Welcome to Today In History for Sunday, January 18, 2026.

On this day in history...

• 0336 - St Mark elected Catholic Pope
• 0350 - General Maxentius drives out Western Roman emperor Constans
• 0532 - Nika uprising at Constantinople fails, 30-40,000 die
• 1307 - German king Albrecht I makes his son Rudolf king of Bohemia
• 1478 - Grand Duke Ivan II of Moscow occupies Novgorod
• 1486 - King Henry VII of England marries Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV
• 1520 - Christian II of Denmark & Norway defeats Swedes at Lake Asunde
• 1535 - Francisco Pizarro founds Lima Peru
• 1644 - 1st UFO sighting in America, by perplexed pilgrims in Boston
• 1644 - Perplexed Pilgrims in Boston reported America's 1st UFO sighting
• 1650 - French Prince Louis II of Cond‚ captured
• 1671 - Pirate Henry Morgan defeats Spanish defenders, captures Panam 
• 1691 - English king Willem III travels to The Hague
• 1701 - Frederik I/Sophie Charlotte van Hanover crowned king/queen of Prussia
• 1733 - 1st polar bear exhibited in America (Boston)
• 1777 - San Jose California, founded
• 1778 - Capt James Cook stumbles over Sandwich Islands (Hawaiian Islands)
• 1788 - English settlers arrive in Aust's Botany Bay to setup penal colony
• 1795 - French admitted to Amsterdam without resistance
• 1795 - governor/viceroy Willem V flees Scheveningen to England
• 1817 - San Mart¡n leads a revolutionary army over Andes
• 1840 - Electro-Magnetic Intelligencer, 1st US electrical journal, appears
• 1850 - British blockade Pir‘us, Greece to enforce mercantile claims
• 1854 - Filibuster William Walker proclaims Republic of Sonora in NW M‚xico
• 1862 - Confederate Territory of Arizona forms
• 1865 - Battle of Ft Moultrie, SC
• 1869 - Elegant Calif Theater opens in SF
• 1871 - 2nd German Empire proclaimed by Kaiser Wilhelm I & Bismarck
• 1884 - General Charles Gordon departs London for Khartoum
• 1895 - Amsterdam's AFC soccer team forms
• 1896 - 1st demonstration of an X-ray machine in US (NYC)
• 1896 - British troops occupy Kumasi, West Africa
• 1900 - Jan Blockx's "T˜l Uilenspiegel" premieres in Brussels
• 1901 - Pope Leo XIII publishes encyclical Graves De Communi Re
• 1905 - French govt of Combes falls
• 1908 - Frederick Delius' "Brigg Fair," premieres
• 1911 - 1st shipboard landing of a plane (Tanforan Park to USS Pennsylvania)
• 1912 - English explorer Robert F Scott & his expedition reach South Pole, only to discover that Roald Amundsen had gotten there before
• 1913 - Turkish-Greek sea battle near Troy
• 1915 - Train crashes at Colima-Guadalajara Mexico, about 600 die
• 1919 - WW I Peace Congress opens in Versailles, France
• 1921 - William Archer's "Green Goddess," premieres in NYC
• 1922 - Irish author Liam O'Flaherty & others occupy Rotunda in Dublin
• 1923 - 1st radio telegraph message from Netherlands to Dutch East Indies
• 1929 - "NY Daily Mirror" columnist Walter Winchell debuts on radio
• 1929 - Stalin proposes to ban Trotsky from the Politburo
• 1930 - -27øF (-33øC), Watts, Oklahoma (state record)
• 1930 - Shostakovitch' opera "The Nose," premieres in Leningrad
• 1933 - White Sands National Monument, NM established
• 1934 - Eugene O'Neill's "Days Without End," premieres in NYC
• 1938 - Bradman scores 104* for South Australia v NSW at the SCG
• 1938 - Pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander is elected to Hall of Fame
• 1939 - SA wicketkeeper Bradman gets his 6th straight ton, 135* v NSW
