Historical Events - October 18

 1386 : The oldest university in Germany, Heidelberg University was founded.

1867 : The United States took possession of Alaska after purchasing it from Russia for $7.2 million.

1879 : The Theosophical Society was established.

1906 : Depressed Class Mission established by Maharshi Vitthal Ramji Shinde.

1922 : Establishment of the British Broadcasting Corporation.

1954 : Texas Instruments announced the first transistor radio.

 1963 : Lord Home was elected as the next Prime Minister of the UK after an uproar for leadership in the Conservative Party.

1967 : Soviet Russia’s Venera-4 spacecraft lands on Venus.

1977 : 2060 – Chiron, the farthest asteroid in space, was discovered.

1989 : Communist leader Eric Honecker of East Germany was removed from his post.

2002 : Sachin Tendulkar became the first cricketer to score 20,000 runs in Tests and ODIs.

2007 : Karachi Bombing: A suicide attack on a motorcade carrying former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto killed 139 and injured 450 more. Bhutto herself was uninjured.

 

Famous Birthdays   – October 18  

1804: King Mongkut Ram (IV) of Thailand.

1861: Bharatcharya Chintamanrao Vaidya, an Indian judge, and writer.

1925: Ibrahim Alkazi, Indian theatre director, and drama teacher, and director of the National School of Drama (NSD).

1925: Ramiz Alia, the first president of Albania.

1944: Deepak Parekh, Chairman of India’s Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC).

1950: Om Puri, Indian actor.

1956: Martina Navratilova, a lawn tennis player from Czechoslovakia.

1965: Zakir Naik, founder, and chairman of the Islamic Research Foundation (IRF).

1977: Jyothika, Indian actress.

1974: Amish Tripathi, an Indian writer.

 

Death Anniversaries   – October 18

1871: Charles Babbage, English polymath, mechanical engineer, mathematician, father of the first mechanical computer.

1909: Lal Mohan Ghosh, sixteenth President of the Indian National Congress and eminent Bengali barrister.

1931: Thomas Alva Edison, American researcher, and entrepreneur.

1976: Vishwanath Satyanarayana, Indian poet, and writer.

1983: Vijay Manjrekar, Indian cricketer.

2004: Veerappan, Indian sandalwood smuggler.