History of 18th January

336 - St Mark elected Catholic Pope
350 - General Maxentius drives out Western Roman emperor Constans
474 - Leo II briefly becomes Byzantine emperor.
532 - Nika uprising at Constantinople fails, 30-40,000 die
1126 - Emperor Huizong abdicates the Chinese throne in favour of his son Emperor Qinzong.
1307 - German king Albrecht I makes his son Rudolf king of Bohemia
1478 - Grand Duke Ivan II of Moscow occupies Novgorod
1486 - King Henry VII of England marries Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV
1520 - Christian II of Denmark & Norway defeats Swedes at Lake Asunde
1535 - Francisco Pizarro founds Lima Peru
1591 - King Naresuan of Siam kills Crown Prince Minchit Sra of Burma in single combat, for which this date is now observed marked as Royal Thai Armed Forces day.
1644 - 1st UFO sighting in America, by perplexed pilgrims in Boston
1644 - Perplexed Pilgrims in Boston reported America's 1st UFO sighting
1650 - French Prince Louis II of Condé captured
1671 - Pirate Henry Morgan defeats Spanish defenders, captures Panama
1691 - English king Willem III travels to The Hague
1701 - Frederik I/Sophie Charlotte van Hanover crowned king/queen of Prussia
1701 - Frederick I becomes King of Prussia.
1733 - 1st polar bear exhibited in America (Boston)
1777 - San Jose California, founded
1778 - Capt James Cook stumbles over Sandwich Islands (Hawaiian Islands)
1788 - English settlers arrive in Aust's Botany Bay to setup penal colony
1788 - The first elements of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from England to Australia arrives at Botany Bay.
1795 - French admitted to Amsterdam without resistance
1795 - governor/viceroy Willem V flees Scheveningen to England
1817 - San Martinleads a revolutionary army over Andes
1840 - Electro-Magnetic Intelligencer, 1st US electrical journal, appears
1850 - British blockade Piraeus, Greece to enforce mercantile claims
1854 - Filibuster William Walker proclaims Republic of Sonora in NW Mexico
1861 - American Civil War - Georgia joins South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama in seceding from the United States.
1862 - Confederate Territory of Arizona forms
1865 - Battle of Ft Moultrie, SC
1869 - Elegant Calif Theater opens in SF
1871 - 2nd German Empire proclaimed by Kaiser Wilhelm I & Bismarck
1884 - General Charles Gordon departs London for Khartoum
1884 - Dr. William Price attempts to cremate the body of his infant son, Jesus Christ Price, setting a legal precedent for cremation in the United Kingdom.
1886 - Modern field hockey is born with the formation of The Hockey Association in England.
1895 - Amsterdam's AFC soccer team forms
1896 - 1st demonstration of an X-ray machine in US (NYC)
1896 - British troops occupy Kumasi, West Africa
1896 - The X-ray machine is exhibited for the first time.
1900 - Jan Blockx's "Tÿl Uilenspiegel" premieres in Brussels
1901 - Pope Leo XIII publishes encyclical Graves De Communi Re
1905 - French govt of Combes falls
1908 - Frederick Delius' "Brigg Fair," premieres
1911 - 1st shipboard landing of a plane (Tanforan Park to USS Pennsylvania)
1912 - English explorer Robert F Scott & his expedition reach South Pole, only to discover that Roald Amundsen had gotten there before
1913 - Turkish-Greek sea battle near Troy
1915 - Train crashes at Colima-Guadalajara Mexico, about 600 die
1915 - Japan issues the "Twenty-One Demands" to the Republic of China in a bid to increase its power in East Asia.
1916 - A 611 gram chondrite type meteorite stikes a house near the village of Baxter in Stone County, Missouri.
1919 - WW I Peace Congress opens in Versailles, France
1919 - Bentley Motors Limited is founded.
