#TodayInHistory – April 18

April 18 – Some important events on this day

1025 👉🏼 Bolesław Chrobry is crowned in Gniezno, becoming the first King of Poland 🇵🇱

1480 👉🏼 Lucrezia Borgia, the illegitimate daughter of Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia – who was to become Pope Alexander VI – was born on this day.
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1506 👉🏼 The cornerstone of the current St. Peter’s Basilica is laid in the Vatican by Pope Julius II.
Regarded as one of the greatest Renaissance and Baroque buildings, St Peter’s replacing an earlier basilica. It was begun under Pope Julius II in 1506 and completed in 1615 under Paul V. It stood as the largest church in the world until 1989. Today it stands in the shape of a Latin cross with the dome at the crossing over the high altar and the shrine to St Peter the Apostle. It is a significant site of pilgrimage and the burial place for many popes.
A number of architects contributed to its design, including Donato Bramante, Raphael and Michelangelo, who was appointed chief architect in 1546 and served until his death in 1564. Carlo Maderno was responsible for its final Latin Cross design and the building’s facade. Gian Lorenzo Bernini was commissioned to create the Basilica’s monumental piazza.
The interior of the basilica includes many famous works of art such as Michelangelo’s Pietà, Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Baldachin structure over the altar and his tomb to Pope Urban VIII.

1775 👉🏼 Paul Revere and William Dawes ride from Charlestown to Lexington warning the “regulars are coming!”. American patriot Paul Revere was famous for alerting the Colonial militia to the approach of British forces before the battles of Lexington and Concord, as dramatized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride.”

1783 👉🏼 Fighting ceases in the American Revolution, eight years to the day when it began 🇺🇸
1809 👉🏼 First run of 2,000 guineas horse race at Newmarket, England

1906 👉🏼 San Francisco earthquake and fire kills nearly 4,000 while destroying 75% of the city.
At 5:13 a.m., the earthquake, estimated at close to 8.0 on the Richter scale, strikes the city as it topples numerous buildings. It was caused by a slip of the San Andreas Fault over a segment about 275 miles long, and shock waves could be felt from southern Oregon down to Los Angeles. San Francisco’s brick buildings and wooden Victorian structures were especially devastated. Fires immediately broke out and, because broken water mains prevented firefighters from stopping them, firestorms soon developed citywide.
By April 23, most fires were extinguished, and authorities commenced the task of rebuilding the devastated metropolis.

1924 👉🏼 1st crossword puzzle book published by Simon & Schuster
1934 👉🏼 1st “Washateria” (laundromat) opens in Fort Worth, Texas
1943 👉🏼 Operation Vengeance: US Army Air Force P-38G fighter aircraft from Kukum Field on Guadalcanal ambush and shoot down the transport bomber aircraft of Isoroku Yamamoto, commander-in-chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy and mastermind behind the Pearl Harbor attack.
1954 👉🏼 Colonel Gamal Abdal Nasser seizes power & becomes Prime Minister of Egypt 🇪🇬

2014 👉🏼 12 Nepalese climbers are killed by an avalanche on Mt Everest.
The avalanche, which occurred around 6:30 a.m., swept over the climbers in a notoriously treacherous area of Everest known as the Khumbu Icefall, at approximately 5800 meters. The disaster reopened debates about the dangerous risks undertaken by people who want to climb the Earth’s highest mountain.

…but what the top of Mount Everest is really like?
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