Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/August 18

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 articleorpicture 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.

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  Marguerite de Valois
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  Royal Australian Air Force helicopter
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  Pierre Jules Janssen
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  Helium atom nucleus
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  Phobos

• 684 – Second Fitna: Umayyad partisans defeated the supporters of Ibn al-Zubayr and cemented Umayyad control of Syria.
• 1487 – Reconquista: After a four-month siege, the Catholic Monarchs conquered the city of Málaga from the Muslims.
• 1783 – An unusually bright meteor procession blazed across the night sky over Great Britain.
• 1864 – American Civil War: At the Battle of Globe Tavern, Union forces attempted to sever the Weldon Railroad during the Siege of Petersburg.
• 1877 – Asaph Hall discovered Phobos, the larger of Mars' two moons, six days after discovering Deimos, the other one.
• 1891 – A hurricane struck Martinique, killing about 700 people, injuring at least 1,000 others, and obliterating houses, trees, and crops across the entire island.
• 1948 – Australia completeda4–0 Ashes series win, earning them the nickname of "The Invincibles" for being the first team in Test cricket history to play an entire tour of England without losing a match.
• 1966 – Vietnam War: Members from D Company of the 6th Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment were surrounded and attacked on all sides by a much larger Viet Cong unit at the Battle of Long Tan (RAAF helicopter pictured), but held them off for several hours until reinforcements arrived.
• 1983 – Hurricane Alicia made landfall near Galveston, Texas, US, causing $2.6 billion in damages and 21 deaths.
• 1989 – Leading Colombian presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán was assassinated during a public demonstration in the town of Soacha, Cundinamarca.

• Deimos (moon) appears on August 12, so Phobos should not appear in the same year

August 18: Long Tan Day in Australia (1966)

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony

• 1590 – On the third birthday of his granddaughter Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the Americas, John White, governor of the Roanoke Colony in present-day North Carolina, US, returned from England only to find the settlement deserted.
• 1612 – The trials of the Pendle and Samlesbury witches, among the most famous of England's witch trials, began at the assizesinLancaster.
• 1868 – Astronomer Pierre Janssen discovered helium while analyzing the chromosphere of the sun during a total solar eclipseinGuntur, India.
• 1920 – The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (authors Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony pictured) was ratified, guaranteeing women's suffrage in America.
• 1976 – North Korean soldiers killed two American soldiers in the Joint Security Area of the Korean Demilitarized Zone, heightening tensions over a 100-foot (30 m) poplar tree that blocked the line of sight between a United Nations Command checkpoint and an observation post.