Two people were fatally stabbed and eight others wounded by a rejected asylum seeker in an Islamist terrorist attack in Turku, Finland.
18 August 2123
A Wednesday in history
Weekday
Wednesday
Season
Summer (N. Hemisphere)
Century
22nd century
Records
366
- 2017
2008Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf resigned under pressure from a movement to impeach him.
1983Hurricane Alicia made landfall near Galveston, Texas, causing $3 billion in damage and 21 fatalities.
1966Vietnam War: Members of the 6th Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment were surrounded by a much larger Viet Cong unit at the Battle of Long Tan (helicopter pictured), but held them off for several hours until reinforcements arrived.
1964East German Communist Party member Hildegard Trabant was killed while attempting to cross the Berlin Wall.
1948Australia won the fifth Test of the 1948 Ashes series, becoming the first Test cricket team to go undefeated in England, earning them the nickname "The Invincibles".
1945World War II: Amid a Soviet invasion of Japanese-held Sakhalin, Japanese police massacred 18 Koreans in Kamishisuka.
1940Second World War: During the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe made an all-out effort to destroy RAF Fighter Command, with both sides combined losing more aircraft on this day than at any other point during the campaign.
1937A lightning strike started the Blackwater Fire (pictured) in Shoshone National Forest, Wyoming, consuming 1,700 acres (7 km2) of old-growth forest and killing 15 firefighters.
1920The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing women's suffrage in the country.
1919Russian Civil War: British motor torpedo boats raided the Bolshevik Baltic Fleet's home base of Kronstadt, sinking a depot ship and damaging a battleship.
1891A hurricane struck the Caribbean island of Martinique, killing about 700 people, injuring at least 1,000 others, and causing severe damage.
1877American astronomer Asaph Hall discovered Phobos, the larger of Mars's two moons, six days after discovering Deimos, the smaller one.
1864American Civil War: At the Battle of Globe Tavern, Union forces attempted to sever the Weldon Railroad during the siege of Petersburg.
1823At least 9,000 enslaved people rebelled in the British colony in Demerara-Essequibo (in present-day Guyana), demanding emancipation.
1783A meteor procession blazed across the night sky over Great Britain.
1612The trials of the Pendle and Samlesbury witches (statue pictured), among the most famous of England's witch trials, began at the assizes in Lancaster.
1590John White, governor of the Roanoke Colony, the first English settlement in North America (located in present-day North Carolina), returned after a three-year absence to find it deserted (depicted).
1487Reconquista: After a four-month siege, the Catholic Monarchs of Spain conquered the city of Málaga from the Emirate of Granada.
684Second Fitna: Umayyad partisans defeated the supporters of Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr near Damascus, cementing Umayyad control of Syria.
Photo archive
24 historic images from this day — tap to open the gallery.
What was life like?
Prices, jobs, food, music and everyday routine — the world as it felt to live in.
Sources & fact check
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