altitude resulting in a crash. At the time, it was the second deadliest accident involving the An-24 and remains the second deadliest aviation accident in Azerbaijani history. The engine failure had been caused by the effect of continuous overheating on the performance of the blades.

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18/08/1971

Vietnam War: Australia and New Zealand decide to withdraw their troops from Vietnam.

Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of Mainland Southeast Asia. With an area of about 331,000 square kilometres and a population of over 102 million, it is the world's 16th-most populous country. One of two communist states in Southeast Asia, Vietnam is bordered by China to the north, and Laos and Cambodia to the west; it lies along the Gulf of Thailand to the southwest and the South China Sea to the east, where it has shared and disputed maritime borders with other countries. Its capital is Hanoi, while its largest city is Ho Chi Minh City.

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18/08/1966

Vietnam War: The Battle of Long Tan ensues after a patrol from the 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment clashes with a Viet Cong force in Phước Tuy Province.

The Battle of Long Tan took place in a rubber plantation near Long Tân, in Phước Tuy Province, South Vietnam, during the Vietnam War. The action was fought between Viet Cong (VC) and People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) units and elements of the 1st Australian Task Force.

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18/08/1965

Vietnam War: Operation Starlite begins: United States Marines destroy a Viet Cong stronghold on the Van Tuong peninsula in the first major American ground battle of the war.

The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and US. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonial wars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and a civil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until US forces were withdrawn in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian civil wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.

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18/08/1963

Civil rights movement: James Meredith becomes the first African American to graduate from the University of Mississippi.

The civil rights movement was a social movement in the United States from 1954 to 1968 which aimed to abolish legalized racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement in the country, which most commonly affected African Americans. The movement had origins in the Reconstruction era in the late 19th century, and modern roots in the 1940s and in Mohandas Gandhi's nonviolent movement in India. After years of nonviolent protests and civil disobedience campaigns, the civil rights movement achieved many of its legislative goals in the 1960s, during which it secured new protections in federal law for the civil rights of all Americans, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968.

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18/08/1958

Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita is published in the United States.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin, was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian (1926–1938) while living in Berlin, where he met his wife, Véra Nabokov. He achieved international acclaim and prominence after moving to the United States, where he began writing in English. Trilingual in Russian, English, and French, Nabokov became a U.S. citizen in 1945 and lived mostly on the East Coast before returning to Europe in 1961, where he settled in Montreux, Switzerland.

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Brojen Das from Bangladesh swims across the English Channel in a competition as the first Bengali and the first Asian to do so, placing first among the 39 competitors.

Brojen Das was a Bangladeshi swimmer, who was the first Asian to swim across the English Channel, and the first person to cross it six times.

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18/08/1950

Julien Lahaut, the chairman of the Communist Party of Belgium, is assassinated. The Party newspaper blames royalists and Rexists.

Julien-Victor Lahaut was a Belgian politician and communist activist who served as president of the Communist Party of Belgium from 1945 to 1950. An important figure during the German occupation of 1940–44, he became a vocal advocate for the abolition of the Belgian monarchy during the post-war Royal Question. His assassination in August 1950, at the height of the crisis, was linked to anti-communist and royalist elements inside the Belgian intelligence services by a team of historians in 2015; however, the murder remains officially unsolved.

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18/08/1949

1949 Kemi strike: Two protesters die in the scuffle between the police and the strikers' protest procession in Kemi, Finland.

The 1949 Kemi strike was a strike in July–August 1949 by the workers of Kemi Oy in the Northern Finnish town of Kemi. On August 18 the strike escalated on a violent clash called "Kemi Bloody Thursday" between strikers and local police, two workers were killed and several injured. Kemi strike is so far the last fatal political protest in Finland.

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18/08/1945

Sukarno takes office as the first president of Indonesia, following the country's declaration of independence the previous day.

Sukarno was an Indonesian statesman, activist, and revolutionary who served as the first president of Indonesia from 1945 to 1967.

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Soviet-Japanese War: Battle of Shumshu: Soviet forces land at Takeda Beach on Shumshu Island and launch the Battle of Shumshu; the Soviet Union's Invasion of the Kuril Islands commences.

