Friday 18th of July 0064

Eruption of the Great Fire in Rome, Lazio, Italy.

The Great Fire caused widespread devastation, before being brought under control after six days.

Sunday 18th of July 1610

Artist Michelangelo Amerighi Caravaggio dies of fever at the age of 39 in Porto Ercole, Toscana, Italy.

Friday 18th of July 1817

Writer Jane Austen dies of Brill–Zinsser disease at the age of 42 in 8 College Street, Winchester, Hampshire, United Kingdom.

Tuesday 18th of July 1871

Artist Giacomo Balla is born in Torino, Piedmontese, Italy.

Thursday 18th of July 1889

KZ-Kommandant in Dachau Eduard Wilhelm Weiter is born in Eschwege, Hessen, Germany.

Saturday 18th of July 1891

Child trafficker Georgia Beulah George Tann is born in Philadelphia, Mississippi, United States.

Wednesday 18th of July 1900

Gangster George Kelly aka Machine Gun Kelly is born as George Francis Barnes in Chicago, Illinois, United States.

Saturday 18th of July 1908

Actress Lupe Vélez aka The Mexican Spitfire is born as María Guadalupe Villalobos in San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí, Mexico.

Sunday 18th of July 1909

Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko is born in Staryya Gramyki, Mogilevskaya Gubernya, Russia.

Monday 18th of July 1921

United States Marine Corps aviator, engineer and astronaut John Herschel Glenn is born in Cambridge, Ohio, United States.

Tuesday 18th of July 1922

12-year-old Henry McMahon is beaten to death with a rock by serial killer, rapist, arsonist and burglar Carl Panzram aka A Journal of Murder in Salem, Massachusetts, United States.

Saturday 18th of July 1925

The first part of 'Mein Kampf' by 36-year-old Führer and Reichskanzler of Germany Adolf Hitler is published by Eher Verlag in München, Bayern, Germany.

Hitler's title original title for the book was Viereinhalb Jahre (des Kampfes) gegen Lüge, Dummheit und Feigheit.

Thursday 18th of July 1929

Musician Jalacy Hawkins aka Screamin' Jay Hawkins is born in Cleveland, Ohio, United States.

Wednesday 18th of July 1934

Actress Darlene Conley aka Sally Spectra is born in Chicago, Illinois, United States.

Thursday 18th of July 1935

Fluxus artist Ben Vautier aka Ben is born in Napoli, Campania, Italy.

Sunday 18th of July 1937

Journalist and writer Hunter Stockton Thompson known for inventing Gonzo journalism is born in Louisville, Kentucky, United States.

Friday 18th of July 1941

Singer Martha Rose Reeves known from Martha and the Vandellas is born in Eufala, Alabama, United States.

Friday 18th of July 1947

53-year-old Nazi leader and Stellvertreter des Führers Rudolf Walter Richard Hess is transported with six other Nazi leaders by aircraft to the Allied military prison in Kriegsverbrechergefängnis, Berlin, Spandau, Berlin, Germany.

Wednesday 18th of July 1951

Murderer Harold Thomas Lantz is executed by the gas chamber at the age of 28 in Arizona State Prison Complex, 1305 E Butte Avenue, Florence, Arizona, United States.

Sunday 18th of July 1954

Gangster George Kelly aka Machine Gun Kelly dies of a heart attack at the age of 54 in United States Penitentiary, Metropolitan Avenue, Leavenworth, Kansas, United States.

Monday 18th of July 1960

Murderer Anthony Ray Westley is born in Caddo Parish, Louisiana, United States.

Friday 18th of July 1969

Political campaign specialist for Robert F. Kennedy Mary Jo Kopechne dies in a submerged 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88 driven off a narrow unlit bridge without guardrails by Ted Kennedy. at the age of 29 in Poucha Pond, Edgartown, Massachusetts, United States.

Kennedy extricated himself from the vehicle and survived but Kopechne did not. Kennedy failed to report the incident to the authorities until the car and Kopechne's body were discovered the next morning. A week after the incident Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury and received a two-month suspended sentence.

