---

There are many events that happened on this date in history. Here are just a few of them!

February 18 is the 49th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 316 days remain until the end of the year (317 in leap years).

EVENTS

1478 – George, Duke of Clarence, convicted of treason against his older brother Edward IV of England, is executed in private at the Tower of London.

1735 – The ballad opera called Flora, or Hob in the Well went down in history as the first opera of any kind to be produced in North America (Charleston, S.C.)

1781 – Fourth Anglo-Dutch War: Captain Thomas Shirley opens his expedition against Dutch colonial outposts on the Gold Coast of Africa (present-day Ghana).

1791 – Congress passes a law admitting the state of Vermont to the Union, effective 4 March, after that state had existed for 14 years as a de facto independent largely unrecognized state.

1861 – In Montgomery, Alabama, Jefferson Davis is inaugurated as the provisional President of the Confederate States of America.

1878 – John Tunstall is murdered by outlaw Jesse Evans, sparking the Lincoln County War in Lincoln County, New Mexico.

1885 – Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is published in the United States.

1930 – While studying photographs taken in January, Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto.

1930 – Elm Farm Ollie becomes the first cow to fly in a fixed-wing aircraft and also the first cow to be milked in an aircraft.

1954 – The first Church of Scientology is established in Los Angeles.

1970 – The Chicago Seven are found not guilty of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

1972 – The California Supreme Court in the case of People v. Anderson, (6 Cal.3d 628) invalidates the state's death penalty and commutes the sentences of all death row inmates to life imprisonment.

1977 – The Space Shuttle Enterprise test vehicle is carried on its maiden "flight" on top of a Boeing 747.

1979 – Richard Petty wins a then-record sixth Daytona 500 after leaders Donnie Allison and Cale Yarborough crash on the final lap of the first NASCAR race televised live flag-to-flag.

2001 – FBI agent Robert Hanssen is arrested for spying for the Soviet Union. He is ultimately convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.

2010 – WikiLeaks publishes the first of hundreds of thousands of classified documents disclosed by the soldier now known as Chelsea Manning.

2013 – Armed robbers steal a haul of diamonds worth $50 million during a raid at Brussels Airport in Belgium.

2021 – Perseverance, a Mars rover designed to explore Jezero crater on Mars, as part of NASA's Mars 2020 mission, lands successfully.

BIRTHS

1516 – Mary I of England (d. 1558)

1745 – Alessandro Volta, Italian physicist, invented the battery (d. 1827)

1754 – Emanuel Granberg, Finnish church painter (d. 1797)

1814 – Samuel Fenton Cary, American lawyer and politician (d. 1900)

1817 – Lewis Armistead, American general (d. 1863)

1848 – Louis Comfort Tiffany, American stained glass artist (d. 1933)

1862 – Charles M. Schwab, American businessman, co-founded Bethlehem Steel (d. 1939)

1890 – Edward Arnold, American actor (d. 1956)

1890 – Adolphe Menjou, American actor (d. 1963)

1892 – Wendell Willkie, American captain, lawyer, and politician (d. 1944)

1914 – Pee Wee King, American singer-songwriter and fiddler (d. 2000)

1919 – Jack Palance, American boxer and actor (d. 2006)

1922 – Helen Gurley Brown, American journalist and author (d. 2012)

1925 – George Kennedy, American actor (d. 2016)

1950 – Cybill Shepherd, American actress

1952 – Juice Newton, American singer-songwriter and guitarist

1954 – John Travolta, American actor, singer and producer

1957 – Vanna White, American television personality

1964 – Matt Dillon, American actor

1965 – Dr. Dre, American rapper, record producer, and entrepreneur

1968 – Molly Ringwald, American actress

DEATHS

1546 – Martin Luther, German priest and theologian, leader of the Protestant Reformation (b. 1483)

1564 – Michelangelo, Italian sculptor and painter (b. 1475)

1695 – William Phips, governor of Massachusetts (b. 1650)

1712 – Louis, Dauphin of France, (b. 1682)

1977 – Andy Devine, American actor (b. 1905)

2001 – Dale Earnhardt, American racer and NASCAR seven times champion (b. 1951)

---

---