November 18

1302 Pope Boniface VIII asserted papal authority over all temporal rulers in his bull Unam Sanctam, which he issued on November 18, 1302. King Philip IV of France responded to the papal bull the following year with a counter attack and was behind the kidnapping of the pope by some Italian noblemen. Boniface was soon released, but so roughly was he treated that he died shortly afterwards.

Pope Boniface VIII declaring the Jubilee Year, fresco by Giotto

1307 William Tell was a folk hero of disputed historical authenticity who is said to have lived in the canton of Uri in Switzerland in the early 14th century. According to legend, after refusing to salute the Habsburg badge at Altdorf on Lake Lucerne, he was sentenced to shoot an apple from his son's head on November 18, 1307. This he did, before shooting the tyrannical Austrian ruler Gessler, thus symbolizing his people's refusal to submit to external authority.

1421 When a seawall at the Zuiderzee dike in the Netherlands broke on November 18, 1421, it flooded 72 villages and killed between 2,000 and 10,000 people. This event came to be known as St. Elizabeth's flood, taking its name from the feast day of Saint Elisabeth of Hungary.

A near-contemporary painting depicting the St. Elizabeth's flood

1493 Christopher Columbus first sighted the island now known as Puerto Rico on November 18, 1493 and the following day he went ashore naming it San Juan Bautista (in honor of St John the Baptist). Puerto Rico formed an important part of the Spanish Empire from the early years of the exploration, conquest, and colonization of the New World.

1626 Construction of the present St Peter's Basilica in Rome, which would replace Old St. Peter's Basilica, began in 1506. The completion was delayed due to its immense cost, size, and other factors. Finally, on November 18, 1626 Pope Urban VIII solemnly dedicated the new St Peter's Basilica.

St Peter's Basilica

1730 When he was 18, the future Frederick the Great decided to escape to England with a friend. His proposed plan was discovered, and he was arrested, imprisoned and temporarily deprived of his status as Crown Prince. Frederick was granted a royal pardon on November 18, 1730 and released from his cell. As a punishment, he was sent by his father to work as a junior clerk in the auditing office of the Departments of War and Agriculture and deprived of his military title.

1803 By the late 18th century, there were nearly half a million slaves in Haiti. In 1791 they staged a revolt, led by Toussaint L'Ouverture. The Battle of Vertières, the last major battle of the Haitian Revolution, was fought on November 18, 1803. This lead to the establishment of the Republic of Haiti, the first independent black republic in the Western Hemisphere. Haiti is the first and only nation established as the result of a successful slave revolt.

Haitian Revolution Attack and take of the Crête-à-Pierrot

1836 Dramatist and librettist William Schwenck Gilbert of Gilbert & Sullivan fame was born on November 18, 1836, in London. As a toddler, Gilbert was kidnapped by bandits in Naples during a family holiday in 1839. The men convinced the child’s nurse they’d come to take him to his parents. He was returned after they paid a £25 ransom. His collaboration with composer Arthur Sullivan produced fourteen comic operettas including The Mikado, H.M.S. Pinafore, and The Pirates of Penzance. 

1865 Mark Twain published his first successful short story, "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog," in The New York Saturday Press on November 18, 1865. He wrote the story in a cabin located at Jackass Hill, Tuolumne County, California (see picture below).

Photo by "Will Murray (Willscrlt).  http://willmurraymedia.com. 

1870 The Edinburgh Seven, the first group of student women to pursue medical education at a British university, faced hostility throughout their studies. On November 18, 1870, the day of their anatomy exam at the University of Edinburgh, they were pelted with mud, rubbish, and even sheep's entrails by an unruly mob. This incident is referred to as the "Surgeons' Hall Riot."

1872 Three years after co-founding the National Woman Suffrage Association, Susan B. Anthony was arrested on November 18, 1872, by a U.S. Deputy Marshal for voting illegally in the 1872 Presidential Election. Found guilty Anthony received a $100 fine, but not imprisonment; true to her word in court ("I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty"), she never paid the fine for the rest of her life, and an embarrassed U.S. Government took no collection action against her.

1878 American coloratura soprano Marie Selika Williams (c. 1849–1937) was the first African-American artist to perform in the White House. On November 18, 1878 she sang for President Rutherford B. Hayes and First Lady Lucy Webb Hayes in the Green Room and was introduced by Frederick Douglass.

1881 The first cabaret was opened in Montmartre, Paris on November 18, 1881 by the painter Rudolphe Salis. His Montmartre premises housed not only Friday night poetry readings but also elaborate shadow plays, scripted, designed and musically accompanied by leading artists. Salis called his entertainment a cabaret because the songs and sketches were set forth like courses on a menu. Its name derives from the French 'cambret' meaning tavern.

