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

November 18: Facts & Myths About This Day

November 18 is the 322^nd day of the year 2025 in the Gregorian calendar. There are 43 days remaining until the end of this year. The day of the week is Tuesday.

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

When this day started, 1,763,424,000 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 ‘trihectaicosadigon’ day.

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

According to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, there are 91 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 4,715 days since this fabled cataclysmic event.

November 18 Historical Events

• 1105 –
  Maginulfo is elected the Antipope as Sylvester IV.
• 1421 –
  A seawall at the Zuiderzee dike in the Netherlands breaks, flooding 72 villages and killing about 10,000 people. This event will be known as Sint-Elisabethsvloed.
• 1493 –
  Christopher Columbus first sights the island now known as Puerto Rico.
• 1865 –
  Mark Twain’s short story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County is published in the New York Saturday Press.
• 1883 –
  American and Canadian railroads institute five standard continental time zones, ending the confusion of thousands of local times.
• 1929 –
  1929 Grand Banks earthquake: off the south coast of Newfoundland in the Atlantic Ocean, a Richter magnitude 7.2 submarine earthquake, centered on Grand Banks, breaks 12 submarine transatlantic telegraph cables and triggers a tsunami that destroys many south coast communities in the Burin Peninsula.
• 1961 –
  United States President John F. Kennedy sends 18,000 military advisors to South Vietnam.
• 1978 –
  In Jonestown, Guyana, Jim Jones led his Peoples Temple cult to a mass murder-suicide that claimed 918 lives in all, 909 of them in Jonestown itself, including over 270 children. Congressman Leo J. Ryan is murdered by members of the Peoples Temple hours earlier.
• 1988 –
  War on Drugs: U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs a bill into law allowing the death penalty for drug traffickers.
• 2002 –
  Iraq disarmament crisis: United Nations weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix arrive in Iraq.

Who were born on November 18?

• 1630 –
  Empress Eleanor Gonzaga of the Holy Roman Empire (d. 1686)
• 1772 –
  Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia (d. 1806)
• 1786 –
  Carl Maria von Weber, German composer (d. 1826)
• 1899 –
  Eugene Ormandy, Hungarian-born American violinist and conductor (d. 1985)
• 1901 –
  George Gallup, American statistician and pollster (d. 1984)
• 1901 –
  V. Shantaram, Indian filmmaker and actor (d. 1984)
• 1909 –
  Johnny Mercer, American lyricist (d. 1976)
• 1932 –
  Danny McDevitt, American baseball player (d. 2010)
• 1986 –
  Nic Sampson, New Zealand actor
• 1987 –
  Jake Abel, American actor

Who died on November 18?

• 1559 –
  Cuthbert Tunstall, English churchman (b. 1474)
• 1889 –
  William Allingham, Irish poet (b. 1824 or 1828)
• 1940 –
  Ivane Javakhishvili, Georgian historian (b. 1876)
• 1962 –
  Niels Bohr, Danish physicist, Nobel laureate (b. 1885)
• 1969 –
  Ted Heath, British trombonist, and bandleader (b. 1902)
• 1972 –
  Danny Whitten, American musician (Crazy Horse) (b. 1943)
• 1984 –
  Mary Hamman, American writer and editor (b. 1907)
• 1999 –
  Paul Bowles, American novelist (b. 1910)
• 2002 –
  James Coburn, American actor (b. 1928)
• 2010 –
  Brian G. Marsden, British astronomer (b. 1937)