#TodayInHistory – August 18

August 18 – Some important events on this day.

293 BC 👉🏼 The oldest known Roman temple to Venus is founded, starting the institution of Vinalia Rustica (grape harvest festival)
1201 👉🏼 The city of Riga is founded
1737 👉🏼 First public admittance to the Salon de Paris art exhibition at the Louvre in Paris
1817 👉🏼 60-70ft (18-21 meters) sea serpent sightings reported offshore in Gloucester, Massachusetts
1838 👉🏼 United States Exploring Expedition headed by Charles Wilkes departs for the Pacific Ocean and Antarctica
1868 👉🏼 French Astronomer Pierre Janssen discovers helium in solar spectrum during eclipse

1904 👉🏼 Chris Watson resigns as Prime Minister of Australia and is succeeded by George Reid.
Chris Watson was Australia’s first Labor Prime Minister and while his 1904 government only survived for four months between April and August in 1904 it has the distinction of being the first Labor government anywhere in the world at a national level.
The Australian Labor Party, a democratic socialist party, has its origins in a strike by pastoral workers in the 1890s in the state of Queensland. It would go on to win the 1910 Federal election under Andrew Fisher and become the first Labor government to win a majority. It remains a major party in Australian political life.

1914 👉🏼 US President Woodrow Wilson issues “Proclamation of Neutrality”
1919 👉🏼 Anti-Cigarette League of America forms in Chicago, Illinois
1920 👉🏼 22 year old representative Harry T. Burn is deciding vote in Tennessee’s and thus America’s ratification of the 19th Amendment to the constitution allowing women’s suffrage after letter from his mother.
1926 👉🏼 Weather map televised for 1st time
1940 👉🏼 Battle of Britain: The air battle known as “The Hardest Day” occurs; Luftwaffe lose approximately 69 aircraft and the RAF lose 68 in one of the largest ever air battles

1969 👉🏼 Woodstock Music & Art Fair closes with Jimi Hendrix / Band of Gypsys as the final act.
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2018 👉🏼 Archaeologists confirm first-ever cheese found from Ancient Egypt 3,200 years old in tomb of Ptahmes, mayor of Memphis
2019 👉🏼 Iceland holds a funeral for the first glacier lost to climate change at site of Okjökull glacier