What are the important events that happened on December 18? Here are historical events, facts, and some myths about this day.

December 18: Facts & Myths About This Day

December 18 is the 352^nd day of the year 2025 in the Gregorian calendar. There are 13 days remaining until the end of this year. The day of the week is Thursday.

Under the Julian calendar, this day is December 5, 2025 – a Thursday. Both day of the week are the same but did you notice the difference with the Gregorian calendar?

When this day started, 490,560 hours has elapsed since midnight of January 1, 1970 – the Unix epoch.

Strange as it may, if we name this day after a polygon then it will be called ‘trihectapentacontadigon’ day.

Sagittarius is the zodiac sign of a person born on this day. Turquoise is the modern birthstone for this month. Onyx is the mystical birthstone from Tibetan origin that dates back over a thousand years.

According to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, there are 61 days remaining before the start of the next Chinese New Year.

The ancient Maya civilization believes that the end of the world will happen on December 21, 2012. There are now 4,745 days since this fabled cataclysmic event.

December 18 Historical Events

• 1787 –
  New Jersey becomes the third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
• 1944 –
  World War II: 77 B-29 Superfortress and 200 other aircraft of U.S. Fourteenth Air Force bomb Hankow, China, a Japanese supply base.
• 1958 –
  Project SCORE, the world’s first communications satellite, is launched.
• 1966 –
  Saturn’s moon Epimetheus is discovered by Richard L. Walker.
• 1987 –
  Larry Wall releases the first version of the Perl programming language.
• 1996 –
  The Oakland, California school board passes a resolution officially declaring “Ebonics” a language or dialect.
• 1999 –
  NASA launches into orbit the Terra platform carrying five Earth Observation instruments, including ASTER, CERES, MISR, MODIS and MOPITT.
• 2002 –
  2003 California recall: Then Governor of California Gray Davis announces that the state would face a record budget deficit of $35 billion, roughly double the figure reported during his reelection campaign one month earlier.
• 2006 –
  The first of a series of floods strikes Malaysia. The death toll of all flooding is at least 118, with over 400,000 people displaced.
• 2006 –
  United Arab Emirates holds its first-ever elections.

Who were born on December 18?

• 1912 –
  Benjamin O. Davis Jr., American General (d. 2002)
• 1928 –
  Mirza Tahir Ahmad, Caliph of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community (d. 2003)
• 1933 –
  Lonnie Brooks, American blues musician
• 1938 –
  Joel Hirschhorn, American songwriter and composer (d. 2005)
• 1950 –
  Gillian Armstrong, Australian film director
• 1953 –
  Khas-Magomed Hadjimuradov, Chechen singer-songwriter
• 1961 –
  Leila Steinberg, American poet, artist manager
• 1971 –
  Barkha Dutt, Indian journalist
• 1972 –
  DJ Lethal, Latvian-born American DJ (House of Pain, Limp Bizkit)
• 1974 –
  Peter Boulware, American football player

Who died on December 18?

• 1692 –
  Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff, German statesman (b. 1626)
• 1803 –
  Johann Gottfried Herder, German writer (b. 1744)
• 1848 –
  Bernard Bolzano, Bohemian mathematician and priest (b. 1781)
• 1922 –
  Carl Meyer, British banker and mining magnate (b. 1851)
• 1936 –
  Andrija Mohorovičić, Austro-Hungarian-born Croatian seismologist (b. 1857)
• 1993 –
  Sam Wanamaker, American actor (b. 1919)
• 2000 –
  Stan Fox, American race car driver (b. 1952)
• 2004 –
  Anthony Sampson, British journalist and biographer (b. 1926)
• 2007 –
  Gerald Le Dain, Canadian Supreme Court Justice (b. 1924)
• 2011 –
  Václav Havel, playwright, philosopher and dissident, last president of Czechoslovakia, and the first president of the Czech republic (b. 1936)