Sunday 18 August 2024 Calendar with holidays, observances and special days

Holidays and observances

• Arbor Day in Pakistan
• Armed Forces Day in Macedonia
• Australian Professional Engineers Day
• Bad Poetry Day (Do not despair if you cannot write beautiful poems - this holiday is for those who at least tried)
• Border Guard Day in Azerbaijan
• Day of Hearts or Hertjesdag in Haarlem and Amsterdam (is celebrated on the third Monday in August)
• Discovery Day in Yukon, Canada (third Monday of August)
• Forest Fire Prevention Day in Argentina
• Geographer's Day in Russia
• Indonesia Constitution Day
• Long Tan Day, also called Vietnam Veterans' Day (Australia)
• National Ice Cream Pie Day in USA
• National Pinot Noir Day in USA
• National Science Day in Thailand
• Never Give Up Day
• Nicaraguan Pediatrician Day
• Reconquista anniversary in the province of Malaga, Spain
• San Martin Day in Argentina (the third Monday of the month)
• Solidarity Day in Chile
• St. Helena Day in Spain
• Virgen del Rayo Day in Guadalajara

Events

• 1965 – Vietnam War: Operation Starlite begins: United States Marines destroy a Viet Cong stronghold on the Van Tuong peninsula in the first major American ground battle of the war.
• 1963 – Civil Rights Movement: James Meredith becomes the first African American to graduate from the University of Mississippi.
• 1958 – Brojen Das from Bangladesh swims across the English Channel in a competition, as the first Bengali and the first Asian to do so. He came first among 39 competitors.
• 1958 – Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita is published in the United States.
• 1945 – Sukarno takes office as the first president of Indonesia, following the country's declaration of independence the previous day.
• 1938 – The Thousand Islands Bridge, connecting New York, United States with Ontario, Canada over the Saint Lawrence River, is dedicated by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
• 1920 – The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing women's suffrage.
• 1903 – German engineer Karl Jatho allegedly flies his self-made, motored gliding airplane four months before the first flight of the Wright brothers.
• 1868 – French astronomer Pierre Janssen discovers helium.
• 1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Globe Tavern: Union forces try to cut a vital Confederate supply-line into Petersburg, Virginia, by attacking the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad.
• 1612 – The trial of the Pendle witches, one of England's most famous witch trials, begins at Lancaster Assizes.
• 1587 – Virginia Dare, granddaughter of Governor John White of the Colony of Roanoke, becomes the first English child born in the Americas.

