June 18 in History

Emperor Gaozu of Tang (Chinese: 唐高祖; pinyin: Táng Gāozǔ; Wade–Giles: T'ang Kao-tsu; 7 April 566 – 25 June 635), personal name Li Yuan, courtesy name Shude, Xianbei name Daye Yuan, was the founding emperor of the Tang dynasty of China, reigning from 618 to 626 CE. Under the Sui dynasty, Li Yuan was the governor in the area of modern-day Shanxi, and was based in Taiyuan. In 615, Li Yuan was assigned to garrison Longxi. He gained much experience by dealing with the Göktürks of the north and was able to pacify them. Li Yuan was also able to gather support from these successes and, with the disintegration of the Sui dynasty in July 617, Li Yuan – urged on by his second son Li Shimin (李世民, the eventual Emperor Taizong) – rose in rebellion. Using the title of "Great Chancellor" (大丞相), Li Yuan installed a puppet child emperor, Yang You, but eventually removed him altogether and established the Tang dynasty in 618 with himself as emperor. His son and successor Li Shimin honoured him as Gaozu ("high founder") after his death. Emperor Gaozu's reign was concentrated on uniting the empire under the Tang. Aided by Li Shimin, whom he created the Prince of Qin, he defeated all the other contenders, including Li Gui, Dou Jiande, Wang Shichong, Xue Rengao and Liu Wuzhou. By 628, the Tang dynasty had succeeded in uniting all of China. On the home front, he recognized the early successes forged by Emperor Wen of Sui and strove to emulate most of Emperor Wen's policies, including the equal distribution of land amongst his people, and he also lowered taxes. He abandoned the harsh system of law established by Emperor Yang of Sui as well as reforming the judicial system. These acts of reform paved the way for the reign of Emperor Taizong, which ultimately pushed Tang to the height of its power. In 626, Li Shimin, in a dispute with his brothers Li Jiancheng, the Crown Prince, and Li Yuanji, the Prince of Qi, ambushed Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji at Xuanwu Gate, killing them. Fearful of what Li Shimin might do next, Emperor Gaozu passed the throne to him and became Taishang Huang (retired emperor). He died on 25 June 635.

Ali ibn Abi Talib (Arabic: عليّ بن أبي طالب, romanized: ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib; c. 600 – 661 CE) was the fourth Rashidun caliph who ruled from 656 CE until his assassination in 661, as well as the first Shia Imam. He was the cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Born to Abu Talib ibn Abd al-Muttalib and Fatima bint Asad, Ali was raised in the household of his cousin Muhammad and was among the first to accept his teachings. Ali played a pivotal role in the early years of Islam when Muslims were severely persecuted in Mecca. After the immigration (hijra) to Medina in 622, Muhammad gave his daughter Fatima to Ali in marriage and swore a pact of brotherhood with him. Ali served as Muhammad's secretary and deputy in this period, and was the flag-bearer of his army. Numerous sayings of Muhammad praise Ali, the most controversial of which was uttered in 632 at the Ghadir Khumm, "Whoever I am his mawla, then Ali is his mawla." The interpretation of the polysemous Arabic word mawla is disputed: for Shia Muslims, Muhammad thus invested Ali with his religious and political authority, while Sunni Muslims view this as a mere statement of friendship and rapport. When Muhammad died in the same year, a group of Muslims met in the absence of Ali and appointed Abu Bakr (r. 632–634) as their leader. Ali later relinquished his claims to leadership and resigned from public life during the reigns of Abu Bakr and his successor, Umar (r. 634–644). Even though his advice was occasionally sought, the conflicts between Ali and the first two caliphs are epitomized by his refusal to follow their practices. This refusal cost Ali the caliphate to the benefit of Uthman (r. 644–656), who was thus appointed to succeed Umar by the electoral council. Ali was also highly critical of Uthman, who was widely accused of nepotism and corruption. Yet Ali also repeatedly mediated between the caliph and the provincial dissidents angered by his policies. Following Uthman's assassination in 656, Muhammad's companions and the people of Medina urged Ali to assume the leadership and pledged their allegiance to him. After initially hesitating, he eventually accepted and became the fourth Rashidun caliph. His caliphate was confronted by two major rebellions, led by Talha and Zubayr, and Muhammad's widow Aisha, who sought to avenge Uthman's death. They were defeated by Ali at the Battle of the Camel in 656. The second rebellion was led by Mu'awiya, whose forces fought Ali at the inconclusive Battle of Siffin in 657, followed by an arbitration process that alienated a group of Ali's army. They became known as the Kharijites, who rebelled against him and were all crushed by Ali at the Battle of Nahrawan in 658, consequently losing control of Egypt. Ali was assassinated in 661 during the month of Ramadan by the Kharijite dissident Ibn Muljam. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Hasan, who abdicated later that year, paving the way for Mu'awiya to seize power and found the dynastic Umayyad Caliphate. Ali is revered for his courage, honesty, unbending devotion to Islam, magnanimity, and equal treatment of all Muslims. For his admirers, he has thus become the archetype of uncorrupted Islam and pre-Islamic chivalry. Sunni Muslims regard him as the last of the rashidun (lit. 'rightly-guided') caliphs, while Shia Muslims venerate him as their first Imam and the rightful religious and political successor to Muhammad. Ali's place is said to be second only to Muhammad in Shia Muslim culture. The shrine of Ali in Najaf, Iraq, is a major destination for Shia pilgrimage. The legacy of Ali is collected and studied in numerous books, the most famous of which is Nahj al-balagha.

