Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/February 18

This is a list of selected February 18 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.

Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.

To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.

← February 17	February 19 →

Staging area

Images

Use only ONE image at a time

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  King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy
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  Victor Emanuel II of Italy. 5 silver lire
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  Royal Swedish Dramatic Theatre
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  Joseph Goebbels
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  Enterprise on the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft
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  Chelsea Manning

Ineligible

Blurb	Reason
Independence Day in the Gambia (1965)	refimprove section
3102 BCE – According to Hindu scriptures, Kali Yuga, the last of the four stages that the world goes through as part of the cycle of yugas, began.	lead too short, unreferenced section
1861 – With Italian unification almost complete, Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont, Savoy and Sardinia assumed the title King of Italy.	needs more footnotes
1908 – The Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, Sweden's national stage for "spoken drama", opened with playwright August Strindberg's play Master Olof.	refimprove
1911 – The first official flight with airmail took place when pilot Henri Pequet carried 6,500 letters from Allahabad to Naini, British India, about 13 kilometres (8 mi) away.	refimprove
1932 – The Empire of Japan established Manchukuo, a puppet state in northeastern China during the Sino-Japanese War.	lots of CN tags
1946 – Sailors of the Royal Indian Navy began a total strike on board ship and shore establishments at Bombay harbour that grew into a mutiny involving over 10,000 sailors	refimprove
1954 – The Church of Scientology, the largest organization devoted to the practice and the promotion of the Scientology belief system, was incorporated in Los Angeles.	refimprove sections
1970 – An American jury acquitted the "Chicago Seven" of conspiracy and inciting riots stemming from protests during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.	refimprove section
2003 – An arsonist started a fire aboard a Daegu Metropolitan Subway train in Daegu, South Korea, killing almost two hundred passengers.	needs more footnotes
2014 – A series of violent events involving protesters, riot police, and unknown shooters began in Kiev that culminated in the ousting of the Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych, five days later.	section too long/detailed
Bidzina Ivanishvili (b. 1956)	neutrality issues

Eligible

• 1268 – The Battle of Wesenberg took place between the combined forces of Novgorod and Pskov Republics and the Livonian Order with its allies, ending in the retreat of Russian forces from Estonia.
• 1766 – A mutiny by captive Malagasy began on the slave ship Meermin, leading to the ship's destruction on Cape Agulhas in present-day South Africa and the recapture of the instigators.
• 1814 – War of the Sixth Coalition: French troops led by Napoleon forced the Army of Bohemia to retreat after it advanced dangerously close to Paris.
• 1878 – Competition between two merchants in Lincoln County, New Mexico Territory, U.S., turned into a range war when a member of one faction was murdered by the other.
• 1942 – World War II: The Imperial Japanese Army began the systematic extermination of perceived hostile elements among Chinese Singaporeans.
• 1943 – Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister, delivered a speech calling for a "total war" to motivate the German people when the tide of World War II was turning against Germany.
• 1977 – NASA's first Space Shuttle, Enterprise, made its first test flight atop the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.
• 2001 – American FBI agent Robert Hanssen was arrested for having spied for the KGB and GRU over a 22-year period.
• 2001 – Inter-ethnic violence between Dayaks and Madurese broke out in Sampit, Indonesia, that ultimately resultrf in more than 500 deaths and 100,000 Madurese displaced from their homes.
• 2007 – Terrorist bombs exploded on the Samjhauta Express train in Panipat, Haryana, India, killing 68 people.
• 2010 – WikiLeaks published the first of hundreds of thousands of classified documents disclosed by Chelsea Manning.
• 2013 – Eight gunmen stole approximately US$50,000,000 worth of diamonds from a Swiss-bound aircraft at Brussels Airport, Belgium.
• Born/died this day: Francesco Redi (b. 1626) · William Phips (d. 1695) · Kristijonas Donelaitis (d. 1780) · Swraj Paul, Baron Paul (b. 1931) · Bobby Robson (b. 1933) · J. Robert Oppenheimer (d. 1967) ·

Notes

• Battle of Mormant appears on February 17, so Battle of Montereau should not appear in the same year

February 18

Vasil Levski

• 1637 – Eighty Years' War: Off the coast of Cornwall, a Spanish fleet intercepted an Anglo-Dutch merchant convoy of forty-four vessels escorted by six men-of-war, destroying or capturing twenty ships.
• 1781 – Fourth Anglo-Dutch War: A British expedition against Dutch colonial outposts on the Gold Coast of Africa landed in Elmina in present-day Ghana.
• 1873 – Vasil Levski (pictured), a national hero of Bulgaria, was executed in Sofia by the Ottoman authorities for his efforts to establish an independent Bulgarian republic.
• 1946 – President Harry S. Truman signed the Rescission Act, annulling benefits payable to Filipino troops who fought for the U.S. during World War II.
• 2010 – In a coup d'état, military rebels attacked the presidential palace in Niamey, Niger, and replaced President Mamadou Tandja with a ruling junta, the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy.

Angilbert (d. 814) · Joseph Marie Terray (d. 1778) · Toni Morrison (b. 1931)

More anniversaries:

• February 17
• February 18
• February 19