The Soviet–Japanese War was a campaign of the Second World War that began with the Soviet invasion of Manchuria following the Soviet declaration of war against Japan on 8 August 1945. The Soviet Union and Mongolian People's Republic toppled the Japanese puppet states of Manchukuo in Manchuria and Mengjiang in Inner Mongolia, as well as northern Korea, Karafuto on the island of Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands. The defeat of Japan's Kwantung Army helped bring about the Japanese surrender and the end of World War II. The Soviet entry into the war showed that the Soviet Union would not act as a third party in negotiating a conditional end to hostilities, and thus was a factor in the Japanese government's decision to surrender unconditionally.

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18/08/1940

World War II: The Hardest Day air battle, part of the Battle of Britain, takes place. At that point, it is the largest aerial engagement in history with heavy losses sustained on both sides.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

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18/08/1938

The Thousand Islands Bridge, connecting New York, United States, with Ontario, Canada, over the Saint Lawrence River, is dedicated by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The Thousand Islands International Bridge is an American-maintained international bridge system over the Saint Lawrence River connecting northern New York in the United States with southeastern Ontario in Canada. Constructed in 1937, with additions in 1959, the bridges span the Canada–US border in the middle of the Thousand Islands region. All bridges in the system carry two lanes of traffic, one in each direction, with pedestrian sidewalks.

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18/08/1937

A lightning strike starts the Blackwater Fire of 1937 in Shoshone National Forest, killing 15 firefighters within three days and prompting the United States Forest Service to develop their smokejumper program.

On August 18, 1937, a lightning strike started the Blackwater Fire in Shoshone National Forest, approximately 35 miles (56 km) west of Cody, Wyoming, United States. Fifteen firefighters were killed by the forest fire when a dry weather front caused the winds to suddenly increase and change direction. The fire quickly spread into dense forest, creating spot fires that trapped some of the firefighters in a firestorm. Nine firefighters died during the fire and six more died shortly thereafter from severe burns and respiratory complications. Another 38 firefighters were injured. The fire killed more professional wildland firefighters in the U.S. than any other in the 103 years between the Great Fire of 1910 and the Yarnell Hill Fire in 2013.

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18/08/1933

The Volksempfänger is first presented to the German public at a radio exhibition; the presiding Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, delivers an accompanying speech heralding the radio as the 'eighth great power'.

The Volksempfänger was a range of low-cost vacuum tube radio receivers produced in Germany during the 1930s. It was developed by engineer Otto Griessing at the request of Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Minister of Propaganda of the Nazi government.

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18/08/1923

The first British Track and Field championships for women are held in London, Great Britain.

The 1923 WAAA Championships were the first national track and field championships for women in the United Kingdom. The tournament was held on 18 August 1923, at the Oxo Sport Grounds in Downham, Lewisham in South London.

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18/08/1920

The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing women's suffrage.

The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the United States and its states from denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex, in effect recognizing the right of women to vote. The amendment was the culmination of a decades-long movement for women's suffrage in the United States, at both the state and national levels, and was part of the worldwide movement towards women's suffrage and part of the wider women's rights movement. The first women's suffrage amendment was introduced in Congress in 1878. However, a suffrage amendment did not pass the House of Representatives until May 21, 1919, which was quickly followed by the Senate, on June 4, 1919. It was then submitted to the states for ratification, achieving the requisite 36 ratifications to secure adoption, and thereby went into effect, on August 18, 1920. The Nineteenth Amendment's adoption was certified on August 26, 1920.

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18/08/1917

A Great Fire in Thessaloniki, Greece, destroys 32% of the city leaving 70,000 individuals homeless.

The Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917 destroyed two thirds of the city of Thessaloniki, the second-largest city in Greece, leaving more than 70,000 homeless. The fire burned for 32 hours and destroyed 9,500 houses within an extent of 1 square kilometer. Half the Jewish population emigrated from the city as their livelihoods were gone. Rather than quickly rebuilding, the government commissioned the French architect Ernest Hébrard to design a new urban plan for the burned areas and for the future expansion of the city. His designs are still evident in the city, most notably Aristotelous Square, although some of his most grandiose plans were never completed due to a lack of funds. French navy official Dufour de la Thuillerie writes in his report that "I saw Thessaloniki, a city of more than 150,000 people, burn".