The siege of Constantinople in 860 was the only major military expedition of the Rus' recorded in Byzantine and western European sources. The casus belli was the construction of the fortress Sarkel by Byzantine engineers, restricting the Rus' trade route along the Don River in favour of the Khazars. Accounts vary, with discrepancies between contemporary and later sources, and the outcome is unknown in detail. It is known from Byzantine sources that the Rus' caught Constantinople unprepared; preoccupied by the ongoing Arab–Byzantine wars, the empire was unable, at least initially, to make an effective response to the attack. After pillaging the suburbs of the Byzantine capital, the Rus' retreated for the day and continued their siege in the night after exhausting the Byzantine troops and causing disorganization. The event gave rise to a later Orthodox Christian tradition, which ascribed the deliverance of Constantinople to a miraculous intervention by the Theotokos.

The Battle of Civitate was fought on 18 June 1053 in southern Italy, between the Normans, led by the Count of Apulia Humphrey of Hauteville, and a Swabian-Italian-Lombard army, organised by Pope Leo IX and led on the battlefield by Gerard, Duke of Lorraine, and Rudolf, Prince of Benevento. The Norman victory over the allied papal army marked the climax of a conflict between the Norman mercenaries who came to southern Italy in the eleventh century, the de Hauteville family, and the local Lombard princes. By 1059 the Normans would create an alliance with the papacy, which included a formal recognition by Pope Nicholas II of the Norman conquest in south Italy, investing Robert Guiscard as Duke of Apulia and Calabria, and Count of Sicily.

Pope Adrian IV was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 4 December 1154 until his death in 1159. He is the only pope to have been born in England and the first pope from an English-speaking country.

The Parliament of Ireland was the legislature of the Lordship of Ireland, and later the Kingdom of Ireland, from 1297 until the end of 1800. It was modelled on the Parliament of England and from 1537 comprised two chambers: the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The Lords were members of the Irish peerage and bishops. The Commons was directly elected, albeit on a very restricted franchise. Parliaments met at various places in Leinster and Munster, but latterly always in Dublin: in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin Castle, Chichester House (1661–1727), the Blue Coat School (1729–31), and finally a purpose-built Parliament House on College Green.

In 1268, the Byzantine Empire and the Republic of Venice agreed to temporarily end hostilities which had erupted after the Byzantine recovery of Constantinople by Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos in 1261.

The Tokhtamysh–Timur war was fought from 1386 to 1395 between Tokhtamysh, the khan of the Golden Horde, and the warlord and conqueror Timur, founder of the Timurid Empire, in the areas of the Caucasus Mountains, Turkestan and Eastern Europe. The battle between Timur and Tokhtamysh played a key role in the decline of Mongol power over the Russian principalities.

Charles VII (22 February 1403 – 22 July 1461), called the Victorious (French: le Victorieux) or the Well-Served (le Bien-Servi), was King of France from 1422 to his death in 1461. His reign saw the end of the Hundred Years' War and a de facto end of the English claims to the French throne. During the Hundred Years' War, Charles VII inherited the throne of France under desperate circumstances. Forces of the Kingdom of England and the duke of Burgundy occupied Guyenne and northern France, including Paris, the capital and most populous city, and Reims, the city in which French kings were traditionally crowned. In addition, his father, Charles VI, had disinherited him in 1420 and recognized Henry V of England and his heirs as the legitimate successors to the French crown. At the same time, a civil war raged in France between the Armagnacs (supporters of the House of Valois) and the Burgundian party (supporters of the House of Valois-Burgundy, which was allied to the English). With his court removed to Bourges, south of the Loire river, Charles was disparagingly called the "King of Bourges", because the area around this city was one of the few remaining regions left to him. However, his political and military position improved dramatically with the emergence of Joan of Arc as a spiritual leader in France. Joan and Jean de Dunois led French troops to lift the siege of Orléans and other besieged strategic cities on the Loire river, and to defeat the English at the Battle of Patay. With local English troops dispersed, the people of Reims switched allegiance and opened their gates, which enabled Charles VII to be crowned at Reims Cathedral in 1429. Six years later, he ended the Anglo-Burgundian alliance by signing the Treaty of Arras with Burgundy, followed by the recovery of Paris in 1436 and the steady reconquest of Normandy in the 1440s using a newly organized professional army and advanced siege cannons. Following the Battle of Castillon in 1453, the French recaptured all of England's continental possessions except the Pale of Calais. The last years of Charles VII were marked by conflicts with his turbulent son, the future Louis XI.

Charles I was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649.

