September 18

324 – The forces of Co-Emperor Constantine decisively defeats those of Co-Emperor Licinius in the Battle of Chrysopolis, near modern day Kadıköy (Chalcedon) Turkey, establishing him as sole Emperor in control over the Roman Empire.

1066 – The fleet of Norwegian King Harald Sigurdsson Hardrada lands with his brother Tostig Godwinson and a force of 10,000 men at the mouth of the Humber River on the central east coast of England to back his claim to the throne.

1793 – The first cornerstone of the United States Capitol is laid by George Washington.

1837 – Tiffany & Young company is founded by Charles Lewis Tiffany and Teddy Young in New York City.

1850 – The U.S. Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

1850 – The U.S. Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

1851 – The New-York Daily Times, which later becomes The New York Times goes into publication

1864 – Confederate General John Bell Hood begins the Franklin–Nashville Campaign in an unsuccessful attempt to draw General William Sherman out of Georgia.

1870 – Observing the regularity of a geyser’s eruption during the exploration of Northwest Wyoming Territory by the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition, Henry D. Washburn names it “Old Faithful“.

1873 – The Jay Cooke & Company bank in Philadelphia declares bankruptcy, starting a financial crisis and economic depression in Europe and North America that lasts until 1877

1895 – Booker T. Washington gives a speech on racial relations at the Cotton States and International Exposition world fair at Piedmont Park in  Atlanta

1905 – Greta Garbo is born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson in Stockholm Sweden

1927 – The Columbia Broadcasting System goes on the air.

1931 – The Mukden Incident gives Japan a pretext to invade and occupy Manchuria, China.

1945 – General Douglas MacArthur moves his general headquarters from Manila to Tokyo.

1947 – The National Security Act goes into effect, reorganizing the United States government’s military and intelligence services, creating the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Council, separating the Army Air force into the Department of the Air Force and the United States Air Force, forming the Marine Corps as an independent service under the Department of the Navy, and merging the Department of the Navy into the Department of War as the ‘National Military Establishment’, later named the Department of Defense in 1948.

1977 – NASA’s Voyager I probe takes the first distant photograph of the Earth and the Moon together.

1984 – Retired USAF Colonel Joe Kittinger completes the first solo balloon crossing of the Atlantic.

1997 – United States media magnate Ted Turner donates $1 billion to the United Nations.

2001 – Letters originating from Trenton, New Jersey, containing anthrax spores, begin to be received the offices of several U.S. Senators and news media.

2020 – Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies of complications of pancreatic cancer in Washington D.C.