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18/08/1903

German engineer Karl Jatho allegedly flies his self-made, motored gliding airplane four months before the first flight of the Wright brothers.

Karl Jatho was a German inventor and aviation pioneer, performer and public servant of the city of Hanover.

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18/08/1891

A major hurricane strikes Martinique, leaving 700 dead.

The 1891 Martinique hurricane, also known as Hurricane San Magín, was an intense major hurricane that struck the island of Martinique and caused massive damage. The third known hurricane and only major hurricane of 1891 Atlantic hurricane season, this cyclone was first sighted east of the Lesser Antilles on August 18 as a Category 2 hurricane on the present-day Saffir–Simpson scale. Intensification occurred as the storm moved northwestward, striking Martinique later that day as a Category 3 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 125 mph (205 km/h). On August 20, the cyclone briefly turned northward over the Caribbean Sea and brushed the eastern Dominican Republic while re-emerging into the Atlantic Ocean. The storm then moved west-northwestward across the Bahamas before making landfall near Homestead, Florida, on August 24. Dissipation is estimated to have occurred on the following day after the cyclone reached the east-central Gulf of Mexico.

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18/08/1877

American astronomer Asaph Hall discovers Phobos, one of Mars's moons.

An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers study astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies, by some combination of observation and the application of astrophysical models. Examples of topics or fields astronomers study include planetary science, solar astronomy, the origin or evolution of stars, or the formation of galaxies. A related but distinct subject is physical cosmology, which studies the universe as a whole.

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18/08/1870

Franco-Prussian War: Battle of Gravelotte is fought.

The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the War of 1870, was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the North German Confederation led by the Kingdom of Prussia. Lasting from 19 July 1870 to 28 January 1871, the conflict was caused primarily by France's determination to reassert its dominant position in continental Europe, which appeared in question following the decisive Prussian victory over Austria in 1866.

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18/08/1868

French astronomer Pierre Janssen discovers helium.

An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers study astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies, by some combination of observation and the application of astrophysical models. Examples of topics or fields astronomers study include planetary science, solar astronomy, the origin or evolution of stars, or the formation of galaxies. A related but distinct subject is physical cosmology, which studies the universe as a whole.

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18/08/1864

American Civil War: Battle of Globe Tavern: Union forces try to cut a vital Confederate supply-line into Petersburg, Virginia, by attacking the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad.

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States, which they saw as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war lasted a little over four years, ending with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans.

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18/08/1838

The Wilkes Expedition, which would explore the Puget Sound and Antarctica, weighs anchor at Hampton Roads.

The United States Exploring Expedition of 1838–1842 was an exploring and surveying expedition of the Pacific Ocean and surrounding lands conducted by the United States. The original appointed commanding officer was Commodore Thomas ap Catesby Jones. Funding for the original expedition was requested by President John Quincy Adams in 1828; however, Congress would not implement funding until eight years later. In May 1836, the oceanic exploration voyage was finally authorized by Congress and created by President Andrew Jackson.

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18/08/1826

Major Gordon Laing becomes the first European to enter Timbuktu.

Major Alexander Gordon Laing was a Scottish explorer and the first European to reach Timbuktu, arriving there via the north-to-south route in August 1826. He was killed shortly after he departed Timbuktu, some five weeks later.

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18/08/1809

The Senate of Finland is established in the Grand Duchy of Finland after the official adoption of the Statute of the Government Council by Tsar Alexander I of Russia.

The Senate of Finland combined the functions of cabinet and supreme court in the Grand Duchy of Finland from 1816 to 1917 and in independent Finland from 1917 to 1918.

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18/08/1783

A huge fireball meteor is seen across Great Britain as it passes over the east coast.

The 1783 Great Meteor was a meteor procession observed on 18 August 1783 from the British Isles, at a time when such phenomena were not well understood. The meteor was the subject of much discussion in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society and was the subject of a detailed study by Charles Blagden.

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18/08/1721

The city of Shamakhi in Safavid Shirvan is sacked.

Shamakhi is a city in Azerbaijan and the administrative centre of the Shamakhi District. The city's estimated population as of 2010 was 31,704. It is famous for its traditional dancers, and also for perhaps giving its name to the Soumak rugs.