The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1628–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around Massachusetts Bay, a territory inhabited by Algonquian Native American tribes. The colony was in a territory the colonists called New England, with initial settlements on two natural harbors and surrounding land about 15.4 miles (24.8 km) apart—the areas around Salem and Boston, north of the previously established Plymouth Colony. The territory nominally administered by the Massachusetts Bay Colony covered much of central New England, including portions of what are now Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Connecticut. The territory of the Massachusetts Bay colony was one of the several colonial territories reorganized as the Province of Massachusetts Bay in 1691. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded by the owners of the Massachusetts Bay Company—a joint-stock company established by English royal charter. The company included investors in the failed Dorchester Company, which had established a short-lived settlement on Cape Ann in 1623; the Massachusetts Bay Colony was therefore a second attempt at colonization five years later. It was successful, with about 20,000 people migrating to New England in the 1630s. The population was Puritan and was governed largely by a small group of leaders strongly influenced by Puritan teachings. It was the first slave-holding colony in New England, and its governors were elected by an electorate limited to freemen who had been formally admitted to the local church. As a consequence, the colonial leadership showed little tolerance for other religious views, including Anglican, Quaker, and Baptist theologies. The colonists maintained relations with the Massachusett and other Algonquians of the Northeastern Woodlands and sought to convert them to Christianity; however, they did join their neighbor colonies in the Pequot War (1636–1638) and King Philip's War (1675–1678). After that, most of the tribes of southern New England made peace treaties with the colonists or were sold into slavery after King Philip's War (apart from the Pequot tribe, whose survivors were largely absorbed into the Narragansett and Mohegan tribes following the Pequot War). The Massachusetts Bay Colony was economically successful, trading with England, Mexico, and the West Indies. In addition to barter, transactions were done in English pounds, Spanish "pieces of eight", and wampum in the 1640s. In 1652, a currency shortage prompted the colony to authorize silversmith John Hull to issue coinage, now known as the oak tree, willow tree, and pine tree shillings. Political differences with England after the English Restoration led to the forced separation of the northern county as the Province of New Hampshire in 1680 and the revocation of the colonial charter in 1684. King James II established the Dominion of New England in 1686 to bring all of the New England colonies under firmer crown control. The Dominion collapsed after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 deposed James, and the Massachusetts Bay Colony reverted to rule under its revoked charter until 1691, when a new charter was issued for the Province of Massachusetts Bay. This new province combined the Massachusetts Bay territories with those of the Plymouth Colony and proprietary holdings on Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. Sir William Phips arrived in 1692 bearing the charter and formally took charge of the new province, when the colony, beginning in Salem Village, was coming to grips with the witch trials crises.

The Battle of Kolín (Kolin) on 18 June 1757 saw 54,000 Austrians under Count von Daun defeat 34,000 Prussians under Frederick the Great during the Third Silesian War (Seven Years' War). Prussian attempts to turn the Austrian right flank turned into piecemeal frontal attacks and were defeated in five and a half hours of combat. The Prussians lost 13,733 men, the Austrians 8,100. Frederick gave up the Siege of Prague as well as his planned march on Vienna and retreated to Saxony.

The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence or simply the American Revolution, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which American Patriot forces organized as the Continental Army and, commanded by George Washington, defeated the British Army. The conflict was fought in North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean. The war's outcome seemed uncertain for most of the war, but Washington and the Continental Army's decisive victory in the Siege of Yorktown in 1781 led King George III and the Kingdom of Great Britain to negotiate an end to the war. In 1783, in the Treaty of Paris, the British monarchy acknowledged the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, leading to the establishment of the United States as an independent and sovereign nation. In 1763, after the British Empire gained dominance in North America following its victory over the French in the Seven Years' War, tensions and disputes began escalating between the British and the Thirteen Colonies, especially following passage of the Stamp and Townshend Acts. The British Army responded by seeking to occupy Boston militarily, leading to the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770. In mid-1774, with tensions escalating even further between the British Army and the colonies, the British Parliament imposed the Intolerable Acts, an attempt to disarm Americans, leading to the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, the first battles of the Revolutionary War. In June 1775, the Second Continental Congress voted to incorporate colonial-based Patriot militias into a central military, the Continental Army, and unanimously appointed Washington its commander-in-chief. Two months later, in August 1775, George III declared the colonies to be in a state of rebellion. In July 1776, the Second Continental Congress formalized the war, passing the Lee Resolution on July 2, and, two days later, unanimously adopting the Declaration of Independence, on July 4. In March 1776, in an early win for the newly-formed Continental Army under Washington's command, following a successful siege of Boston, the Continental Army successfully drove the British Army out of Boston. British commander in chief William Howe responded by launching the New York and New Jersey campaign, which resulted in Howe's capture of New York City in November. Washington responded by clandestinely crossing the Delaware River and winning small but significant victories at Trenton and Princeton. In the summer of 1777, as Howe was poised to capture Philadelphia, the Continental Congress fled to Baltimore. In October 1777, a separate northern British force under the command of John Burgoyne was forced to surrender at Saratoga in an American victory that proved crucial in convincing France and Spain that an independent United States was a viable possibility. France signed a commercial agreement with the revolutionaries, followed by a Treaty of Alliance in February 1778. In 1779, the Sullivan Expedition undertook a scorched earth campaign against British-allied factions of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (also Iroquois). Native American raids on the American frontier, however, continued to be a problem. Also, in 1779, Spain allied with France against Great Britain in the Treaty of Aranjuez, though Spain did not formally ally with the Americans. Howe's replacement Henry Clinton intended to take the war against the Americans into the Southern Colonies. Despite some initial success, British General Cornwallis was besieged by a Franco-American army in Yorktown, Virginia, in September and October 1781. The French navy cut off Cornwallis's escape and he was forced to surrender in October. The British wars with France and Spain continued for another two years, but fighting largely ceased in North America. In the Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, Great Britain acknowledged the sovereignty and independence of the United States, bringing the American Revolutionary War to an end. The Treaties of Versailles resolved Great Britain's conflicts with France and Spain, and forced Great Britain to cede Tobago, Senegal, and small territories in India to France, and Menorca, West Florida, and East Florida to Spain.