1921 - William Archer's "Green Goddess," premieres in NYC
1922 - Irish author Liam O'Flaherty & others occupy Rotunda in Dublin
1923 - 1st radio telegraph message from Netherlands to Dutch East Indies
1929 - "NY Daily Mirror" columnist Walter Winchell debuts on radio
1929 - Stalin proposes to ban Trotsky from the Politburo
1930 - -27°F (-33°C), Watts, Oklahoma (state record)
1930 - Shostakovitch' opera "The Nose," premieres in Leningrad
1933 - White Sands National Monument, NM established
1934 - Eugene O'Neill's "Days Without End," premieres in NYC
1938 - Bradman scores 104* for South Australia v NSW at the SCG
1938 - Pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander is elected to Hall of Fame
1939 - SA wicketkeeper Bradman gets his 6th straight ton, 135* v NSW
1942 - Nazi's arrest Frans Goedhart & Wiardi Beckman
1943 - Jews in Warsaw Ghetto begin resistance of Nazis
1943 - Presliced bread sale banned to reduce bakery demand for metal parts
1943 - Soviets announce they broke long Nazi siege of Leningrad
1943 - US rations bread & metal
1943 - Uprising in Warsaw ghetto
1944 - 1st Chinese naturalized US citizen since repeal of exclusion acts
1944 - The Metropolitan Opera House in New York City hosts a jazz concert for the first time. The performers were Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Artie Shaw, Roy Eldridge and Jack Teagarden.
1945 - Warsaw freed by Soviet army
1947 - "Red Mill" closes at Ziegfeld Theater NYC after 831 performances
1947 - Detroit Tigers sell Hank Greenberg to Pirates (for $25-35,000)
1947 - Small river steamer sank on Yangtze River, kills 400
1948 - 1st courses begin at University of Ibadan, Nigeria
1948 - Ted Mack's "Original Amateur Hour" begins, DuMont (later NBC/ABC/CBS)
1949 - "They Stand Accused" courtroom drama premieres on CBS (later DuMont)
1949 - 1st US Congressional standing committee headed by Negro (W Dawson)
1949 - South African Rev Andries P Treurnicht marries Engela Dreyer
1950 - Christopher Fry's "Venus Observed," premieres in London
1950 - Indians pitcher Bob Feller, after 15-14 season, takes $20,000 salary cut to $45,000, pay cut is Feller's own suggestion
1951 - 1st use of lie detector in Netherlands
1951 - Hermann Flake sentenced to death due to "hate campaign against GDR"
1951 - NFL rules tackles, guards & centers ineligible for forward pass
1951 - NFL takes control of failing Baltimore Colts
1953 - Louise Suggs wins LPGA Tampa Golf Open
1954 - Fanfani forms Italian govt
1955 - Battle of Yijiangshan occurred.
1956 - German DR forms own army (National People's Army)
1957 - 3 B-52's set record for around-the-world flight, 45 hr 19 min
1958 - 1st black in NHL (William O'Ree, Boston Bruins)
1959 - Ruth Jessen wins LPGA Tampa Golf Open
1960 - US & Japan sign joint defense treaty
1961 - Zanzibar's Afro-Shirazi party wins 1 seat by a single vote & parliament by a single seat
1962 - Southern University closed due to demonstrations
1962 - US begins spraying foliage in Vietnam to reveal Viet Cong guerrillas
1962 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

1963 - Reinier Paping wins Dutch 11-Cities Skating Race (10:59)
1964 - Beatles 1st appear on Billboard Chart (I Want to Hold Your Hand-#35)
1964 - Plans for World Trade Center announced (NYC)
1965 - H L de Vries appointed Dutch governor of Suriname
1966 - Robert C Weaver, confirmed as 1st black cabinet member (HUD)
1967 - 20th NHL All-Star Game: Montreal beat All-Stars 3-0 at Montreal
1967 - Albert DeSalvo (Boston Strangler) sentenced to life in prison
1967 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1967 - Yellowknife replaces Ottawa as capital of NW Territories, Canada
1968 - "Happy Time" opens at Broadway Theater NYC for 286 performances
1968 - Hester & Appolinar's musical "Your Own Thing," premieres in NYC
1968 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1969 - Expanded 4 party Vietnam peace talks began in Paris
1970 - Hasse Borjes skates world record 500m in 38.9 sec
1970 - NFL Pro Bowl: West beats East 16-13
1971 - Ivan Koloff beats Bruno Sammartino in NY, to become WWF champ
1973 - Boston Red Sox sign Orlando Cepeda as 1st player signed as a DH
1973 - Islanders break 12 game losing streak, 20 game road winless streak
1973 - John Cleese's final episode on "Monty Python's Flying Circus," on BBC
1974 - "$6 Million Man" starring Lee Majors premieres on ABC TV
1974 - Israel & Egypt sign weapons accord
1975 - "Jeffersons" spinoff from "All in the Family" premieres on CBS
1976 - Superbowl X: Pitts Steelers beat Dallas Cowboys, 21-17 in Miami Superbowl MVP: Lynn Swann, Pittsburgh, WR
1977 - Imran Khan takes 12 wickets in match for Pakistan win at the SCG
1977 - Scientists identify a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of the mysterious Legionnaires' disease.
