Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/July 18
- 64 – The Great Fire of Rome started among the shops around the Circus Maximus selling flammable goods, eventually destroying four of fourteen Roman districts and severely damaging seven others.
- 1863 – American Civil War: Led by Union Army Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry (pictured), the first formal African American military unit, spearheaded an assault on Fort Wagner near Charleston, South Carolina.
- 1982 – Guatemalan military forces and their paramilitary allies slaughtered over 250 Mayan campesinos in the village of Plan de Sánchez, Baja Verapaz department.
- 1995 – During the fifteenth stage of the 1995 Tour de France, Italian cyclist Fabio Casartelli suffered a fatal crash on the descent of the Col de Portet d'Aspet.
- 1996 – Paris-bound TWA Flight 800 exploded at 00:31 UTC (20:31, July 17 EDT) off the coast of Long Island, New York, killing all 230 on board.
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