Historical Events on January 18.

1.   1778, 18th January: Captain James Cook became the first European to reach the Hawaiian Islands.

2.  1896, 18th January: First exposure to the X-ray machine.

3.  1911, 18th January: Eugene B. Ilay landed on the USS Pennsylvania, anchored in the port of San Francisco. It was the first time a plane had landed on a ship.

4.  1919, 18th January: Establishment of Bentley Motors Limited.

5.  1951, 18th January: First lie machine used in the Netherlands.

6.  1959, 18th January: Meera Ben (Madeline Slade), an aide of Mahatma Gandhi, left India.

7.  1964, 18th January: Inauguration of the World Trade Center building in New York.

8.  1974, 18th January: A peace treaty signed between Egypt and Israel.

9.  1997, 18th January: Norway’s Borg Ausland crosses the Atlantic Ocean alone.

10.  1997, 18th January: Nafisa Joseph became Miss India.

11.  1998, 18th January: Madan Mohan Poonchi became the 28th Chief Justice of India.

12.  1999, 18th January: Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen awarded the Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian honor of India.

13.  2002, 18th January: The US agreed to provide state-of-the-art weapons to India.

14.  2005, 18th January: The world’s largest passenger plane, the Airbus A380, was unveiled.

Famous Birthdays & Birth Anniversaries on January 18.

1.   1689: Montesquieu, a French judge, the man of letters, and political philosopher.

2.  1842: Mahadev Govind Ranade, an Indian scholar, social reformer, judge, and author.

3.  1854: Thomas A. Watson, an assistant to Alexander Graham Bell, notably in the invention of the telephone.

4.  1882: A. A. Milne, an English author.

5.  1892: Oliver Hardy, an American comic actor and one half of Laurel and Hardy.

6.  1969: Dave Bautista, an American actor, retired professional wrestler, former mixed martial artist, and bodybuilder.

7.  1933: Ray Dolby, an American engineer, and inventor of the noise reduction system known as Dolby NR.

8.  1937: John Hume, an Irish nationalist politician from Northern Ireland.

9.  1952: Veerappan, an Indian bandit.

10.  1966: Alexander Khalifman, a Russian chess player and writer.

11.  1972: Vinod Kambli, a former Indian cricketer.

Death Anniversaries of famous people on January 18.

1.   1936: Rudyard Kipling, an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist.

2.  1947: K. L. Saigal, an Indian singer, and actor.

3.  1955: Saadat Hasan Manto, a colonial Indian and Pakistani writer, playwright, and author.

4.  1971: Nath Pai, an Indian freedom fighter, Barrister, and Member of Parliament.

5.  1993: Wasif Ali Wasif, a teacher, writer, poet, and Sufi intellectual from Pakistan.

6.  1996: N. T. Rama Rao, popularly known as NTR, an Indian actor, producer, director, film editor, politician, and the former Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh.

7.  2003: Harivansh Rai Bachchan, an Indian poet of the Nayi Kavita literary movement of early 20th century Hindi literature.