Our on this day in history archives contain over 200,000 events, birthdays and deaths from 6,000 years of history. Here is a roundup of a few of them:

July 18 is the 199th day of the year (200th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 166 days remaining until the end of the year.

EVENTS

390 BC – Battle of the Allia: A Roman army is defeated by raiding Gauls, leading to the subsequent sacking of Rome.

64 – Great fire of Rome: A fire begins to burn in the merchant area of Rome and soon burns completely out of control while Emperor Nero reportedly plays his lyre and sings while watching the blaze from a safe distance.

362 - Roman-Persian Wars: Emperor Julian arrives at Antioch with a Roman expeditionary force of around 60,000 soldiers and stays for nine months to launch a campaign against the Persian Empire.

1195 – Battle of Alarcos, great victory of Almohad ruler Abu Yusuf Ya'qub al-Mansur over the Castilian King Alfonso VIII.

1290 - King Edward I of England issues the Edict of Expulsion against all Jews in England, saying that they have to leave the country.

1334 - The Bishop of Florence blesses the first foundation stone for the new Campanile (Bell tower) of Florence Cathedral, designed by architect Giotto di Bondone.

1389 - France and England agree to the Truce of Leulinghem, beginning a 13-year peace, the longest period of continued peace during the Hundred Years' War.

1656 - Polish-Lithuanian forces clash with Sweden and its Brandenburg allies in the start of what becomes known as the Battle of Warsaw, which becomes a decisive Swedish victory.

1830 – Uruguay adopts its first constitution.

1841 - Emperor Pedro II of Brazil is crowned.

1857 - Louis Faidherbe, French Governor of Senegal, arrives to relieve French forces at Kayes, effectively ending El Hajj Umar Tall's rebellion against the French.

1863 – American Civil War: The first formal African American military unit, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, unsuccessfully assaults Confederate-held Fort Wagner but their valiant fighting still proves the worth of African American soldiers during the war.

1873 – Oscar II of Sweden-Norway is crowned king of Norway in Trondheim.

1879 - Swedish explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskiold and his ship Vega escape from Arctic pack ice and continue on their route through the Northeast Passage.

1898 – Marie and Pierre Curie announce the discovery of a new element and proposed to call it polonium.

1914 – The United States Army's Signal Corps is formed, giving definite status to its air service for the first time.

1925 – Adolf Hitler publishes his personal manifesto Mein Kampf.

1936 - An army uprising in Spanish Morocco starts the Spanish Civil War.

1942 – World War II: The Germans test fly the Messerschmitt Me-262 using only its jets for the first time.

1944 – World War II: Hideki Tojo resigns as Prime Minister of Japan due to numerous setbacks in the war effort.

1947 – President Harry S. Truman signs the Presidential Succession Act into law which places the Speaker of the House and the Senate President Pro Tempore next in the line of succession after the United States Vice President.

1966 - Human spaceflight: Gemini 10 is launched from Cape Kennedy on a 70-hour mission that includes the docking with an orbiting Agena target vehicle.

1968 – Vietnam War: The two-day Honolulu Conference begins in Honolulu, Hawaii between US President Lyndon B. Johnson and South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu.

1968 – Intel is incorporated.

1969 – After a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator Ted Kennedy from Massachusetts drives an Oldsmobile off a wooden bridge into a tide-swept pond and his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, dies.

1969 – Apollo 11 makes preparations for landing on the Moon.

1976 – Gymnast Nadia Comaneci, aged 14, scores first ever perfect 10 at the Olympics.

1980 - India becomes the 6th country to send a rocket and a satellite into space.

1982 – 268 campesinos are slain in the Plan de Sánchez massacre in Ríos Montt's Guatemala.

1984 – McDonald's massacre in San Ysidro, California: In a fast-food restaurant, James Oliver Huberty kills 21 people and injures 19 others before being shot dead by police.

1986 – A tornado is broadcast live on KARE television in Minnesota when the station's helicopter pilot makes a chance encounter.

1986 – The movie Aliens opens in theaters.

1992 – The ten victims of the La Cantuta massacre disappeared from their university in Lima.

1994 – In Buenos Aires, an explosion destroys a building housing several Jewish organizations killing 96 and injuring many more.

1995 – On the Caribbean island of Montserrat, the Soufriere Hills volcano erupts. Over the course of several years, it devastates the island, destroying the capital and forcing most of the population to flee.

1995 - Fabio Casartelli is killed in a fall on the 15th stage of the Tour de France cycling race.

1996 – Storms provoke severe flooding on the Saguenay River in Quebec, beginning one of Canada's costliest natural disasters ever.

1996 – In an event very similar to the Oklahoma tornado that would occur three years later, a tornado ranking as a F5 hit the town of Oakfield, Wisconsin.

2000 - Queen Elizabeth II opens the new British Embassy in Berlin, as the first British Head of State to open a diplomatic mission.

2001 – In Baltimore, Maryland, a 60-car train derailment occurs in a tunnel sparking a fire that will last days and virtually shut down downtown Baltimore.

2003 – The body of British UN weapons inspector Dr. David Kelly is found.

2007 - Nelson Mandela (on his 89th birthday) and Desmond Tutu co-found The Elders, an influential group of Elder statesmen.

2013 - The city of Detroit declares bankruptcy with debts of over 20 billion dollars.

2019 - An arson attack on an anime studio in Fushimi of Kyoto, Japan, kills 34 people.