18 April in history

6 events that happened on 18 April, from 796 to 1955.

  1. 796 CE 1,230 years ago

    King Æthelred I of Northumbria is murdered

    Æthelred I was killed at Corbridge by his own nobles. His death, typical of Northumbria's violent politics, came three years after Viking raiders had sacked the monastery at Lindisfarne.

  2. 1506 CE 520 years ago

    Julius II lays the foundation stone of the new St Peter's

    Pope Julius II laid the first stone of Bramante's new basilica in Rome. Building took 120 years and drew on Michelangelo, Maderno and Bernini.

  3. ✦ Anniversary of the day

    1775 CE 251 years ago

    Paul Revere rides to warn of British troops

    Paul Revere and William Dawes rode from Boston to warn that British regulars were marching to seize colonial arms. The first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired at dawn the next day.

    Boston

  4. 1906 CE 120 years ago

    Earthquake and fire devastate San Francisco

    A magnitude 7.9 earthquake struck before dawn, and fires burned for three days. Some 3,000 people died and more than half the city's population was left homeless.

  5. 1923 CE 103 years ago

    Yankee Stadium opens with a Babe Ruth home run

    Babe Ruth hit a three-run home run in the first game at the new Bronx ballpark, quickly nicknamed 'The House That Ruth Built'. It was home to the Yankees until 2008.

  6. 1955 CE 71 years ago

    Albert Einstein dies in Princeton

    Albert Einstein died aged 76. His theories of special and general relativity and his work on light quanta transformed physics in the twentieth century.

April

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30

All days of the year →