On this day: August 18th

On this day: August 18th

There are many and several events on this day in history. Read and discover what happened on this day: On this day: August 18th

On this day: August 18th

Events on this day: August 18th

• 1612: The Pendle witch trials begin. 11 people—9 women and 2 men—are tried for practicing witchcraft in one of the UK’s most well-documented and followed witch trials. The trial lasts for two days, and 10 of the accused are found guilty and executed on August 20.
• 1868: Helium is discovered.
• 1877: The Martian moon Phobos is discovered.
• 1920: The 19th Amendment to the US Constitution passes. It guarantees women’s suffrage.
• 1958: “Lolita” is first published in the US. The highly controversial novel written by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov detailed an adult man’s obsession over 12-year-old Dolores Haze, who he secretly calls Lolita.
• 1982: Pete Rose sets an MLB record with his 13,941st plate appearance.
• 2005: Indonesia suffers a massive power outage. Thought to be one of the biggest power outages in recent history, the Java-Bali outage affected about 100 million people. Electricity was restored to most areas within 6 hours.

Birthdays On this day: August 18th

• 1587: Virginia Dare (First English child born in America)
• 1750: Antonio Salieri (Italian composer)
• 1774: Meriwether Lewis (Explorer of the American West with Clark)
• 1910: Herman Berlinski (Polish/American composer)
• 1830: Franz Joseph I (Emperor of Austria)
• 1933: Roman Polanski (French/Polish director, producer, writer, actor)
• 1934: Roberto Clemente (Baseball player)
• 1936: Robert Redford (Actor)
• 1952: Patrick Swayze (Actor)
• 1962: Felipe Calderón (Mexican politician, 56th President of Mexico)
• 1969: Edward Norton (Actor)
• 1969: Christian Slater (Actor)
• 1970: Malcolm-Jamal Warner (Actor)
• 1983: Cameron White (Australian cricketer)

Deaths On this day: August 18th

• 1809: Matthew Boulton (English businessman, engineer, co-founded Boulton & Watt)
• 1850: Honoré de Balzac (French author, playwright)
• 1945: Subhas Chandra Bose (Indian politician, activist)
• 1990: B. F. Skinner (American psychologist, author)
• 2009: Kim Dae-jung (South Korean politician, 8th President of South Korea, Nobel laureate)

Read also: On this day: August 17th