What happened on June 18 ?

1178 - Five Canterbury monks see what was possibly the Giordano Bruno crater being formed. It is believed that the current oscillations of the moon's distance (on the order of metres) are a result of this collision.

1264 - The Parliament of Ireland meets at Castledermot in County Kildare, the first definitively known meeting of this Irish legislature.

1429 - French forces under the leadership of Joan of Arc crush the main English army under Sir John Fastolf at the Battle of Patay. This turns the tide of the Hundred Years' War.

1767 - Samuel Wallis, an English sea captain, sighted Tahiti and is considered the first European to reach the island.

1778 - American Revolutionary War: British troops abandon Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1812 - War of 1812: The U.S. Congress declares war on the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

1815 - Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Waterloo leads to Napoleon Bonaparte abdicating the throne of France for a second and final time.

1858 - Charles Darwin receives from Alfred Russel Wallace a paper that included nearly identical conclusions about evolution as Darwin's own. This prompts Darwin to publish his theory.

1873 - Susan B. Anthony is fined $100 for attempting to vote in the 1872 presidential election.

1887 - The Reinsurance Treaty is closed between Germany and Russia.

1900 - Empress Dowager Longyu of China orders all foreigners killed, including foreign diplomats and their families.

1923 - Checker Cab puts its first taxi on the streets.

1928 - Aviator Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly in an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean (she was a passenger; Wilmer Stutz was pilot and Lou Gordon, mechanic).

1930 - Groundbreaking ceremonies for the Franklin Institute held.

1940 - Appeal of June 18 by Charles de Gaulle.

1940 - "Finest Hour" speech by Winston Churchill.

1945 - William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) is charged with treason.

1946 - Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia, a Socialist called for a Direct Action Day against the Portuguese in Goa. A road is named after this date in Panjim.

1953 - The Republic of Egypt is declared and the monarchy is abolished.

1953 - A United States Air Force C-124 crashed and burned near Tokyo, Japan killing 129.

1954 - Pierre Mendès-France becomes Prime Minister of France.

1959 - Governor of Louisiana Earl K. Long is committed to a state mental hospital; he responds by having the hospital's director fired and replaced with a crony who proceeds to proclaim him perfectly sane.

1965 - Vietnam War: The United States uses B-52 bombers to attack National Liberation Front guerrilla fighters in South Vietnam.

1967 - Jimi Hendrix burns his guitar on stage at the Monterey Pop Festival.

1979 - SALT II is signed by the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

1981 - AIDS is identified.

1983 - Space Shuttle program: STS-7, Astronaut Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space.

1984 - Major clash between about 5,000 Police and a similar number of Miners at Orgreave, South Yorkshire, during the 1984-1985 Miners Strike. Incident later known as the Battle of Orgreave.

1994 - 43 baseball fans are injured in an escalator accident at the two-year-old Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, Maryland.

1996 - Ted Kaczynski, suspected of being the Unabomber, is indicted on ten criminal counts.

1999 - A global Carnival against Capitalism.

2001 - Protests occur in Manipur over the extension of the ceasefire between Naga insurgents and the government of India.

2006 - The first Kazakh space sattelite, KazSat is launched.