The Haitian Revolution, also known as the Haitian War of Independence, was a successful insurrection by enslaved Africans against French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue, now the sovereign state of Haiti. The revolution was one of the only known slave rebellions in human history that led to the founding of a state which was both free from slavery (though not from forced labour) and ruled by former captives. Vincent Ogé's 1790 revolt by free Mulattoes (of mixed French and African ancestry) pressured the French Revolutionary government to grant them citizenship in May 1791, leading to further clashes with slave owners that destabilized Saint-Domingue and led to the slave revolt on 21 August 1791, which ended with the former colony's independence on 1 January 1804, with the ex-slave Toussaint Louverture emerging as its most prominent general. The successful revolution was a defining moment in the history of the Atlantic World and the revolution's effects on the institution of slavery were felt throughout the Americas. The end of French rule and the abolition of slavery in the former colony was followed by a successful defense of the freedoms the former slaves had won and, with the collaboration of already free people of color, of their independence from white Europeans. The revolution was the largest slave uprising since Spartacus's unsuccessful revolt against the Roman Republic nearly 1,900 years earlier, and challenged long-held European beliefs about alleged African inferiority and about slaves' ability to achieve and maintain their own freedom. The rebels' organizational capacity and tenacity under pressure inspired stories that shocked and frightened slave owners in the hemisphere. Compared to other Atlantic revolutions, the events in Haiti have received relatively little public attention in retrospect: historian Michel-Rolph Trouillot characterizes the historiography of the Haitian Revolution as being "silenced" by that of the French Revolution.

An Act Declaring War between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Dependencies Thereof and the United States of America and Their Territories was passed by the 12th United States Congress on June 18, 1812, thereby beginning the War of 1812. It was signed by James Madison, the 4th president of the United States.

The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a global series of conflicts fought by a fluctuating array of European coalitions against the French First Republic (1803–1804) under the First Consul followed by the First French Empire (1804–1815) under the Emperor of the French, Napoleon. The wars originated in political forces arising from the French Revolution (1789–1799) and French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802) and produced a period of French domination over continental Europe. The wars are categorised as seven conflicts, five named after the coalitions that fought Napoleon, plus two named for their respective theatres: the War of the Third Coalition, War of the Fourth Coalition, War of the Fifth Coalition, War of the Sixth Coalition, War of the Seventh Coalition, the Peninsular War, and the French invasion of Russia. The first stage of the wars broke out when Britain declared war on France on 18 May 1803. After minor campaigns, Britain allied with Austria, Russia, and minor powers, to form the Third Coalition in April 1805. Napoleon defeated the allied Russo-Austrian armies in the subsequent war which climaxed in French victories at Ulm and at Austerlitz, leading to the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire and Austria being forced to make peace. Britain and Russia remained at war with France. Concerned about increasing French power, Prussia joined Britain and Russia in the Fourth Coalition, which resumed war in October 1806. Napoleon defeated the Prussians at Jena-Auerstedt and the Russians at Friedland, bringing an uneasy peace to the continent by July 1807, and again leaving Britain as France's sole major enemy. Britain was unable to dispute French dominance on the continent but obtained hegemony over the seas after victories including Trafalgar. Russia used the interim peace to resolve wars with the Ottomans, Swedes, and Iranians. Hoping to isolate and weaken Britain economically through his Continental System, Napoleon launched an invasion of Portugal, the only remaining British ally in continental Europe. After occupying Lisbon in November 1807, and with the bulk of French troops present in Spain, Napoleon seized the opportunity to turn against his former ally, depose the reigning Spanish royal family, and declare his brother as Joseph I the King of Spain in 1808, to the disapproval of the Spanish populace. Spain joined Britain and Portugal, with the three powers engaging France in the Peninsular War. The diversion of French armies to the large new Anglo-Spanish front led to Austria reentering the conflict and forming the Fifth Coalition in April 1809, composed of Austria, Spain, and Britain. Austria won the Battle of Aspern-Essling but was defeated at Wagram, forcing the imposition of a harsh peace in October 1809. Britain, Spain, and Portugal remained at war with France. Concurrently Russia, unwilling to bear the economic consequences of reduced trade, violated the Continental System, prompting Napoleon to launch an invasion in June 1812. The resulting campaign was costly for both sides, but ultimately ended in disaster for France and the near-destruction of Napoleon's Grande Armée. French forces retreated from Russia by December 1812 and began reconstituting their lost strength. Encouraged by the defeat, Austria, Prussia, and several minor powers joined Russia, Britain, and Spain in a Sixth Coalition and began a campaign against France. The Sixth Coalition defeated Napoleon at Leipzig in October 1813. The allies then invaded France on two fronts: the Russians, Austrians, and Prussians invaded France from the east, while the British, Spanish, and Portuguese invaded France from the west. Coalition troops captured Paris in March 1814, forced Napoleon to abdicate in April, exiled him to the island of Elba, and restored power to the Bourbons. Napoleon escaped exile in February 1815 and reassumed control of France for around one hundred days, igniting the eponymous conflict. The allies formed the Seventh Coalition, which defeated him at Waterloo in June 1815 and exiled him to Saint Helena, where he died in 1821. The wars had profound consequences on history. New methods of warfare were introduced, including mass conscription and guerrilla warfare. Politically, the wars greatly influenced Europe through the advancements in civil law brought about by the Napoleonic Code, which was largely retained where it was adopted, and the spread of nationalism and liberalism. Independence movements emerged in Spanish America as a direct consequence of the wars, leading to the decline of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires. France's defeat led to the rise of Britain as the world's foremost naval and economic power, a status it would hold for the remainder of the century. After the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of Vienna redrew Europe's borders and brought a relative peace to the continent, with no major great power conflicts until the Crimean War in 1853.

Konstantinos Kanaris, also anglicised as Constantine Kanaris or Canaris, was a Greek statesman, an admiral, and a hero of the Greek War of Independence (1821–1829).