1978 - Geoff Boycott captains England for the 1st time, v Pak Karachi
1978 - Roof of 3-yr-old Civic Center in Hartford, Ct collapses (no injuries)
1978 - Thiokol conducts 2nd test firing of space shuttle's SRB
1979 - Peter Jenkins finishes "A Walk Across America," Florence Oregon
1980 - Gold reaches $1,000 an oz
1980 - Pink Floyd's "Wall" hits #1
1980 - Studio 54 owners Steve Rubell & Ian Schrager sentenced to 3½ years in prison for tax evasion & fined $20,000
1981 - Iran accepts US offer of $7.9 billion in frozen assets
1981 - Wendy O Williams arrested in Milwaukee for on-stage obscenity
1983 - IOC restores Jim Thorpe's Olympic medals 70 years after they were taken from him for being paid $25 in semipro baseball
1984 - 80th Islander & 3rd dual hat trick (Carroll & Bossy) 9-1 win
1985 - US renounces jurisdiction of World Court despite previous promise
1986 - 24th Space Shuttle (61-C) Mission-Columbia 7-returns to Earth
1986 - AIDS charity record "That's What Friends are For," hits #1
1986 - NY Lotto pays $30.5 million to one winner (#s are 19-20-27-34-41-46)
1987 - 11th Soap Opera Digest Poll Awards - Days of Our Live wins
1988 - Airliner crashes in SW China, killing all 108 on board
1989 - Astronomers discover pulsar in remnants of Supernova 1987A (LMC)
1989 - Candace Thomas marries Steve Garvey
1989 - IBM announces earnings up 10.4% in 1988
1989 - Otis Redding, Dion, Rolling Stones, Temptations & Stevie Wonder
1989 - West Indies beat Australia 2-1 to win the World Series Cup
1990 - South Africa says its reconsidering ban on African Natl Congress
1990 - Wash DC, Mayor Marion Barry arrested in drug enforcement sting
1991 - Iraq launches SCUD missiles against Israel
1991 - US acknowledges CIA & US Army paid Noriega $320,000 over his career
1991 - WLAF's NY Knights become NY-NJ Knights
1991 - Longest tennis match at the Australian Open, Boris Becker beats Italy's Omar Camporese in 5 hours & 11 mins
1991 - Eastern Air Lines goes out of business after 62 years, citing financial problems.
1992 - 43rd NHL All-Star Game: Campbell beat Wales 10-6 at Phila
1992 - 49th Golden Globes
1992 - Actress Joan Chen (Twin Peaks) marries Dr Peter Hui
1992 - Comedian Pat McCormick injured in a car accident
1992 - NHL All Star Game - Campbell-10, Wales-6 (Brett Hull, MVP) at Phila
1993 - Martin Luther King Jr holiday observed in all 50 states for 1st time
1993 - West Indies win the World Series Cup, beating Australia 2-0
1994 - The Cando event, a possible bolide impact in Cando, Spain. Witnesses claim to have seen a fireball in the sky lasting for almost one minute.
1995 - Kumble takes 16-99 in match for Karnataka v Kerala
1995 - Pope John Paul II begins visit to Australia
1996 - Baseball owners unanimously approve interleague play in 1997
1996 - Lisa Marie Presley filed for divorce from Michael Jackson in NY
1997 - 47th NHL All-Star Game: East beat West 11-7 at San Jose Arena
1997 - In north west Rwanda, Hutu militia members kill 3 Spanish aid workers, 3 soldiers and seriously wound one other.
1997 - Boerge Ousland of Norway becomes the first person to cross Antarctica alone and unaided.
1998 - "Ragtime," opens at Ford Theater NYC
1998 - 48th NHL All-Star Game: North America beats World 8-7 at Vancouver
1998 - 55th Golden Globes Awards
1998 - ABL All-Star Game at Disney complex in Orlando
1998 - Boston Celtics retire Robert Parrish's #00
1998 - Kelly Robbins wins Healthsouth Golf Inaugural
1998 - UCP Telethon
2000 - The Tagish Lake meteorite impacts the Earth.
2002 - Sierra Leone Civil War was finally declared over.
2003 - A bushfire kills 4 people and destroys more than 500 homes in Canberra, Australia.
2007 - The strongest storm in the United Kingdom in 17 years kills 14 people, Germany sees the worst storm since 1999 with 13 deaths. Hurricane Kyrill, causes at least 44 deaths across 20 countries in Western Europe. Other losses include the Container Ship MSC Napoli destroyed by the storm off the coast of Devon, England.