Births

• 1992 – Elizabeth Beisel, American swimmer. Elizabeth Lyon Beisel (born August 18, 1992) is an American competition swimmer who specializes in backstroke and individual medley events.
• 1986 – Evan Gattis, American baseball player. Gattis has also earned the nickname of "El Oso Blanco" or The White Bear, due to his raw power capabilities when playing for the Venezuelan Winter league.
• 1980 – Bart Scott, American football player. After playing college football for Southern Illinois University, he was signed by the NFL's Baltimore Ravens as an undrafted free agent in 2002.
• 1980 – Jeremy Shockey, American football player. He played college football at the University of Miami.
• 1978 – Andy Samberg, American actor and comedian. Samberg has starred in several films, including Hot Rod (2007), I Love You, Man (2009), That's My Boy (2012), Celeste and Jesse Forever (2012) and Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016).
• 1974 – Nicole Krauss, American novelist and critic. Nicole Krauss (born August 18, 1978) is an American author best known for her four novels Man Walks Into a Room (2002), The History of Love (2005), Great House (2010) and Forest Dark (2017), which have been translated into 35 languages.
• 1970 – Jason Furman, American economist and politician. On June 10, 2013, Furman was named by President Barack Obama as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA).
• 1970 – Malcolm-Jamal Warner, American actor and producer. He also starred as Dr.
• 1969 – Christian Slater, American actor and producer. He has received critical acclaim for his title-role in the USA Network television series Mr.
• 1969 – Edward Norton, American actor. He has received multiple awards and nominations, including a Golden Globe Award and three Academy Award nominations.
• 1967 – Brian Michael Bendis, American author and illustrator. He has won five Eisner Awards for both his creator-owned work and his work on various Marvel Comics books.
• 1964 – Kenny Walker, American basketball player and sportscaster. Walker won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest in 1989.
• 1961 – Bob Woodruff, American journalist and author. Robert Warren Woodruff (born August 18, 1961) is an American television journalist.
• 1961 – Timothy Geithner, American banker and politician, 75th United States Secretary of the Treasury. Since March 2014, he has served as president and managing director of Warburg Pincus, a private equity firm headquartered in New York City.
• 1960 – Fat Lever, American basketball player and sportscaster. Lafayette "Fat" Lever (/ˈliːvər/; born August 18, 1960) is an American retired professional basketball player who played in the National Basketball Association.
• 1960 – Mike LaValliere, American baseball player. Louis Cardinals, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Chicago White Sox.
• 1959 – Tom Prichard, American wrestler and trainer. He is the father of Chris Prichard and brother of Bruce Prichard.
• 1958 – Madeleine Stowe, American actress. She went on to star in the films Revenge (1990), Unlawful Entry (1992), The Last of the Mohicans (1992), Blink (1993), Bad Girls (1994), China Moon (1994), 12 Monkeys (1995), The General's Daughter (1999), and We Were Soldiers (2002).
• 1957 – Denis Leary, American comedian, actor, producer, and screenwriter. He has had starring roles in many films, including those of Captain George Stacy in Marc Webb's, The Amazing Spider-Man and Cleveland Browns head coach Vince Penn in Ivan Reitman's Draft Day.
• 1956 – John Debney, American composer and conductor. He is a long-time collaborator of The Walt Disney Company, having written music for their films, television series, and theme parks.
• 1956 – Kelly Willard, American singer-songwriter. Kelly Willard (born on August 18, 1956) is a contemporary Christian musician best known for her praise and worship recordings.
• 1955 – Bruce Benedict, American baseball player and coach. He played 12 seasons in Major League Baseball as a catcher for the Atlanta Braves from 1978 to 1989.
• 1955 – Taher Elgamal, Egyptian-American cryptographer. He is recognized as the "father of SSL," for his 1985 paper entitled "A Public key Cryptosystem and A Signature Scheme based on discrete Logarithms" in which he proposed the design of the ElGamal discrete log cryptosystem and of the ElGamal signature scheme and the work he and others at Netscape did on promoting private and secure communications on the internet.
• 1953 – Louie Gohmert, American captain, lawyer, and politician. Louis Buller Gohmert Jr. (/ˈɡoʊmərt/; born August 18, 1953) is an American attorney and former judge who currently serves as the U.S.
• 1953 – Marvin Isley, American R&B bass player and songwriter (d. 2010), was the youngest member of the family music group the Isley Brothers and its bass guitarist.
• 1952 – Elayne Boosler, American actress, director, and screenwriter. Elayne Boosler (born August 18, 1952) is an American comedian.
• 1952 – Patrick Swayze, American actor and dancer (d. 2009), was an American actor, dancer, singer, and songwriter. Gaining fame with appearances in films during the 1980s, he became popular for playing tough guys and romantic male leads, giving him a wide fan base with female audiences and a status as a sex symbol.
• 1945 – Lewis Burwell Puller, Jr., American soldier, lawyer, and author (d. 1994). Purple Heart (2) Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal
• 1945 – Sarah Dash, American singer-songwriter and actress. Dash has worked as a singer, songwriter, session musician, and sideman for bands that include LaBelle, The Rolling Stones, and Keith Richards.
• 1944 – Paula Danziger, American author (d. 2004), was an American children's author. She wrote more than 30 books, including her 1974 debut The Cat Ate My Gymsuit, for children's and young adult audiences.
• 1943 – Martin Mull, American actor and comedian. As an actor, he first became known in his role on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and its spin-off Fernwood 2 Night.
• 1940 – Gil Whitney, American journalist (d. 1982), was an American television personality in Dayton, Ohio, who worked primarily at WHIO television and radio until his death in 1982. He was posthumously inducted into the Dayton Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2005.
• 1939 – Johnny Preston, American pop singer (d. 2011), was an American pop singer, best known for his international number one hit in 1960, "Running Bear".
• 1936 – Robert Redford, American actor, director, and producer. Redford began acting on television in the late 1950s, including an appearance on The Twilight Zone in 1962.
• 1935 – Gail Fisher, American actress (d. 2000), was an American actress who was one of the first black women to play substantive roles in American television. She was best known for playing the role of secretary Peggy Fair on the television detective series Mannix from 1968 through 1975, a role for which she won two Golden Globe Awards and an Emmy Award; she was the first black woman to win either award.