Charles Robert Darwin ( DAR-win; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended from a common ancestor is now generally accepted and considered a fundamental scientific concept. In a joint presentation with Alfred Russel Wallace, he introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding. Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history and was honoured by burial in Westminster Abbey. Darwin's early interest in nature led him to neglect his medical education at the University of Edinburgh; instead, he helped Robert Edmond Grant to investigate marine invertebrates. His studies at the University of Cambridge's Christ's College from 1828 to 1831 encouraged his passion for natural science. However, it was his five-year voyage on HMS Beagle from 1831 to 1836 that truly established Darwin as an eminent geologist. The observations and theories he developed during his voyage supported Charles Lyell's concept of gradual geological change. Publication of his journal of the voyage made Darwin famous as a popular author. His first scientific work was The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs (1842). Along with his work on barnacles, it won him the Royal Medal in 1853. Puzzled by the geographical distribution of wildlife and fossils he collected on the voyage, Darwin began detailed investigations and, in 1838, devised his theory of natural selection. Although he discussed his ideas with several naturalists, he needed time for extensive research, and his geological work had priority. He was writing up his theory in 1858 when Wallace sent him an essay that described the same idea, prompting the immediate joint submission of both their theories to the Linnean Society of London. Darwin's work established evolutionary descent with modification as the dominant scientific explanation of natural diversification. Darwin published his theory of evolution with compelling evidence in On the Origin of Species (1859). He explored coevolution in Fertilisation of Orchids (1862) and human evolution and sexual selection in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871). The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872) was an early work of psychology, and one of the first books to feature photographs. His final book was The Formation of Vegetable Mould, through the Actions of Worms (1881). By the 1870s, the scientific community and a majority of the educated public had accepted evolution as a fact. However, many initially favoured competing explanations that gave only a minor role to natural selection. It was not until the emergence of the modern evolutionary synthesis from the 1930s to the 1950s that a broad consensus developed in which natural selection was the basic mechanism of evolution. Darwin's discovery is the unifying theory of the life sciences, explaining the unity and diversity of life.

The Aletschhorn (Swiss Standard German pronunciation: [ˈaːlɛtʃˌhɔrn]; 4,194 m (13,760 ft)) is a mountain in the Alps in Switzerland, lying within the Jungfrau-Aletsch region, which has been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The mountain shares part of its name with the Aletsch Glacier lying at its foot. The Aletschhorn, the second highest mountain of the Bernese Alps after the Finsteraarhorn, is the only one of the higher peaks that lies completely in Valais. It is the culminating point of a chain running parallel with the dividing ridge, and surpassing it in the height of its principal peaks. Standing thus between the principal range of the Bernese Alps and the Pennine chain, it shares with the Bietschhorn the advantage of occupying a central position in relation to the high peaks around it. The Aletschhorn is often thought to command the finest of all the panoramic views from Alpine summits.

Susan B. Anthony was an American social reformer and women's rights activist who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movement. Born into a Quaker family committed to social equality, she collected anti-slavery petitions at the age of 17. In 1856, she became the New York state agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society.

The Reinsurance Treaty was a diplomatic agreement between the German Empire and the Russian Empire that was in effect from 1887 to 1890. The existence of the agreement was not known to the general public, and as such, was only known to a handful of officials in Berlin and St. Petersburg. The treaty played a critical role in German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck's network of alliances and agreements, which aimed to keep the peace in Europe as well as maintaining Germany's economic, diplomatic and political dominance. It helped calm tensions between both Russia and Germany. The treaty provided that both parties would remain neutral if the other became involved in a war with a third great power, with the exception of if Germany attacked France or if Russia attacked Austria-Hungary. Germany made concessions to Russia by changing its stance on Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia (now part of southern Bulgaria), agreeing that they were in the Russian sphere of influence and agreeing to support Russian action to keep the Black Sea as its own preserve. After Bismarck lost power in 1890, his enemies in the Foreign Ministry convinced the Kaiser that the treaty was too much in Russia's favor and should not be renewed. The cancellation, as with the treaty itself, was generally held from the public. Russia, however, had not wanted to terminate the alliance. Needing new allies, Russia opened negotiations with Germany's enemy France. The resulting Franco-Russian Alliance of 1891–1892 to 1917 rapidly began to take shape. Historians consider the new alliance a major disaster for Germany and one of the long-term causes of the First World War.

Moulay Abd al-Aziz bin Hassan (Arabic: عبد العزيز بن الحسن, romanized: ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn al-Ḥasan; 24 February 1878 – 10 June 1943) was sultan of Morocco from 9 June 1894 to 21 August 1908, as a ruler of the 'Alawi dynasty. He was proclaimed sultan at the age of sixteen after the death of his father Hassan I. Moulay Abdelaziz tried to strengthen the central government by implementing a new tax on agriculture and livestock, a measure which was strongly opposed by sections of the society. This in turn led Abdelaziz to mortgage the customs revenues and to borrow heavily from the French, which was met with widespread revolt and a revolution that deposed him in 1908 in favor of his brother Abd al-Hafid.