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18/08/1634

Father Urbain Grandier, accused and convicted of sorcery, is burned alive in Loudun, France.

Urbain Grandier was a French Catholic priest who was burned at the stake after being convicted of witchcraft, following the events of the so-called "Loudun possessions". Most modern commentators have concluded that Grandier was the victim of a politically motivated persecution led by the powerful Cardinal Richelieu.

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18/08/1612

The trials of the Pendle witches and Samlesbury witches, one of England's most famous witch trials, begin at the Lancaster Assizes.

The trials of the Pendle witches in 1612 are among the most famous witch trials in English history, and some of the best recorded of the 17th century. The twelve accused lived in the area surrounding Pendle Hill in Lancashire, and were charged with the murders of ten people by the use of witchcraft. All but two were tried at Lancaster Assizes on 18–19 August 1612, along with the Samlesbury witches and others, in a series of trials that have become known as the Lancashire witch trials. One was tried at York Assizes on 27 July 1612, and another died in prison. Of the eleven who went to trial – nine women and two men – ten were found guilty and executed by hanging; one was found not guilty.

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18/08/1590

John White, the governor of the Roanoke Colony, returns from a supply trip to England and finds his settlement deserted.

John White was an English colonial governor, explorer, artist, and cartographer. White was among those who sailed with Richard Grenville in the first attempt to colonize Roanoke Island in 1585, acting as artist and mapmaker to the expedition. He would most famously briefly serve as the governor of the second attempt to found Roanoke Colony on the same island in 1587 and discover the colonists had mysteriously vanished.

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18/08/1572

The Huguenot King Henry III of Navarre marries the Catholic Margaret of Valois, ostensibly to reconcile the feuding Protestants and Catholics of France.

The Huguenots are a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Besançon Hugues, was in common use by the mid-16th century. Huguenot was frequently used in reference to those of the Reformed Church of France from the time of the Protestant Reformation. By contrast, the Protestant populations of eastern France, in Alsace, Moselle, and Montbéliard, were mainly Lutherans.

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18/08/1492

The first grammar of the Spanish language (Gramática de la lengua castellana) is presented to Queen Isabella I.

In linguistics, grammar is the system of rules that governs how a natural language is structured and used, as evidenced by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rules, a subject that includes phonology, morphology, and syntax, together with phonetics, semantics, and pragmatics. There are in effect two different ways to study grammar: traditional grammar and theoretical grammar.

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18/08/1487

The Siege of Málaga ends with the taking of the city by Castilian and Aragonese forces.

The 1487 siege of Málaga was an action during the Reconquest of Spain in which the Catholic Monarchs of Spain conquered the city of Mālaqa from the Emirate of Granada. The siege lasted about four months. It was the first conflict in which ambulances, or dedicated vehicles for the purpose of carrying injured persons, were used. Geopolitically, the loss of the emirate's second largest city—after Granada itself—and its most important port was a major loss for Granada. Most of the surviving population of the city were enslaved or put to death by the conquerors.

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18/08/1304

The Battle of Mons-en-Pévèle is fought to a draw between the French army and the Flemish militias.

The Battle of Mons-en-Pévèle was fought on 18 August 1304 between the French and the Flemish. The French were led by their king, Philip IV.

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18/08/0707

Princess Abe accedes to the imperial Japanese throne as Empress Genmei.

Year 707 (DCCVII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 707 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

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18/08/0684

Battle of Marj Rahit: Umayyad partisans defeat the supporters of Ibn al-Zubayr and cement Umayyad control of Syria.

The Battle of Marj Rahit was one of the early battles of the Second Fitna. It was fought on 18 August 684 between the Kalb-dominated armies of the Yaman tribal confederation, supporting the Umayyads under Caliph Marwan I, and the Qays under Al-Dahhak ibn Qays al-Fihri, who supported the Mecca-based Caliph Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr. The decisive Umayyad victory consolidated their power over Bilad al-Sham, paving the way for their eventual victory in the war against the Zubayrids. However, it also left a bitter legacy of division and rivalry between the Qays and the Yaman, which would be a constant source of strife and instability for the remainder of the Umayyad Caliphate.

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