1885 After Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler developed in 1885 a high-speed internal combustion engine, he fitted the engine to a bicycle to create the first internal combustion motorcycle. Daimler's 17-year-old son, Paul, was the first to ride the motorcycle taking it 5–12 kilometres (3.1–7.5 mi), from Cannstatt to Untertürkheim in Stuttgart, Germany on November 18, 1885. The seat caught fire during that journey, due to the engine's hot tube ignition being located directly underneath.

Replica of the Daimler motorcycle. Wikipedia Commons

1916 The Battle of the Somme commenced on July 1, 1916, and ended on November 18, 1916. The battle was named after the French River Somme where it was fought. Overall, more than 1.5 million people either died, were wounded or went missing: it was the bloodiest battle in World War I, especially from the point of view of Britain.

1922 French author and critic Marcel Proust died early in the morning of November 18, 1922. He had worked with his devoted housekeeper Céleste Albaret until 3:30 a.m., dictating revisions to the proofs of Remembrance of Things Past 's fifth volume "The Prisoner." Proust was buried in the Cimetiere du Pere Lachaise, Paris.

1928 The first Walt Disney cartoon with sound, Steamboat Willie, was released on November 18, 1928. The cartoon is considered the debut of Mickey Mouse and his girlfriend Minnie, The release date of Steamboat Willie is the reason November 18 is celebrated as the birthday of both Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

1938 On November 18, 1938, 150 ladies protested on the construction site of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington D.C. because it was disturbing the cherry trees. The controversy surrounding the memorial's construction had been simmering for months, with opponents arguing that the proposed site would disrupt the Tidal Basin's delicate ecosystem and destroy a beloved symbol of the city's beauty. 

1947 Mary Kay and Johnny was the first sitcom broadcast on a network television in the United States. The first 15-minute episode debuted on the DuMont Television Network on Tuesday, November 18, 1947. After a year on DuMont, the show moved to CBS for half a year, then ran for another year each Saturday night on NBC. It broadcast the final episode in 1950.

1963 The push-button telephone also known as the touch-tone phone, was introduced as an alternative to the rotary dial phone. The first commercial push-button telephone system was deployed on November 18, 1963, in the United States. This system was put into service by the Bell System, the American telephone monopoly at the time.

1968 The McDonald's "Golden Arches" were initially used as a physical architectural feature of McDonald's restaurants, but they were also incorporated into the company's logo in 1962. In 1968, McDonald's underwent a major rebranding effort, and the Golden Arches logo was simplified to its current form – two arches intersecting to form an "M."  The iconic "M" shape that we know today became the official trademark on November 18, 1968.

1978 In 1978 an American congressman, Leo Ryan, visited the "Reverend" Jim Jones' religious community, Jonestown, in Guyana to investigate alleged human rights abuses. On November 18, 1978 Jones had Ryan and his party killed then ordered his 918 followers to perform ritual suicide by drinking a deadly cocktail of cyanide and tranquilizers. Jones himself put a bullet through his head. It was the largest mass suicide in modern history.

1985 Initially the adults of Sesame Street thought that the giant anteater-like mammoth, Mr. Snuffleupagus, was just Big Bird's imaginary friend, but this was changed to avoid having kids feel that adults wouldn’t believe them when they had something important to say. This running gag ended with the Season 17 premiere of Sesame Street, episode 2096 (first aired November 18, 1985), when Big Bird finally succeeded in revealing Snuffy to his friends on Sesame Street.

1990 British aeronautical engineer Beatrice (Tilly) Shilling OBE PhD MSc CEng died on November 18, 1990. She received the thanks of thousands of RAF pilots during World War II when she invented a diaphragm which allowed fuel to get to an aircraft’s Rolls-Royce Merlin engine regardless of the plane’s violent movements, ensuring the engine wouldn’t stall.

2001 The current flag of Uzbekistan was adopted on November 18, 1991, making the country the first newly independent republic in Central Asia to choose a new flag. The crescent on the flag of Uzbekistan represents Islam, while the twelve stars symbolize the months of the Islamic calendar and the zodiac constellations.

2010 On November 18, 2010 the 80-year-old Neil Armstrong said in a speech during the Science & Technology Summit in The Hague, Netherlands that he would offer his services as commander on a mission to Mars if he was asked.

2023 The most expensive bottle of whisky ever sold at auction is a bottle of The Macallan Fine & Rare 1926, which sold for  $2.7 million at a Sotheby's auction on November 18, 2023. This bottle was one of only 40 produced in 1926, and it was aged in sherry casks for 60 years before being bottled. The bottle that was sold at auction had a label designed by Italian artist Valerio Adami.