Japanese Brazilians are Brazilian citizens who are nationals or naturals of Japanese ancestry or Japanese immigrants living in Brazil. Japanese immigration to Brazil peaked between 1908 and 1960, with the highest concentration between 1926 and 1935. In 2022, Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that there were 2 million Japanese descendants in Brazil, making it the country with the largest population of Japanese origin outside Japan. However, in terms of Japanese citizens, Brazil ranked seventh in 2023, with 46,900 Japanese citizens. Most of the Japanese-descendant population in Brazil has been living in the country for three or more generations and most only hold Brazilian citizenship. Nikkei is the term used to refer to Japanese people and their descendants. Japanese immigration to Brazil officially began on June 18, 1908, when the ship Kasato Maru docked at Porto de Santos, bringing 781 Japanese workers to the coffee plantations in the São Paulo state countryside. For this reason, June 18 was established as the national day of Japanese immigration. Immigration to Brazil ceased by 1973, with the arrival of the last immigrant ship, the Nippon Maru. Between 1908 and 1963, 242,171 Japanese immigrants arrived in Brazil, making them the fifth-largest immigrant group after Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, and German immigrants. Currently, most Japanese Brazilians live in the states of São Paulo and Paraná. In the early 20th century, Japan was overpopulated relative to its infrastructure, and its predominantly rural population experienced significant poverty. At the same time, the Brazilian government was encouraging immigration, especially to supply labor for coffee plantations in São Paulo. Coffee was Brazil's main export product, and the country's financial health relied on it. Much of the labor on Brazilian coffee plantations came from Italian immigrants, whose passage by ship was subsidized by the Brazilian government. However, in 1902, the Italian government issued the Prinetti Decree, which banned subsidized immigration to Brazil due to reports that Italian immigrants were being exploited as laborers on Brazilian farms. Consequently, the São Paulo government sought new sources of labor from other countries, including Japan, and Japanese immigration to Brazil developed in this context. Labor contracts on coffee plantations required immigrants to work for five years, but conditions were so poor that many left within the first year. Through great effort, some Japanese workers managed to save enough to buy their own land, with the first Japanese land purchase occurring in 1911 in the São Paulo countryside. Over the decades, Japanese immigrants and their descendants gradually moved from rural areas to Brazilian cities. By the early 1960s, the Japanese Brazilian urban population had surpassed the rural one. Many Japanese immigrants began working in small businesses or providing basic services. In Japanese tradition, the eldest son would continue the family business to help support his younger siblings' education. By 1958, Japanese and their descendants, though less than 2% of the Brazilian population, accounted for 21% of Brazilians with education beyond high school. A 2016 IPEA study found that Japanese descendants had the highest average educational and salary levels in Brazil. With Brazil's economic deterioration from the late 1980s, many Japanese descendants from Brazil began migrating to Japan, in search of better economic conditions. These individuals are known as Dekasegis.

The University of the Philippines (UP; Filipino: Unibersidad ng Pilipinas is a state public university system and the national university of the Philippines under Republic Act No. 9500. Established on June 18, 1908, by the American colonial government through Act No. 1870 of the First Philippine Legislature, it was founded as the country's premier institution of higher learning, and has a mandated role in national development through instruction, research, and public service. The university's earliest academic units were established in Manila and Los Baños. In 1949, UP transferred several of its units to Diliman which became its new administrative center. In 1972, the university was reorganized into a multi-campus system of autonomous constituent universities. Today, the UP System consists of nine constituent universities distributed across 23 campuses nationwide: UP Diliman, UP Los Baños, UP Manila, UP Visayas, UP Mindanao, UP Open University, UP Baguio, UP Cebu, and UP Tacloban. UP also operates the Philippine General Hospital, the country's largest tertiary hospital. It likewise maintains specialized research and public service institutions involved in healthcare, natural sciences, agriculture, technology, and other fields of national importance.

The Troubles in Ulster of the 1920s was a period of conflict in the Irish province of Ulster, from June 1920 until June 1922, during and after the Irish War of Independence and the partition of Ireland (and specifically of Ulster). In Ulster, it was mainly a communal conflict between unionists, who wanted to remain part of the United Kingdom, and nationalists, who backed Irish independence: the unionists were mainly Ulster Protestants and the nationalists were mainly Irish Catholics. During this period, more than 500 people were killed in Belfast alone, 500 interned and 23,000 people were made homeless in the city, while approximately 50,000 people fled the province due to intimidation. Most of the victims were Nationalists (73%) with civilians being far more likely to be killed compared to the military, police or paramilitaries. In Belfast where Catholics made up only a third of the population, the disproportionate number of Catholic casualties combined with sustained attacks upon Catholic civilians involving police or special constabulary forces, led to the troubles being known as the 'Belfast Pogrom(s)'. During the Irish War of Independence, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) attacked British security forces throughout the island; loyalists often attacked the Catholic community in retaliation. In July 1920, they drove 8,000 mostly Catholic workers out of the Belfast shipyards sparking sectarian violence in the city. That summer, violence also erupted in Derry, leaving twenty people dead, and there were mass burnings of Catholic property and expulsions of Catholics from their homes in Dromore, Lisburn and Banbridge. Conflict continued intermittently for two years, mostly in Belfast, which saw "savage and unprecedented" communal violence between Protestants and Catholics. Almost 1,000 homes and businesses were destroyed and thousands of people were forced out of mixed neighborhoods. The British Army was deployed and the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC) (or Specials) were formed to help the regular police – the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC). The USC was almost wholly Protestant. Members of both police forces were involved in carrying out reprisal attacks on Catholics. The self-declared Irish Republic approved the 'Belfast Boycott' of unionist-owned businesses and banks in the city. It was enforced by the IRA, who halted trains and lorries and destroyed goods. In May 1921, the Government of Ireland Act 1920 came into force, dividing the island between two administrations: Southern Ireland (consisting of the 26 southern and western counties, including three Ulster counties) and Northern Ireland (consisting of the remaining six counties of the province). A truce between the belligerents began on 11 July 1921, ending the fighting in most of Ireland. It was preceded by Belfast's Bloody Sunday, a day of violence in which twenty people were killed. In early 1922, there was a resurgence of sectarian violence in Belfast, including the McMahon killings and the Arnon Street killings. In May 1922 the IRA launched their Northern Offensive. There were clashes near the new Irish border, at Clones and the Pettigo/Belleek area. Also in May 1922, the new government of Northern Ireland implemented the Special Powers Act (also known as the "Flogging Act"), interning suspected IRA members, and imposing a nighttime curfew across the six counties of Northern Ireland. The outbreak of the Irish Civil War in the south on 28 June 1922 diverted the IRA from its campaign against the Northern government, and violence in Northern Ireland fell sharply.