Saturday 18th of July 1981

22-year-old Richard Adan is stabbed to death by murderer and literary talent Jack Henry Abbott in Binibon café, 79 Second Avenue, New York, Manhattan, New York, United States.

Abbott was released on parole in June 1981 despite the misgivings of prison officials. Abbott was given a sentence of three to 23 years for stabbing another inmate in a Utah prison. In 1971 his sentence was increased by 19 years after he escaped and committed a bank robbery in Colorado. Norman Mailer supported Abbott's attempts to gain parole after he helped him publishing a collection of prison letters.

Monday 18th of July 1983

18-year-old Marion Gerecht is raped and strangled by serial killer Egidius Schiffer aka Der Würger von Aachen in Alsdorf, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.

Wednesday 18th of July 1984

Mass murderer James Oliver Huberty aka Hunting Humans is fatally shot by a SWAT team sniper at the age of 42 in San Ysidro McDonald's, San Ysidro Boulevard, San Diego, California, United States.

Huberty shot and killed 21 people and injured 19 others in and outside the restaurant in a 78min shooting spree with a 9mm Browning semi-automatic pistol, a 9mm Uzi and a Winchester 12 gauge pump-action shotgun. Huberty also carried a cloth bag filled with hundreds of rounds of ammunition for each weapon. Within two days of the mass shooting the San Ysidro Boulevard restaurant had been refurbished and renovated, and was again open for business in the hope that—as one employee commented—the restaurant would become "just another McDonald's." The newly renovated restaurant was razed on July 28.

Monday 18th of July 1988

Nico aka Das Einsame Mädchen dies of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 50 in Hospital Can Misses, Carretera de la Corona 32, Ibiza Town, Islas Baleares, Spain.

Nico had a heart attack while riding a bicycle and hit her head as she fell. A passing taxi driver found her unconscious and took her to the hospital.

Tuesday 18th of July 1989

Model and actress Rebecca Lucile Schaeffer is shot dead by 19-year-old stalker Robert John Bardo at the age of 22 in 120 N. Sweetzer Ave #4, West Hollywood, California, United States.

In 1989, after watching Schaeffer in the black comedy 'Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills', in which she appeared in bed with a male actor, Bardo out of apparent jealousy became enraged by the scene and decided that Schaeffer should be punished for becoming "another Hollywood whore".

Wednesday 18th of July 1990

Murderer Mikel James Derrick is executed by lethal injection at the age of 33 in Huntsville Prison, 815 12th Street, Huntsville, Texas, United States.

Wednesday 18th of July 1990

Psychiatrist Karl Augustus Menninger dies of abdominal cancer at the age of 97 in Topeka, Kansas, United States.

Monday 18th of July 1994

86 die in suicide car bomb attack in Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina, Buenos Aires, Gran Buenos Aires, Argentina.

21-year-old Hezbollah suicide bomber Ibrahim Hussein Berro drove a Renault Trafic van bomb loaded with about 275 kilograms of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and fuel oil explosive mixture.

Thursday 18th of July 1996

Cop killer Tommie J. Smith aka Ziyon Yisrayah is executed by lethal injection at the age of 42 in Indiana State Prison, 1 Park Row, Michigan City, Indiana, United States.

The executioner could not find a vein in Smith's arm and had to insert an angio-catheter into his heart, a procedure that took 35 minutes. According to authorities, Smith remained conscious during that procedure. Smith's last words were: "Let evil prevail where a good man does nothing."

Monday 18th of July 2011

Painting the wall of a new laser shack in the modelbuilding lab in Mekano, Mutsaardstraat 31, Antwerpen, Antwerpen, Belgium.

Wednesday 18th of July 2012

97-year-old Alleged Nazi war criminal László Csatáry is taken into custody for questioning in Budapest, Közép-Magyarország, Hungary.

Csatáry's address was exposed by reporters from The Sun.

Monday 18th of July 2022

Pop artist Claes Oldenburg dies of natural causes at the age of 93 in New York, Manhattan, New York, United States.