Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/February 18

This is a list of selected February 18 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.

Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.

To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.

← February 17	February 19 →

Staging area

Images

Use only ONE image at a time

• 
  Relief showing Pajol leading a cavalry charge in the Battle of Montereau
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  King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy
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  Victor Emanuel II of Italy. 5 silver lire
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  Royal Swedish Dramatic Theatre
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  Joseph Goebbels
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  Chelsea Manning
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  Vasil Levski
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  Robert Hanssen

Ineligible

Blurb	Reason
Independence Day in The Gambia (1965)	refimprove section
1861 – With Italian unification almost complete, Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont, Savoy and Sardinia assumed the title King of Italy.	needs more footnotes
1908 – The Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, Sweden's national stage for "spoken drama", opened with playwright August Strindberg's play Master Olof.	refimprove
1911 – The first official flight with airmail took place when pilot Henri Pequet carried 6,500 letters from Allahabad to Naini, British India, about 13 kilometres (8 mi) away.	refimprove
1932 – The Empire of Japan established Manchukuo, a puppet state in northeastern China during the Sino-Japanese War.	lots of CN tags (23)
1942 – World War II: The Imperial Japanese Army began the systematic extermination of perceived hostile elements among Chinese Singaporeans.	Too much uncited
1946 – Sailors of the Royal Indian Navy began a total strike on board ship and shore establishments at Bombay harbour that grew into a mutiny involving over 10,000 sailors	unreferenced section
1954 – The Church of Scientology, the largest organization devoted to the practice and the promotion of the Scientology belief system, was incorporated in Los Angeles.	refimprove sections
1970 – An American jury acquitted the "Chicago Seven" of conspiracy and inciting riots stemming from protests during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.	refimprove section
2003 – An arsonist started a fire aboard a Daegu Metropolitan Subway train in Daegu, South Korea, killing almost two hundred passengers.	needs more footnotes
2007 – Terrorists detonated bombs on a Samjhauta Express train in Panipat, India, killing 70 people.	Article states 70 people killed though cited to two different sources that say 66 and 68 dead and a dead link

Eligible

• 1268 – The Battle of Wesenberg took place between Novgorodian and Pskovian forces against the Livonian Order and its allies, ending with Russian forces retreating from Danish Estonia.
• 1637 – Eighty Years' War: Off the coast of Cornwall, a Spanish fleet intercepted an Anglo-Dutch merchant convoy of forty-four vessels escorted by six men-of-war, destroying or capturing twenty ships.
• 1766 – Enslaved Malagasy captives on the Dutch East India Company slave ship Meermin began a mutiny that led to the ship's destruction on Cape Agulhas in present-day South Africa and the recapture of the instigators.
• 1781 – Fourth Anglo-Dutch War: A British expedition against Dutch colonial outposts on the Gold Coast of Africa landed in Elmina in present-day Ghana.
• 1873 – Vasil Levski, a national hero of Bulgaria, was executed in Sofia by the Ottoman authorities for his efforts to establish an independent Bulgarian republic.
• 1878 – Competition between two American merchants in Lincoln County, New Mexico Territory, turned into a range war when a member of one faction was murdered by the other.
• 1943 – Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, delivered a speech calling for a "total war" to motivate the German people as the tide of World War II turned against Germany.

• 1943 – The core members of the White Rose, an anti-Nazi resistance group, were arrested by the Gestapo.
• 1946 – President Harry S. Truman signed the Rescission Act, annulling benefits payable to Filipino troops who fought for the U.S. during World War II.
• 1977 – NASA's first Space Shuttle, Enterprise, made its first test flight on top of the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (both pictured).
• 2001 – American FBI agent Robert Hanssen (pictured) was arrested for having spied for the KGB and GRU over a 22-year period.
• 2001 – Inter-ethnic violence between the Dayak and the Madurese broke out in Sampit, Indonesia, ultimately causing more than 500 deaths and the displacement of 100,000 Madurese from their homes.
• 2010 – In a coup d'état, military rebels attacked the presidential palace in Niamey, Niger, and replaced President Mamadou Tandja with a ruling junta, the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy.
• 2010 – WikiLeaks published the first of hundreds of thousands of classified documents disclosed by Chelsea Manning.
• 2013 – Eight gunmen stole US$50,000,000 worth of diamonds from a Swiss-bound aircraft at Brussels Airport.
• 2019 – Seven members of Parliament in the United Kingdom resigned from the Labour Party to form a new political party called The Independent Group.
• Born/died this day: | Michelangelo |d|1564| Michelangelo Cerquozzi |b|1602| Francesco Redi |b|1626| William Phips |d|1695| Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici |d|1743| Joseph Marie Terray |d|1778| Kristijonas Donelaitis |d|1780| George Henschel |b|1850| Ho Yuen Hoe |b|1908| Swraj Paul, Baron Paul |b|1931| Toni Morrison |b|1931| Bobby Robson |b|1933| Sergo Ordzhonikidze |d|1937| Bidzina Ivanishvili |b|1956

Notes

• Fall of Singapore appears on February 15, so Sook Ching should not appear in the same year
• Battle of Mormant appears on February 17, so Battle of Montereau should not appear in the same year

February 18

Protesters during the Revolution of Dignity

• 3102 BCE – According to Hindu scriptures, Kali Yuga, the last of the four stages that the world goes through as part of the cycle of yugas, began.
• 1814 – War of the Sixth Coalition: French troops led by Napoleon forced the Army of Bohemia to retreat after it advanced dangerously close to Paris.
• 1977 – The Xinjiang 61st Regiment Farm fire started during Chinese New Year when a firecracker ignited the wreaths of late Mao Zedong, killing 694 personnel.
• 2014 – A series of violent events (pictured) involving protesters, riot police, and unknown shooters began in Kyiv that culminated in the ousting of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych five days later.

• Angilbert (d. 814)
• Per Brahe the Younger (b. 1602)
• Ōyama Sutematsu (d. 1919)
• J. Robert Oppenheimer (d. 1967)

More anniversaries:

• February 17
• February 18
• February 19