August 18 birthdays & history

Famous people born on August 18

• 1933Roman Polanski, French-Polish director, producer, screenwriter, and actor
• 1830Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria from 1848-1916
• 1936Robert Redford, American actor, director, and producer
• 1969Edward Norton, American actor
• 1952Patrick Swayze, American actor and dancer
• 1932Luc Montagnier, French virologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1750Antonio Salieri, Italian composer and conductor
• 1927Rosalynn Carter, 41st First Lady of the United States
• 1920Shelley Winters, American actress
• 1933Just Fontaine, Moroccan-French footballer and manager

What happened on August 18

• 1590John White, governor of the Roanoke Colony, the first English settlement in North America (located in present-day North Carolina), returned after a three-year absence to find it deserted (depicted).
• 1826Major Gordon Laing becomes the first European to enter Timbuktu.
• 1877American astronomer Asaph Hall discovered Phobos, the larger of Mars's two moons, six days after discovering Deimos, the smaller one.
• 1903German engineer Karl Jatho allegedly flies his self-made, motored gliding airplane four months before the first flight of the Wright brothers.
• 1920The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing women's suffrage in the country.
• 1923The first British Track and Field championships for women are held in London, Great Britain.
• 1938The Thousand Islands Bridge, connecting New York, United States, with Ontario, Canada, over the Saint Lawrence River, is dedicated by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
• 1945Sukarno takes office as the first president of Indonesia, following the country's declaration of independence the previous day.
• 1948Australia won the fifth Test of the 1948 Ashes series, becoming the first Test cricket team to go undefeated in England, earning them the nickname "The Invincibles".
• 1958Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita is published in the United States.
• 1963Civil rights movement: James Meredith becomes the first African American to graduate from the University of Mississippi.
• 1976The Soviet Union's robotic probe Luna 24 successfully lands on the Moon.

Also observed on August 18

• Arbor Day (Pakistan)
• Armed Forces Day (North Macedonia)
• Birthday of Virginia Dare (Roanoke Island)
• Constitution Day (Indonesia)
• Long Tan Day, also called Vietnam Veterans' Day (Australia)
• National Science Day (Thailand)