- 1118 Aragon's Alfonso the Battler takes Saragossa December 18 from the Almoravid king Ali ibn-Yusuf, whose father defeated Castile's Alfonso VI in 1086
- 1271 Kublai Khan renames his empire "Yuan" ( yun), officially marking the start of the Yuan Dynasty of China.
- 1620 The Mayflower lands in present-day Plymouth, Massachusetts delivering 102 Pilgrims.
- 1642 Abel Tasman becomes first European to land in New Zealand.
- 1661 The "S.S.Elizabeth" of Burntisland lost off the English coast with the Scottish records aboard, being returned from London to which they had been taken by Oliver Cromwell.
- 1737 Antonio Stradivari, world-famous violin maker, dies in Cremona, Italy.
- 1745 Skirmish at Clifton where retreating Jacobite forces under Lord George Murray, defeated General Bland's Hanoverian troops. The last battle to be fought on English soil.
- 1774 Jews expelled from Prague, Bohemia and Moravia by Empress Maria Theresa
- 1777 First national Thanksgiving Day, commemorating Burgoyne's surrender
- 1777 The United States celebrates its first Thanksgiving, celebrating the recent victory by the Americans over General John Burgoyne in the Battle of Saratoga in October
- 1787 New Jersey becomes 3rd state to ratify constitution
- 1787 New Jersey becomes the third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
- 1793 Surrender of the frigate La Lutine by French royalists to Lord Hood; renamed HMS Lutine, she later becomes a famous treasure wreck.
- 1796 First US newspaper to appear on Sunday, Baltimore Monitor
- 1799 George Washington's body interred at Mount Vernon
- 1813 British take Fort Niagara in the War of 1812
- 1839 First celestial photograph (of the moon) made in US, John Draper, New York NY
- 1846 Copper first discovered in Western Australia.
- 1849 William Bond obtains first photograph of Moon through a telescope
- 1859 South Carolina declared an "independent commonwealth"
- 1862 The first orthopedic hospital is organized in New York City (The Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled).
- 1872 Opals first discovered in Australia, at Listowel Downs, Queensland.
- 1878 John Kehoe, the last of the Molly Maguires is executed in Pennsylvania.
- 1888 Richard Wetherill and his brother in-law discover the ancient Indian ruins of Mesa Verde.
- 1890 Frederick Lugard occupies Uganda for British East Africa Company.
- 1892 The first performance of Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker is held at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia.
- 1894 South Australian women given the vote.
- 1898 At a site near Paris, France, Count Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat sets the world's first official automobile land speed record of 39 miles per hour.
- 1898 Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat sets the new land speed record going 39.245 mph, in a Jeantaud electric car. This is the first recognized land speed record.
- 1900 The Upper Ferntree Gully to Gembrook Narrow-gauge (2 ft 6 in or 762 mm) Railway (now the Puffing Billy Railway) in Victoria, Australia is opened for traffic.
- 1912 The Piltdown Man, later discovered to be a hoax, is supposedly found today in the Piltdown Gravel Pit, by Charles Dawson.
- 1915 President Wilson, widowed the year before, marries Edith Bolling Galt
- 1915 U.S. President Woodrow Wilson marries Edith Bolling Galt Wilson.
- 1916 The Battle of Verdun (France), one of the bloodiest WWI engagements, ends after 10 months and massive losses to both sides.
- 1923 International zone of Tangier set up in Morocco
- 1935 The $1 silver certificate is issued.
- 1935 The Lanka Sama Samaja Party is founded in Ceylon.
- 1936 Giant panda imported into US
- 1939 Thousands watched from the shore as the German Pocket Battleship, Graf Spee is scuttled by her crew.
- 1940 Munitions Minister C.D.Howe and 152 other survivors of the torpedoed lines SS Western Prince arive in Britian
- 1941 Japan invades Hong Kong after British governor of Hong Kong, Mark Aitchison Young refuses to surrender to Japanese forces.
