September 18
1759 The French formally surrender Quebec to the British.
1810 Chile declares independence.
1860 Italian troops under Count Camillo Cavour defeat Papal forces at Castelfidardo.
1913 Bulgaria and Turkey sign a treaty settling their frontiers in Thrace.
1927 The Columbia Phonograph Broadcasting System (later CBS) debuts in the United States with a network of 16 radio stations.
1932 King Bin Saud unifies the dual kingdom of the Hejaz and Najd under the name Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
1947 The US National Security Act, unifying the Navy, Army and newly formed Air Force goes into effect.
1955 Hurricane Hilda strikes in the central and northern Gulf Coast area of Mexico killing 166 people.
1961 UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold dies in a mysterious plane crash in Africa.
1964 King Constantine II of Greece marries Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark.
1967 The Brazilian football team Esporte Clube Santo Andre is founded.
1973 East Germany, West Germany and the Bahamas are admitted to United Nations.
1982 Hundreds of Palestinians are massacred at the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila.
1983 British adventurer George Meegan finishes a six-year long walk from the southernmost tip of South America to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, covering 30,605 kilometres.
1984 American Joe Kittinger, ending the first solo balloon crossing of the Atlantic, crash lands near Savona in northern Italy.
1986 French military attache Colonel Christian Goutierre is shot dead in east Beirut.
1988 Burma’s military commander San Maung overthrows Burma’s civilian President Maung Maung in coup.
1996 lija Izetbegovic, narrowly defeats one of his Serb nationalist foes to become the head of a peacetime collective presidency.
1997 Suspected militants attacks a tourist bus in downtown Cairo, Egypt, killing 10 people.
2006 The world’s first female space tourist Anousheh Ansari blasting off with two professional astronauts into orbit.
2008 Somchai Wongsawat is inaugurated as Thailand’s prime minister.
2010 Quadruple amputee Philippe Croizon, a 42 year old Frenchman, swims the English channel in 13 and a half hours.
2013 A double-decker bus collide with a passenger train in Ottawa, Canada, ripping off the front of the bus and killing six people.
2015 Taliban gunmen attack Pakistan air force base in Badaber near Peshawar, killing 42 people.
2016 Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg wins Singapore Grand Prix.
HIGHLIGHT
1997
Historic vote in Wales
The people of Wales voted in a referendum on plans to establish a Welsh assembly in Cardiff — a week after Scotland voted ‘yes’ for devolution. Among early voters were Welsh Secretary Ron Davies and his wife Christina (above), who cast their votes in a polling station in a caravan in their home village of Draethen, near Caerphilly, South Wales. Nearly 2.25 million people were eligible to vote. They had to choose one option — whether they agreed or disagreed that there should be a Welsh Assembly. A turnout below 50 per cent, even if the electorate voted ‘yes’, would be an embarrassment for the government. Britain’s government urged the people of Wales to “go for it” and endorse its historic plans to set up a devolved Welsh parliament after four centuries of direct rule. “As the campaign for a ‘yes’ vote moves into the home straight, I am urging the people of Wales to go for it,” said Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott on the campaign trail in Newport, South Wales.
