On This Day in History, January 18
The 2024 History Channel 365 Day Calendar
1882: A. A. Milne is born
On January 18, 1882, A. A. Milne, creator of Winnie-the-Pooh, was born. The youngest of three sons born to schoolteacher parents, Milne taught himself to read at age two. He began writing humorous pieces as a schoolboy and continued to do so at Cambridge, where he edited the undergraduate paper. In 1903, he left Cambridge and went to London to write. In 1913, he married his wife, Daphne, and two years later went to France to serve in World War I. While in the military, he wrote three plays, one of which, Mr. Pim Passes By, became a hit in 1919 and provided financial security for the family. In 1920, the couple's only son, Christopher Robin, was born. In 1925, the family bought Cotchford Farm in Sussex. A nearby forest inspired the Hundred Acre Wood where Winnie-the-Pooh's adventures would be set. Milne published two volumes of the verse he wrote for his son. When We Were Very Young was published in 1924, followed by Now We Are Six in 1927.
The 2023 History Channel 365 Day Calendar
1803 – Thomas Jefferson seeks funds for Lewis and Clark Expedition
On January 18, 1803, President Thomas Jefferson sent a confident message to Congress asking for money to fund the exploration of the Far West of the North American continent. Jefferson had long want to mount such an expedition, and that determination flowered when became president in 1801.
In the summer of 1802, Jefferson asked personal secretary, Meriwether Lewis, to draw up a budget for the journey. Lewis, an army captain who would later lead the venture, estimated would cost $2,500. He based that number on what he thought it would cost to support one officer and ten men.
In the end, he decided to include another officer, William Clark, who had served with Lewis on the front and mustered out as a captain. Although there was some opposition, Congress approved the $2,500 appropriation for the Corps of Discovery Expedition, now known as the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
The 2024 History Channel Military History 365 Day Calendar
1919: Paris Peace Conference opens
On January 18, 1919, representatives from more than two dozen countries convened in Paris to begin negotiations for a lasting peace treaty to formally end World War I.
The Paris Peace Conference brought together seventy delegates, with the four most powerful being British prime minister David Lloyd George, U.S. president Woodrow Wilson, French premier Georges Clemenceau, and Italian premier Vittorio Orlando.
The three European nations had fought together for the first years of the war while the United States, which entered in 1917, was considered an associate power and was not bound to honor existing agreements between the other Allied powers, primarily those concerning postwar territories.
Russia, though initially an Allied power, had pulled out of the war in 1917 and was not involved in negotiations, as the Allied powers refused to recognize the new Bolshevik government.
The defeated countries of Germany, the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, what would become Turkey, and Bulgaria were also excluded. Discussions and negotiations continued for six months until the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919.
Encyclopedia Britanica
Featured Event
1871 - German Empire established
Other Events
1911 - The first aircraft landing on a ship's flight deck was performed by American pilot Eugene Ely on the battleship Pennsylvania in San Francisco Bay.
1912 - British explorer Robert Falcon Scott and four members of his expedition reached the South Pole, only to discover that Roald Amundsen had preceded them by a month; Scott and his men subsequently died trying to return to their base camp.
NB: Feels like deja vu adding some of these events to the list. While compiling, it makes one thing they have made a mistake about which events happened on which day. While human error does occur, the more likely explanation is that many events occurred over many days, and so, we’re only getting a piece of the story each day.1943 - To save on the costs of labour and equipment, the United States banned the sale of presliced bread during World War II.
NB: Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “best thing since sliced bread.1958 - Willie O'Ree became the first Black athlete to play in a National Hockey League game when he debuted with the Boston Bruins against the Montreal Canadiens.
1967 - American criminal Albert DeSalvo, the self-confessed serial killer known as the Boston Strangler, was convicted of sexual assault and various other crimes and sentenced to life; although believed to have killed at least 11 women, he was never tried for murder due to a lack of evidence.
1983 - The International Olympic Committee officially reinstated the gold medals of American athlete Jim Thorpe, who had won the decathlon and the pentathlon at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm but was later deprived of his medals over allegations that he was not an amateur athlete.
2002 - The civil war in Sierra Leone was officially declared over; more than 50,000 people were estimated to have died in the fighting and some 2,000,000 were displaced.
Born on this Day
1689 - Montesquieu
1782 - Daniel Webster
1880 - Paul Ehrenfest (NB: Ehrenfest features in one of the finest openings of a book I know of)
1892 - Oliver Hardy
1904 - Cary Grant
1913 - Danny Kaye
1955 - Kevin Costner
1960 - Mark Rylance
Died on this Day
1862 - John Tyler
1936 - Rudyard Kipling
2011 - R. Sargent Shriver (first director (1961–66) of the U.S. Peace Corps)
Events
1871 – A number of previously independent states united to form the German Empire, with Wilhelm I as emperor.
1951 – Construction began of the United Nations Military Cemetery, the only United Nations cemetery in the world, in Busan, South Korea.
The Book of This Day in History
1778 - Captain James Cook arrives in the Hawaiian Islands
Cook was the first European to reach the islands, and he names the archipelago the "Sandwich Islands in honor of the Fourth Earl of Sandwich.
1788 - The first ships carrying convicts arrive in Australia
The first shipment of 736 convicts arrived in Botany Bay to found a penal colony that would become Sydney, Australia. Over the next ninety years, about 160,000 convicts were transported to Botany Bay and other penal colonies in Australia. Convicts were sent to Australia both for petty crimes such as theft and as political prisoners who had participated in rebellions or riots.
Some managed to escape the penal colonies. Notable escapees included Mary Bryant, who with a group of others made her way to West Timor 5,000 miles away by rowboat, and William Backley who escaped and lived among Indigenous communities.
Once they completed their sentences, most convicts joined the colonies of free settlers rather than return to Britain. Although there was stigma associated with being descended from a convict through the nineteenth century, these attitudes evolved over time, and eventually became a source of pride for many Australians.
1815 - The Battle of New Orleans ends nearly three weeks after the War of 1812
Although the Treaty of Ghent had been signed on December 24th, 1814, news of the armistice had not yet reached the combatants. During the battle, Major General Andrew Jackson commanded a force of fewer than five thousand combatants who held out against an army three times as large and supported by sixty British ships. The Battle made Jackson famous in the United States and helped launch his political career, which would culminate in his election as President.
1896 - The X-ray machine is unveiled.
H.L. Smith displayed an X-ray machine to the public, along with an image made by Wilhelm Rontgen of his wife's hand, which showed her wedding ring and bones.
1943 - The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins
When Nazi soldiers began deporting Jewish residents of the Warsaw Ghetto, hundreds of residents fought back using handguns, Molotov cocktails, and in hand-to-hand combat. The resistance fighters suffered heavy casualties but managed to temporarily hait the deportation from proceeding.
1974: The Yom Kippur War ends
Although Egypt and Israel had signed a cease-fire agreement in October of 1973, skirmishes continued along the Sinai peninsula until the two sides agreed to withdraw their forces from the battle lines.
2005 - The Airbus A380 is unveiled in Paris, France
The commercial jet is the world's largest passenger airliner. It is a wide-body, double-decker plane that can carry up to 853 passengers.
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