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 352nd 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, 1,766,016,000 seconds 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.
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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.
Do people and celebrities interest you? Discover all the December 18 famous birthdays who share your special day. Learn some fun facts about your birthday!
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December 18 Historical Events
- 1271 –Kublai Khan renames his empire “Yuan” (ࠠ3; yuán), officially marking the start of the Yuan Dynasty of Mongolia and China.
- 1642 –Abel Tasman becomes first European to land in New Zealand.
- 1777 –The United States celebrates its first Thanksgiving, marking the recent victory by the Americans over General John Burgoyne in the Battle of Saratoga in October.
- 1787 –New Jersey becomes the third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
- 1912 –The Piltdown Man, later discovered to be a hoax, is announced by Charles Dawson.
- 1966 –Saturn’s moon Epimetheus is discovered by Richard L. Walker.
- 1972 –Vietnam War: President Richard Nixon announces that the United States will engage North Vietnam in Operation Linebacker II, a series of Christmas bombings, after peace talks collapsed with North Vietnam on the 13th.
- 1987 –Larry Wall releases the first version of the Perl programming language.
- 1997 –HTML 4.0 is published by the World Wide Web Consortium.
- 2010 –Governmental protests begin in Tunisia, beginning the 2010-2011 Middle East and North Africa protests
Who were born on December 18?
- 1507 –Ōuchi Yoshitaka, Japanese warlord (d. 1551)
- 1851 –Graciano Lopez Jaena, Filipino orator and satirist (d. 1896)
- 1856 –Sir J. J. Thomson, English physicist and Nobel laureate (d. 1940)
- 1932 –Roger Smith, American actor
- 1942 –Harvey Atkin, Canadian actor
- 1946 –Steve Biko, South African anti-apartheid activist (d. 1977)
- 1950 –Heinz-Josef Kehr, German footballer
- 1965 –Fawna MacLaren, American model and actress
- 1975 –David O'Doherty, Irish comedian
- 1980 –Benjamin Watson, American football player
Who died on December 18?
- 821 –Theodulf, Bishop of Orléans
- 1442 –Pierre Cauchon, French Catholic bishop (b. 1371)
- 1787 –Soame Jenyns, English writer (b. 1704)
- 1927 –Ram Prasad Bismil, Indian Revolutionary (b. 1897)
- 1936 –Andrija Mohorovičić, Austro-Hungarian-born Croatian seismologist (b. 1857)
- 1950 –Johnny Hyde, Russian-born American talent agent (b. 1895)
- 1985 –Xuân Diệu, Vietnamese poet (b. 1916)
- 1995 –Brian Brockless, English organist (b. 1926)
- 1995 –Konrad Zuse, German engineer and computing pioneer (b. 1910)
- 2011 –Václav Havel, playwright, philosopher and dissident, last president of Czechoslovakia, and the first president of the Czech republic (b. 1936)
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