On This Day in History – October 18

Major Events

• 1016 – The Battle of Assandun took place in England; Danish King Cnut defeated Edmund Ironside.
• 1081 – The Normans defeated the Byzantine army at the Battle of Dyrrhachium.
• 1469 – Ferdinand of Aragon married Isabella of Castile, uniting Spain’s two largest kingdoms.
• 1648 – Boston shoemakers formed the first U.S. labor organization.
• 1867 – The U.S. formally took possession of Alaska after purchasing it from Russia.
• 1892 – The first long-distance telephone line between Chicago and New York was opened.
• 1922 – The British Broadcasting Company (BBC) was founded.
• 1967 – The Soviet spacecraft Venera 4 entered Venus’s atmosphere, the first probe to do so.
• 2019 – NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch conducted the first all-female spacewalk.

Famous Birthdays

• Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) – German Nazi leader.
• Chuck Berry (1926–2017) – American rock and roll musician.
• Lee Harvey Oswald (1939–1963) – Assassin of President John F. Kennedy.
• Peter Boyle (1935–2006) – American actor.
• Mike Ditka (born 1939) – American football player and coach.
• Martina Navratilova (born 1956) – Czech-American tennis champion.
• Jean-Claude Van Damme (born 1960) – Belgian actor and martial artist.
• Zac Efron (born 1987) – American actor and singer.

Notable Deaths

• Charles Babbage (1791–1871) – English mathematician, “father of the computer.”
• Thomas Edison (1847–1931) – American inventor.
• Gwen Ifill (1955–2016) – American journalist and television newscaster.

Holidays

• Alaska Day (United States) – Marks the transfer of Alaska from Russia in 1867.
• Independence Day (Azerbaijan) – Celebrates independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
• St. Luke’s Day (Christian feast day)

Fun Facts

• Alaska was bought from Russia for $7.2 million—about two cents an acre.
• The BBC was founded in 1922 and remains one of the world’s largest broadcasters.
• NASA’s first all-female spacewalk took place on this day in 2019.