• 1934 – Roberto Clemente, Puerto Rican-American baseball player and soldier (d. 1972), was a Puerto Rican professional baseball right fielder who played 18 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1973, becoming both the first Latin American and Caribbean player to be enshrined.
• 1934 – Vincent Bugliosi, American lawyer and author (d. 2015). Bugliosi Jr. (/ˌbuːliˈoʊsi/; August 18, 1934 – June 6, 2015) was an American attorney and New York Times bestselling author.
• 1930 – Liviu Librescu, Romanian-American engineer and academic (d. 2007), was a Romanian–American scientist and engineer. A prominent academic in addition to being a survivor of the Holocaust, his major research fields were aeroelasticity and aerodynamics.
• 1928 – Marge Schott, American businesswoman (d. 2004), was the managing general partner, president and CEO of Major League Baseball's Cincinnati Reds franchise from 1984 to 1999. She was the third woman to own a North American major-league team without inheriting it (the first being New York Mets founder Joan Whitney Payson), and the second woman to buy an existing team rather than inheriting it.
• 1928 – Sonny Til, American R&B singer (The Orioles) (d. 1981). He was the lead singer of The Orioles, a vocal group from Baltimore, Maryland, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.
• 1920 – Bob Kennedy, American baseball player and manager (d. 2005). Robert Daniel Kennedy (August 18, 1920 – April 7, 2005) was a right fielder/third baseman, manager and executive in Major League Baseball.
• 1920 – Shelley Winters, American actress (d. 2006), was an American actress whose career spanned almost six decades.
• 1919 – Wally Hickel, American businessman and politician, 2nd Governor of Alaska (d. 2010), was an American businessman, real estate developer, and politician. He worked as a construction worker and eventually as a construction company owner/operator during Alaska's territorial days.
• 1918 – Cisco Houston, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1961), was an American folk singer and songwriter, who is closely associated with Woody Guthrie due to their extensive history of recording together.
• 1917 – Caspar Weinberger, American captain, lawyer, and politician, 15th United States Secretary of Defense (d. 2006), was an American politician and businessman. As a prominent Republican, he served in a variety of state and federal positions for three decades, including Chairman of the California Republican Party, 1962–68.
• 1915 – Max Lanier, American baseball player and manager (d. 2007), was an American left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball who spent most of his career with the St. Louis Cardinals.
• 1914 – Lucy Ozarin, United States Navy lieutenant commander and psychiatrist, was a psychiatrist who served in the United States Navy. She was one of the first women psychiatrists commissioned in the Navy, and she was one of seven female Navy psychiatrists who served during World War II.
• 1911 – Amelia Boynton Robinson, American activist (d. 2015), was an American activist who was a leader of the American Civil Rights Movement in Selma, Alabama and a key figure in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches. In 1984, she became founding Vice-President of the Schiller Institute affiliated with Lyndon LaRouche.
• 1910 – Herman Berlinski, Polish-American pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 2001), was a German-born American composer, organist, pianist, musicologist and choir conductor.
• 1906 – Curtis Jones, American blues pianist and singer (d. 1971). Curtis Alan Jones (born April 26, 1967) is an American singer, songwriter and record producer.
• 1905 – Enoch Light, American bandleader, violinist, and recording engineer (d. 1978), was an American classically trained violinist, danceband leader, and recording engineer. As the leader of various dance bands that recorded as early as March 1927 and continuing through at least 1940, Light and his band primarily worked in various hotels in New York.
• 1904 – Max Factor, Jr., American businessman (d. 1996). Max Factor is a line of cosmetics from Coty, Inc.
• 1902 – Margaret Murie, American environmentalist and author (d. 2003), was a naturalist, author, adventurer, and conservationist. Dubbed the "Grandmother of the Conservation Movement" by both the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society, she helped in the passage of the Wilderness Act, and was instrumental in creating the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
• 1896 – Jack Pickford, Canadian-American actor and director (d. 1933), was a Canadian-born American actor, film director and producer. He was the younger brother of actresses Mary and Lottie Pickford.
• 1893 – Burleigh Grimes, American baseball player and manager (d. 1985). Burleigh Arland Grimes (August 18, 1893 – December 6, 1985) was an American professional baseball player, and the last pitcher officially permitted to throw the spitball.
• 1883 – Sidney Hatch, American runner and soldier (d. 1966), was an American athlete who competed for the United States in the 1904 Summer Olympics held in St. Louis, United States, in the 4 mile team where he won the silver medal with his teammates James Lightbody, Frank Verner, Lacey Hearn and Frenchman Albert Corey.
• 1869 – Carl Rungius, German-American painter and educator (d. 1959), was a leading American wildlife artist. He was born in Germany though he immigrated to the United States and he spent his career painting in the western United States and Canada.
• 1857 – Libert H. Boeynaems, Belgian-American bishop and missionary (d. 1926). Boeynaems, formally Libert Hubert John Louis Boeynaems, SS.CC., (August 18, 1857 – May 13, 1926), was the fourth vicar apostolic of the Vicariate Apostolic of the Hawaiian Islands — now the Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu.
• 1841 – William Halford, English-American lieutenant, Medal of Honor recipient (d. 1919). USS Benicia USS Lackawanna USS San Francisco
• 1834 – Marshall Field, American businessman, founded Marshall Field's (d. 1906), was an American entrepreneur and the founder of Marshall Field and Company, the Chicago-based department stores. His business was renowned for its then-exceptional level of quality and customer service.
• 1822 – Isaac P. Rodman, American general and politician (d. 1862), was a Rhode Island banker and politician, and a Union Army brigadier general in the American Civil War, mortally wounded at the Battle of Antietam.
• 1803 – Nathan Clifford, American lawyer, jurist, and politician, 19th United States Attorney General (d. 1881), was an American statesman, diplomat and jurist, whose career culminated in a lengthy period of service as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
• 1774 – Meriwether Lewis, American soldier, explorer, and politician (d. 1809), was an American explorer, soldier, politician, and public administrator, best known for his role as the leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery, with William Clark. Their mission was to explore the territory of the Louisiana Purchase, establish trade with, and sovereignty over the natives near the Missouri River, and claim the Pacific Northwest and Oregon Country for the United States before European nations.