- 1944 Destroyers "Hull," "Spence" and "Monaghan" sink in typhoon (Phillippines)
- 1944 World War II: 77 B-29 Superfortress and 200 other aircraft of U.S. Fourteenth Air Force bomb Hankow, China, a Japanese supply base.
- 1945 Uruguay joins the United Nations
- 1951 Visitor posting - Deborah Ann Jones Viney is born in Eureka, California
- 1956 Japan admitted to UN
- 1957 Shippingport Atomic Power Station, first nuke plant to generate electricity
- 1957 The Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania, the first nuclear facility to generate electricity in the United States, goes online.
- 1958 First voice from space: recorded Christmas message by Eisenhower
- 1958 Niger gains autonomy within French Community (National Day)
- 1958 Project SCORE, the world's first experimental communications satellite, was launched
- 1958 Test project of Signal Communications by Orbiting Relay Equip
- 1961 India annexes Portuguese colonies of Goa, Damao and Diu
- 1961 Indonesia invades Netherlands New Guinea.
- 1962 Visitor posting - Mardy Ray Albertson is born to Rhoda and Jerold Albertson
- 1963 Muskegon, MI gets 3' of snow
- 1965 Borman and Lovell Splash down in Atlantic ends 2 week Gemini VII mission
- 1966 Saturn's moon Epimetheus is discovered by Richard L. Walker.
- 1969 Britain abolishes death penalty
- 1969 Capital punishment in the United Kingdom: Home Secretary James Callaghan's motion to make permanent the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965, which had temporarily suspended capital punishment in England, Wales and Scotland for murder (but not for all crimes) for a period of five years, is carried by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
- 1971 People United To Save Humanity (PUSH) forms by Jesse Jackson in Chic
- 1972 US began its heaviest bombing of North Vietnam
- 1973 Soviet Soyuz Programme: Soyuz 13, crewed by cosmonauts Valentin Lebedev and Pyotr Klimuk, is launched from Baikonur in the Soviet Union.
- 1973 Soyuz 13 launched into Earth orbit for 8 days
- 1974 San Francisco Visitors Center at City Hall opens
- 1979 Stanley Barrett first to exceed land sonic speed (739.666 MPH)
- 1979 Visitor posting - Joseph S. Rossi was born in Venezia Italy to Denise Marie Rossi he went on to become a Systems Engineer and will one day show the world how to lose weight the right way!
- 1980 Bruce Sprinsteen's concert at Madison Square Garden
- 1980 Visitor posting - Ann Johnson born. Pet - my cat zoe - USA [email protected]
- 1982 A large Tacoa power plant starts burning in Venezuela, eventually killing 128.
- 1982 Flight readiness firing of Challenger's main engines; 20 seconds
- 1982 Number one hit on UK music charts - Renee & Renato - Save Your Love
- 1984 Christopher Guest (Saturday Night Live) and actress Jamie Lee Curtis are married in Los Angeles.
- 1985 UN Security Council unanimously condemns "acts of hostage-taking"
- 1986 Kid Icarus is released in Japan on the NES game system.
- 1987 Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan's future pres, marries Asif Ali Zardari
- 1987 Federal Judge Morris E. Lasker sentenced Ivan Boesky,the once mighty arbitrageur to a three-year prison term
- 1987 Ivan Boesky is sentenced to three years in prison for inside trading.
- 1987 Larry Wall releases the first version of the Perl programming language.
- 1989 Visitor posting - andrew scott hines was born in springfield, IL. - USA
- 1989 "I Love Lucy" Christmas episode, shown for first time in over 30 years
- 1990 Visitor posting - Dec 18, 1990 - Kaylie Gilbault was born in Phoenix, Arizona to Kristi Baxter and George Gilbault - USA
- 1991 DeForest Kelly, who portrayed Dr. "Bones" McCoy on Star Trek, gets a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
- 1991 General Motors announces the closing of 21 plants
- 1994 Visitor posting - Mary Ellen Hudspeth`s birthday December 18, 1994
- 1995 Visitor posting - I TRISTEN was born and in the year 2014 is going to attend MSU - USA
- 1996 The Oakland, California school board passes a resolution officially declaring "Ebonics" a language or dialect.