• 1942 - Nazi's arrest Frans Goedhart & Wiardi Beckman
• 1943 - Jews in Warsaw Ghetto begin resistance of Nazis
• 1943 - Presliced bread sale banned to reduce bakery demand for metal parts
• 1943 - Soviets announce they broke long Nazi siege of Leningrad
• 1943 - US rations bread & metal
• 1943 - Uprising in Warsaw ghetto
• 1944 - 1st Chinese naturalized US citizen since repeal of exclusion acts
• 1945 - Warsaw freed by Soviet army
• 1947 - "Red Mill" closes at Ziegfeld Theater NYC after 831 performances
• 1947 - Detroit Tigers sell Hank Greenberg to Pirates (for $25-35,000)
• 1947 - Small river steamer sank on Yangtze River, kills 400
• 1948 - 1st courses begin at University of Ibadan, Nigeria
• 1948 - Ted Mack's "Original Amateur Hour" begins, DuMont (later NBC/ABC/CBS)
• 1949 - "They Stand Accused" courtroom drama premieres on CBS (later DuMont)
• 1949 - 1st US Congressional standing committee headed by Negro (W Dawson)
• 1949 - South African Rev Andries P Treurnicht marries Engela Dreyer
• 1950 - Christopher Fry's "Venus Observed," premieres in London
• 1950 - Indians pitcher Bob Feller, after 15-14 season, takes $20,000 salary cut to $45,000, pay cut is Feller's own suggestion
• 1951 - 1st use of lie detector in Netherlands
• 1951 - Hermann Flake sentenced to death due to "hate campaign against GDR"
• 1951 - NFL rules tackles, guards & centers ineligible for forward pass
• 1951 - NFL takes control of failing Baltimore Colts
• 1953 - Louise Suggs wins LPGA Tampa Golf Open
• 1954 - Fanfani forms Italian govt
• 1956 - German DR forms own army (National People's Army)
• 1957 - 3 B-52's set record for around-the-world flight, 45 hr 19 min
• 1958 - 1st black in NHL (William O'Ree, Boston Bruins)
• 1959 - Ruth Jessen wins LPGA Tampa Golf Open
• 1960 - US & Japan sign joint defense treaty
• 1961 - Zanzibar's Afro-Shirazi party wins 1 seat by a single vote & parliament by a single seat
• 1962 - Southern University closed due to demonstrations
• 1962 - US begins spraying foliage in Vietnam to reveal Viet Cong guerrillas
• 1962 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
• 1963 - Reinier Paping wins Dutch 11-Cities Skating Race (10:59)
• 1964 - Beatles 1st appear on Billboard Chart (I Want to Hold Your Hand-#35)
• 1964 - Plans for World Trade Center announced (NYC)
• 1965 - H L de Vries appointed Dutch governor of Suriname
• 1966 - Robert C Weaver, confirmed as 1st black cabinet member (HUD)
• 1967 - 20th NHL All-Star Game: Montreal beat All-Stars 3-0 at Montreal
• 1967 - Albert DeSalvo (Boston Strangler) sentenced to life in prison
• 1967 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
• 1967 - Yellowknife replaces Ottawa as capital of NW Territories, Canada
• 1968 - "Happy Time" opens at Broadway Theater NYC for 286 performances
• 1968 - Hester & Appolinar's musical "Your Own Thing," premieres in NYC
• 1968 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
• 1969 - Expanded 4 party Vietnam peace talks began in Paris
• 1970 - Hasse B”rjes skates world record 500m in 38.9 sec
• 1970 - NFL Pro Bowl: West beats East 16-13
• 1971 - Ivan Koloff beats Bruno Sammartino in NY, to become WWF champ
• 1973 - Boston Red Sox sign Orlando Cepeda as 1st player signed as a DH
• 1973 - Islanders break 12 game losing streak, 20 game road winless streak
• 1973 - John Cleese's final episode on "Monty Python's Flying Circus," on BBC
