War of 1812 begins

On June 18, 1778, after almost nine months of occupation, 15,000 British troops under General Sir Henry Clinton evacuate Philadelphia, the former U.S. capital. The British had captured Philadelphia on September 26, 1777, following General George Washington’s defeats at the Battle of Brandywine and the Battle of the Clouds. British General William Howe had made […]

At Waterloo in Belgium on June 18, 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte suffers defeat at the hands of the Duke of Wellington, bringing an end to the Napoleonic era of European history. The Corsica-born Napoleon, one of the greatest military strategists in history, rapidly rose in the ranks of the French Revolutionary Army during the late 1790s. […]

On June 18, 1940, Benito Mussolini arrives in Munich with his foreign minister, Count Ciano, to discuss immediate plans with the Fuhrer, and doesn’t like what he hears. Embarrassed over the late entry of Italy in the war against the Allies, and its rather tepid performance since, Mussolini met with Hitler determined to convince his […]

On June 18, 1967, the Monterey Pop Festival comes to a close with a lineup that includes not-yet-iconic figures of the 1960s music scene—Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, the Who and the Grateful Dead—as well as Ravi Shankar, Buffalo Springfield and the Mamas and the Papas. Held over three days during the height of the Summer […]

During a summit meeting in Vienna, President Jimmy Carter and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev sign the SALT-II agreement dealing with limitations and guidelines for nuclear weapons. The treaty, which never formally went into effect, proved to be one of the most controversial U.S.-Soviet agreements of the Cold War. The SALT-II agreement was the result of […]

Talk radio host Alan Berg is gunned down and killed instantly in the driveway of his home in Denver, Colorado, on June 18, 1984. The 50-year-old host, whose show on the station KOA gained a strong following in the early 1980s, stirred up controversy with his outspoken personality and liberal views. He had already been […]