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Mass suicide at Jonestown

Born on This Day

Alan Shepard

1923 - 1998

First U.S. astronaut to fly in space, in a 1961 mission. Walked (and swung golf balls) on the Moon on 1971's Apollo 14 flight.

Chloe Sevigny

1974 -

American actress and style icon who shone in indie films like "Kids," "Boys Don't Cry" and HBO's "Big Love."

Margaret Atwood

1940 -

Canadian author whose 1985 dystopian novel "A Handmaid's Tale" warned of the dangers of patriarchal attitudes toward women.

Alan ShepardGetty Images

Chloe SevignyFilmMagic

Margaret AtwoodGetty Images

1949

NOV18

Three years after breaking major league baseball's color barrier, Brooklyn Dodger Jackie Robinson becomes the league's first Black MVP. That season, he batted .342 and stole 37 bases, personal records that lasted his entire career.

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on November 18th

Thousands die in massive flood at European shores of North Sea

On November 18, 1421, a massive storm batters North Sea coast, sending surge waters inland, breaching dikes and inundating villages in what is now the Netherlands. Over the next day, up to 10,000 people died in the resulting floods. The lowlands of the Netherlands near the North Sea were densely populated at the time, despite […]

President Lincoln travels to Gettysburg

On November 18, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln boards a train for Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to deliver a short speech the following day at the dedication of a cemetery of soldiers killed during the battle there on July 1 to July 3, 1863. The address Lincoln gave in Gettysburg became one of the most famous speeches in American […]

Railroads create the first time zones

At exactly noon on this day, American and Canadian railroads begin using four continental time zones to end the confusion of dealing with thousands of local times. The bold move was emblematic of the power shared by the railroad companies. The need for continental time zones stemmed directly from the problems of moving passengers and […]

Battle of the Somme ends

On November 18, 1916, British Commander in Chief Sir Douglas Haig calls a halt to his army’s offensive near the Somme River in northwestern France, ending the epic Battle of the Somme after more than four months of bloody conflict. With the French under heavy siege at Verdun since February, the Somme offensive was Haig’s […]

Hitler furious over Italy’s debacle in Greece

On November 18, 1940, Adolf Hitler meets with Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano over Mussolini’s disastrous invasion of Greece. According to Ciano’s diaries, their meeting had “a heavy atmosphere.” Mussolini had surprised everyone with a move against Greece; his ally, Hitler, was caught off guard, especially since the Duce had led Hitler to believe he […]

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L.A. Dodgers’ ace pitcher Sandy Koufax retires

On November 18, 1966, Sandy Koufax, the ace pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers, retires from baseball. He was just 30 years old, and he was retiring after a great season–he’d led the Dodgers to a National League pennant and won his third Cy Young award. But he had chronic arthritis in his pitching arm, […]

Congress issues final report on Iran-Contra scandal

After nearly a year of hearings into the Iran-Contra scandal, the joint Congressional investigating committee issues its final report. It concluded that the scandal, involving a complicated plan whereby some of the funds from secret weapons sales to Iran were used to finance the Contra war against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, was one in […]

Terry Waite released after four-year kidnapping in Lebanon

Shiite Muslim kidnappers in Lebanon free Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite after more than four years of captivity. Waite, looking thinner and his hair grayer, was freed along with American educator Thomas M. Sutherland after intense negotiations by the United Nations. Waite, special envoy of the archbishop of Canterbury, had secured the release of missionaries […]

High-profile expert on exotic birds is sentenced for smuggling parrots

Tony Silva, a world-renowned expert and outspoken protector of exotic birds, is sentenced to seven years in prison without parole for leading an illegal parrot smuggling operation. Silva was only one of many to be arrested during “Operation Renegade,” a three-year international probe into bird smuggling by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Division of […]

12 die while building a bonfire at Texas A&M University

On November 18, 1999, thousands of logs stacked 59 feet high for a massive pre-football game bonfire collapse at Texas A&M University, killing 12 and injuring nearly 30 in an avalanche of timber. For nearly a century, students at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, created a massive bonfire—self-proclaimed to be “the world’s largest”—prior […]

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Elizabeth Holmes sentenced for Theranos fraud

On November 18, 2022, Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is sentenced to 11 years and three months in federal prison after being convicted of defrauding investors in her blood-testing startup.

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