• 1974 - "$6 Million Man" starring Lee Majors premieres on ABC TV
• 1974 - Israel & Egypt sign weapons accord
• 1975 - "Jeffersons" spinoff from "All in the Family" premieres on CBS
• 1976 - Superbowl X: Pitts Steelers beat Dallas Cowboys, 21-17 in Miami Superbowl MVP: Lynn Swann, Pittsburgh, WR
• 1977 - Imran Khan takes 12 wickets in match for Pakistan win at the SCG
• 1978 - Geoff Boycott captains England for the 1st time, v Pak Karachi
• 1978 - Roof of 3-yr-old Civic Center in Hartford, Ct collapses (no injuries)
• 1978 - Thiokol conducts 2nd test firing of space shuttle's SRB
• 1979 - Peter Jenkins finishes "A Walk Across America," Florence Oregon
• 1980 - Gold reaches $1,000 an oz
• 1980 - Pink Floyd's "Wall" hits #1
• 1980 - Studio 54 owners Steve Rubell & Ian Schrager sentenced to 3« years in prison for tax evasion & fined $20,000
• 1981 - Iran accepts US offer of $7.9 billion in frozen assets
• 1981 - Wendy O Williams arrested in Milwaukee for on-stage obscenity
• 1983 - IOC restores Jim Thorpe's Olympic medals 70 years after they were taken from him for being paid $25 in semipro baseball
• 1984 - 80th Islander & 3rd dual hat trick (Carroll & Bossy) 9-1 win
• 1985 - US renounces jurisdiction of World Court despite previous promise
• 1986 - 24th Space Shuttle (61-C) Mission-Columbia 7-returns to Earth
• 1986 - AIDS charity record "That's What Friends are For," hits #1
• 1986 - NY Lotto pays $30.5 million to one winner (#s are 19-20-27-34-41-46)
• 1987 - 11th Soap Opera Digest Poll Awards - Days of Our Live wins
• 1988 - Airliner crashes in SW China, killing all 108 on board
• 1989 - Astronomers discover pulsar in remnants of Supernova 1987A (LMC)
• 1989 - Candace Thomas marries Steve Garvey
• 1989 - IBM announces earnings up 10.4% in 1988
• 1989 - Otis Redding, Dion, Rolling Stones, Temptations & Stevie Wonder
• 1989 - West Indies beat Australia 2-1 to win the World Series Cup
• 1990 - South Africa says its reconsidering ban on African Natl Congress
• 1990 - Wash DC, Mayor Marion Barry arrested in drug enforcement sting
• 1991 - Iraq launches SCUD missiles against Israel
• 1991 - US acknowledges CIA & US Army paid Noriega $320,000 over his career
• 1991 - WLAF's NY Knights become NY-NJ Knights
• 1991 - Longest tennis match at the Australian Open, Boris Becker beats Italy's Omar Camporese in 5 hours & 11 mins
• 1992 - 43rd NHL All-Star Game: Campbell beat Wales 10-6 at Phila
• 1992 - 49th Golden Globes
• 1992 - Actress Joan Chen (Twin Peaks) marries Dr Peter Hui
• 1992 - Comedian Pat McCormick injured in a car accident
• 1992 - NHL All Star Game - Campbell-10, Wales-6 (Brett Hull, MVP) at Phila
• 1993 - Martin Luther King Jr holiday observed in all 50 states for 1st time
• 1993 - West Indies win the World Series Cup, beating Australia 2-0
• 1995 - Kumble takes 16-99 in match for Karnataka v Kerala
• 1995 - Pope John Paul II begins visit to Australia
• 1996 - Baseball owners unanimously approve interleague play in 1997
• 1996 - Lisa Marie Presley filed for divorce from Michael Jackson in NY
• 1997 - 47th NHL All-Star Game: East beat West 11-7 at San Jose Arena
• 1998 - "Ragtime," opens at Ford Theater NYC
• 1998 - 48th NHL All-Star Game: North America beats World 8-7 at Vancouver
• 1998 - 55th Golden Globes Awards
• 1998 - ABL All-Star Game at Disney complex in Orlando
• 1998 - Boston Celtics retire Robert Parrish's #00
• 1998 - Kelly Robbins wins Healthsouth Golf Inaugural
• 1998 - UCP Telethon