An aircraft pilot is an individual who controls an aircraft's flight by operating its directional controls. Other aircrew members, such as navigators and flight engineers, are also considered aviators because they assist in operating the aircraft’s navigation and engine systems. Aircrew members like drone operators, flight attendants, mechanics, and ground crew are not classified as aviators.

The Battle of Ballantyne Pier occurred in Ballantyne Pier during a docker's strike in Vancouver, British Columbia, in June 1935. The strike can be traced back to 1912 when the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), began organizing the waterfront workers in Canada, alongside the Lumber Handlers' Union in Vancouver. Going head to head with the employers association, the Shipping Federation, several strikes resulting in wage increases were won by workers in the coming years. Victories on the waterfront increased over the next decade, and by 1923, the Shipping Federation became determined to break the power of the ILA. In October 1923 1400 striking dockworkers joined picket lines at the Vancouver waterfront. The Shipping Federation had arranged that the dockers would be met by 350 men armed with shotguns. They had been housed on a nearby ship. The gunmen's intimidation of the strikers, coupled with the fact that ships were being loaded and unloaded by numerous non-union workers, caused the strike to collapse two months later. The 1923 strike destroyed the ILA, and it was soon replaced by a new organization, the Vancouver and District Waterfront Workers' Association (VDWWA). Set up originally by the bosses as a company union, the VDWWA soon took a confrontational stance towards the Shipping Federation. By 1935, nearly every port in British Columbia had been organised by the VDWWA. Following the pretext to the destruction of the ILA, the Shipping Federation provoked a major strike in the spring of 1935, locking out 50 dockers at the port at Powell River. The strike snowballed with other dockers across the region striking or being locked out. Following a refusal to unload ships coming from Powell River, 900 workers were met with a lockout in Vancouver. Dockers across the border in Seattle also refused to unload ships coming from Vancouver and Powell River because they were staffed by non-union workers. On June 18, several weeks after the original lockout, 900-1100 dockers and their supporters marched through Vancouver towards Ballantyne Pier where non-union workers were unloading ships. The strikers were met at the pier by several hundred armed policemen. Attempting to force their way through, the dockers were attacked by the police lines. Many marchers were clubbed as they tried to run to safety, while many others tried hopelessly to fight back, using whatever weapons they could find. Aided by Mounties who had been posted nearby, the police attacked the strikers. The VDWWA union hall was attacked, with tear gas being used against members of the women's auxiliary who had set up a first aid station inside. The battle lasted three hours, and included police actually firing guns at strikers. the battle produced several hospitalizations, including that of a fleeing striker who was shot in the back of his legs. Despite the violence of June 18, the strike dragged on into December, but the strike lost much of its militant character after the fighting at Ballantyne Pier. The struggle to form a union completely independent of the Shipping Federation continued for another two years, when, in 1937, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) was born. The strike of 1935 failed. It, however, helped the future founding of a union for the dockers of British Columbia that was completely independent of the employers' association. The ILWU participated in numerous disputes in the following years, and in the 1940s, it won many strikes that lead to better pay and conditions for waterfront workers.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many engaging in total war on an unprecedented scale. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the deaths of 60 to 75 million people, a majority of whom were civilians. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

William Brooke Joyce, nicknamed Lord Haw-Haw, was an American-born Nazi propaganda broadcaster during the Second World War. After moving from New York to Ireland and subsequently to England, Joyce became a member of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists (BUF) from 1932, before finally moving to Germany at the outset of the war where he took Nazi German citizenship in 1940.

Ram Manohar Lohia was an Indian political activist of the Indian independence movement and a socialist politician. As a nationalist, he worked actively to protest against colonialism, raising awareness of the same. He founded multiple socialist political parties and later won elections to the Lok Sabha.

Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Music Group, an American subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony Group Corporation. Founded on January 15, 1889, Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the recorded sound business, and the second major company to produce records after Edison Phonograph Company. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship record labels, along with Epic Records, former longtime rival RCA Records, and Arista Records. RCA and Arista were originally owned by BMG until Sony's acquisition at the end of their merger in 2008.

On 23 July 1952, a coup began in Egypt with the toppling of King Farouk in a coup d'état by the Free Officers Movement, a group of army officers led by Mohamed Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser. It ushered in a wave of revolutionary politics in the Arab world, contributing to the escalation of decolonization and the development of Third World solidarity during the Cold War.

The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is a part of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) and is one of the six armed forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its origins to 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal Corps, the Air Force was established by transfer of personnel from the Army Air Forces with the enactment of the National Security Act of 1947. It is the second youngest branch of the United States Armed Forces and the fourth in order of precedence. The United States Air Force articulates its core missions as air supremacy, global integrated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, rapid global mobility, global strike, and command and control.