Deaths

• 2015 – Bud Yorkin, American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1926)
• 2015 – Louis Stokes, American lawyer and politician (b. 1925)
• 2014 – Don Pardo, American radio and television announcer (b. 1918)
• 2014 – Gordon Faber, American soldier and politician, 39th Mayor of Hillsboro, Oregon (b. 1930)
• 2014 – Jim Jeffords, American captain, lawyer, and politician (b. 1934)
• 2013 – Josephine D'Angelo, American baseball player (b. 1924)
• 2012 – Harrison Begay, American painter (b. 1917)
• 2012 – John Kovatch, American football player (b. 1920)
• 2012 – Scott McKenzie, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1939)
• 2010 – Benjamin Kaplan, American scholar and jurist (b. 1911)
• 2010 – Hal Connolly, American hammer thrower and coach (b. 1931)
• 2009 – Robert Novak, American journalist and author (b. 1931)
• 2009 – Rose Friedman, Ukrainian-American economist and author (b. 1910)
• 2007 – Michael Deaver, American soldier and politician, White House Deputy Chief of Staff (b. 1938)
• 2005 – Chri$ Ca$h, American wrestler (b. 1982)
• 2004 – Elmer Bernstein, American composer and conductor (b. 1922)
• 2004 – Hiram Fong, American soldier and politician (b. 1906)
• 2002 – Dean Riesner, American actor and screenwriter (b. 1918)
• 1994 – Francis Raymond Shea, American bishop (b. 1913)
• 1990 – B. F. Skinner, American psychologist and philosopher, invented the Skinner box (b. 1904)
• 1981 – Anita Loos, American author and screenwriter (b. 1889)
• 1949 – Paul Mares, American trumpet player and bandleader (New Orleans Rhythm Kings) (b. 1900)
• 1940 – Walter Chrysler, American businessman, founded Chrysler (b. 1875)
• 1919 – Joseph E. Seagram, Canadian businessman and politician, founded the Seagram Company (b. 1841)
• 1886 – Eli Whitney Blake, American inventor, invented the Mortise lock (b. 1795)
• 1815 – Chauncey Goodrich, American lawyer and politician, 8th Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut (b. 1759)
• 1809 – Matthew Boulton, English businessman and engineer, co-founded Boulton and Watt (b. 1728)