- 1997 HTML 4.0 is published by the World Wide Web Consortium.
- 1999 NASA launches into orbit the Terra platform carrying five Earth Observation instruments, including ASTER, CERES, MISR, MODIS and MOPITT.
- 2001 Rapper NaS releases critically acclaimed album, Stillmatic, to 5 star reviews and 300 thousand copy first week sales. (UK only)
- 2001 Visitor posting - Rebekah Gross born. My pet is a cat named Zoe - USA
- 2002 2003 California recall: Then Governor of California Gray Davis announces that the state would face a record budget deficit of $35 billion, roughly double the figure reported during his reelection campaign one month earlier.
- 2005 So Paulo FC (Brazil) becomes third time World Champion against Liverpool (England) in the FIFA Club World Cup in Japan.
- 2006 Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld resigns, Robert Gates is sworn in as the new Secretary of Defense.
- 2007 Important Islamic date - Hajj (Annual Pilgrimage to Mecca) December 18 - December 21, 2007
- 2009 A Paris court rules that Google is infringing copyright, sentencing it to pay 300,000 euros in damages and interest to French publisher Editions de la Martinière, and 10,000 euros a day until it removes extracts of the books from its database.
- 2009 A large crater, dubbed the "Fried Egg" because of its shape, is discovered off the coast of The Azores in the Atlantic Ocean, prompting speculation that it may have been caused up to 17 million years ago by meteor impact.
- 2009 Visitor posting - On this date in 2009 Alan Cook married Diane VanHollebeke in Houston, TX - United Kingdom
- 2009 After 27 years, Terry Wogan presents his last edition of Wake Up to Wogan on BBC Radio 2, receiving farewell messages from Gordon Brown and David Cameron.
- 2009 Ajmal Kasab, a Pakistani citizen who was involved in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, recants his confession, claiming that police tortured him into admitting his role in the attacks.
- 2009 General Motors announces that it will begin shutting down operations at the Swedish carmaker Saab automobile.
- 2009 Important Islamic date - Islamic New Year: December 18, 2009 (1431 A.H.)
- 2009 In a reversal of a previous decision, Sir John Chilcot insists that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair will give the majority of his evidence to The Iraq Inquiry in public.
- 2009 Irish priest Father Seán Sheehy withdraws from work in his parish of Castlegregory over a controversy which followed his shaking the hand of a convicted sex offender in court days earlier. Bishop of Kerry William Murphy disassociates himself from Sheehy and his actions.
- 2009 Lava flows and ash explosions continue to emerge from Philippine volcano Mount Mayon while scientists predict a major eruption in the coming weeks and 30,000 people remain in temporary shelter.
- 2009 Russian television news channels air repeated coverage of a UFO, shaped like a pyramid and similar to an Imperial Cruiser from Star Wars.
- 2009 Snowfall across the east of England disrupts transport and power supplies.
- 2009 The Arbeit macht frei sign is stolen from Auschwitz concentration camp.
- 2009 The BBC apologises for offence caused when it used the headline: "Should homosexuals face execution?"
- 2009 The Catalan Parliament votes to ban bull fighting in the Spanish region.
- 2009 The Iraqi government demands the withdrawal of Iranian soldiers that it claims seized an oil well in Fakkah, in the Maysan Governorate in southern Iraq.
- 2009 The Islamic New Year (Muharram 1st) begins on the previous sunset.
- 2009 The Vatican dismisses Zambia's controversial Roman Catholic Church archbishop Emmanuel Milingo.
- 2009 Thirty world leaders present in Copenhagen for the United Nations Conference on Climate Change agree on a draft accord.
- 2009 Twitter, a popular micro-blogging service, temporarily goes offline after a group calling itself the "Iranian Cyber Army" manages to change its DNS records.
More historical events added daily - keep checking back