Carlos Castillo Armas was a Guatemalan military officer and politician who was the 28th president of Guatemala, serving from 1954 to 1957 after taking power in a coup d'état. A member of the far-right National Liberation Movement (MLN) party, his authoritarian government was closely allied with the United States.

Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera Peter Grimes (1945), the War Requiem (1962) and the orchestral showpiece The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1945).

The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonial wars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and a civil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until US forces were withdrawn in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian civil wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.

British European Airways Flight 548 was a scheduled passenger flight from London Heathrow to Brussels that crashed near Staines, England, United Kingdom, shortly after take-off on 18 June 1972, killing all 118 people on board. The accident became known as the Staines air disaster. As of 2026, it remains the deadliest air accident to have occurred in the UK and was the deadliest air accident involving a Hawker Siddeley Trident. Initially, there were two survivors of the accident; a man, who was discovered in the remains of the aircraft cabin, and a young woman, but both later died of their injuries.

The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) were two rounds of bilateral conferences and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union. The Cold War superpowers dealt with arms control in two rounds of talks and agreements: SALT I and SALT II.

The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk is a retired American single-seat, subsonic, twin-engined stealth attack aircraft developed by Lockheed's Skunk Works division and operated by the United States Air Force (USAF). It was the first operational aircraft to be designed with stealth technology.

Roberto Calvi was an Italian banker, dubbed "God's Banker" by the press because of his close business dealings with the Holy See. He was a native of Milan and was chairman of Banco Ambrosiano, which collapsed in one of Italy's biggest political scandals.

The Space Shuttle program was the fourth human spaceflight program carried out by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which accomplished routine transportation for Earth-to-orbit crew and cargo from 1981 to 2011. Its official program name was carried over from the 1969 plan for the Space Transportation System (STS) of reusable spacecraft. Only the shuttle and supporting rockets were funded for development; a proposed nuclear lunar shuttle in the plan was canceled in 1972. It flew 135 missions and carried 355 astronauts from 16 countries, many on multiple trips.

Mona Mahmudnizhad was an Iranian Baháʼí who, in 1983, together with nine other Baháʼí women, was sentenced to death and hanged in Shiraz, Iran, on the grounds of being a member of the Baháʼí Faith. The official charges ranged from "misleading children and youth" to being a "Zionist", as the Baháʼí World Centre is located in Israel.

The Battle of Orgreave was a violent confrontation on 18 June 1984 between pickets and officers of the South Yorkshire Police (SYP) and other police forces, including the Metropolitan Police, at a British Steel Corporation (BSC) coking plant at Orgreave, in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England. It was a pivotal event in the 1984–1985 UK miners' strike, and one of the most violent clashes in British industrial history.

The Troubles were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is usually deemed to have ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Although centred in Northern Ireland, violence at times spilled into the Republic of Ireland, England, and mainland Europe. The conflict arose from political and nationalistic disputes with a strong ethnic and sectarian dimension. Unionists and loyalists, mostly Ulster Protestants, wanted Northern Ireland to remain in the United Kingdom, while Irish nationalists and republicans, mostly Irish Catholics, wanted it to join a united Ireland. Despite the division between Protestants and Catholics, it was not a religious war.

Propair Flight 420 (PRO420) was a domestic charter flight from Montreal, Quebec to Peterborough, Ontario. The flight was carried out by Propair, a charter airline based in Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, using a Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner. On 18 June 1998, the aircraft suffered an in-flight fire shortly after take-off from Dorval and the crew elected to conduct an emergency landing at Montréal–Mirabel International Airport. The intense heat of the fire caused a structural failure in the left wing during the landing and the aircraft crashed, resulting in the deaths of all 11 passengers and crew on board.

Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country situated primarily in Central Asia, with a portion of its territory extending into Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbekistan to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southwest, and it has a coastline along the Caspian Sea. The capital is Astana, and the country's largest city and principal cultural and economic center is Almaty, which served as the capital until 1997.

The Charleston Sofa Super Store fire was a firefighting accident that occurred on the evening of June 18, 2007, in Charleston, South Carolina, resulting in the deaths of nine firefighters. It was the deadliest firefighter disaster in the US since the September 11 attacks. The fire, which started in the loading dock of the furniture store, rapidly spread to the main showroom and warehouse, leading to a catastrophic structural collapse. Despite initial firefighting efforts and rescue attempts, the poor water supply and lack of fire sprinkler systems contributed to the incident. The site was cleared after the fire, and a new fire station was constructed nearby.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is a NASA robotic spacecraft currently orbiting the Moon in an eccentric polar mapping orbit. Data collected by LRO have been described as essential for planning NASA's future human and robotic missions to the Moon. Its detailed mapping program is identifying safe landing sites, locating potential resources on the Moon, characterizing the radiation environment, and demonstrating new technologies.

On 18 June 2018, around 7:58:35 a.m. Japan Standard Time, an earthquake measuring 5.6 Mw on the moment magnitude scale struck in northern Osaka Prefecture, Japan. The earthquake's epicenter was near Takatsuki and occurred at a depth of approximately 10.3 kilometres (6.4 mi). The Japan Meteorological Agency reported a magnitude of 6.1 Mj and an intensity of 6 lower on the shindo scale.

Titan, previously named Cyclops 2, was a submersible created and operated by the American underwater tourism company OceanGate. It was the first privately owned submersible with a claimed maximum depth of 4 kilometers, and the first completed crewed submersible with a hull constructed of titanium and carbon fiber composite materials.