Today In History - October 18

707 John VII ends his reign as the Catholic Pope
1016 The Danes defeat the Saxons at the Battle of Assandun
1648 The first US labor organization forms: the Boston Shoemakers
1676 Nathaniel Bacon is killed at the age of 29
1685 Louis XIV revokes Edict of Nantes
1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle
1767 Mason Dixon Line boundaries are agreed upon
1776 Colonel John Glover and the Marblehead regiment meet the British Forces in the Bronx
1776 In a New York bar that's decorated with bird tails, customer orders a "cock tail"
1862 Morgan's raiders capture the federal garrison at Lexington, KY
1867 The US takes formal possession of Alaska (it cost $7.2 million)
1873 Columbia, Princeton, Rutgers, and Yale set the rules for collegiate football
1890 John Owen is first man to run the 100 yard dash in under 10 seconds
1891 The first international 6-day bicycle race in US (MSG, NYC) begins
1892 The first commercial long-distance phone line opens between Chicago and - New York
1898 The American flag is raised in Puerto Rico
1908 Belgium annexes the Congo Free State
1909 Comte de Lambert of France sets an airplane altitude record of 300 meters
1912 Beginning of the first Balkan War
1922 The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is established
1924 Notre Dame beats Army 13-7, and the New York Herald Tribune dubs them the "4 Horsemen"
1930 Joseph Sylvester becomes the first jockey to win 7 races in 1 day
1944 Soviet troops invade Czechoslovakia during WW II
1954 Hurricane Hazel, the third storm of 1954, becomes the most severe to hit the US
1955 "Track and Field" names Jesse Owens all-time track athlete
1960 Casey Stengel retired by the New York Yankees: he won 10 pennants in 12 years!
1962 US launches Ranger 5 for lunar impact – it later misses the Moon
1962 Drs. Watson, Crick, and Wilkins win the Nobel Prize for Medicine for work with the structure of DNA
1963 IOC votes Mexico City gets to host the 1968 Olympics
1967 Soviet Venera 4 becomes the first probe to send data back from Venus
1967 Walt Disney's "Jungle Book" is released
1968 John Lennon and Yoko Ono are fined for marijuana possession
1968 Police find 219 grains of cannabis resin in John and Yoko's aptartment
1968 US Olympic Committee suspends Tommie Smith and John Carlos for giving "black power" salute as a protest during the victory ceremony
1969 Federal government bans the use of cyclamates as artificial sweeteners
1978 The First Daughter, Susan Ford, announces her engagement to Charles F. Vance
1979 "Beatlemania" opens in London
1982 Bess Truman dies at the age of 97
1984 Discovery moves to Vandenberg AFB for mating of STS 51A mission
1988 Israel's Supreme Court upholds the ban on Kahane's Kach Party as racist
1989 US 62nd manned space mission, the STS 34 (Atlantis 5) launches

Today In History - October 18

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