July 18
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1921: Baseball’s Black Sox trial begins
On this day in 1921 the trial of baseball’s infamous Black Sox began. Eight Chicago White Sox players stood accused of accepting bribes to intentionally lose the 1919 World Series. Although a jury acquitted them after key evidence disappeared, baseball’s commissioner permanently banned all eight from the sport, including legendary outfielder Joe (“Shoeless Joe”) Jackson.
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Featured Event
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The Football War, fought between Honduras and El Salvador, came to an end on this day in 1969, four days after it began. It had significant human and economic costs, including the displacement of an estimated 300,000 Salvadorans, most of whom were expelled or fled from Honduras.
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
© Alexander Joe—AFP/Getty Images
During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for, and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.
South African Black nationalist and statesman Nelson Mandela, whose long imprisonment (1962–90) and ascent to the presidency (1994–99) symbolized the aspirations of his country’s Black majority, was born this day in 1918.
Famous Birthdays
More on July 18
© Index Open
2013
Detroit submitted a claim for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection, the largest such filing for a U.S. city ever; the city officially emerged from bankruptcy the following year. [See our list of nine must-see paintings at the Detroit Institute of Arts.]
Sportschrome/Newscom
1976
For her performance in the uneven parallel bars at the Olympic Games in Montreal, Nadia Comăneci of Romania became the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect score of 10 in an Olympic gymnastic event. [How have the Olympics changed over time?]
NASA
1966
Gemini 10 launched from Florida, carrying astronauts John Young and Michael Collins into space. The mission, which lasted nearly three days, included the first space walk from one spacecraft to another.
© Keith Heaton/Shutterstock.com
1944
Allied forces captured the French town of Saint-Lô, a vital communications center, during World War II. [Sort fact from fiction in our World War II quiz.]
Pictorial Parade
1927
American baseball player Ty Cobb collected his 4,000th career hit. [See where Ty Cobb ranks on our list of the 10 greatest baseball players of all time.]
NASA
1921
John Glenn—the first U.S. astronaut to orbit Earth, completing three orbits in 1962—was born in Ohio. [Take our quiz of famous astronauts and cosmonauts.]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1918
French General Ferdinand Foch launched a counterstrike that forced the Germans into a hasty retreat during the Second Battle of the Marne, the last large German offensive of World War I. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about World War I.]
Stock Montage—Archive Photos/Getty Images
1817
The English novelist Jane Austen, who wrote such classics as Sense and Sensibility (1811) and Pride and Prejudice (1813), died in Winchester, Hampshire, at age 41. [How much do you know about Jane Austen?]
Courtesy of The National Portrait Gallery, London
1811
English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, best known for Vanity Fair (1847–48) and The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. (1852), was born in India. [Test your knowledge of famous authors.]
Aclosund Historic/Alamy
1195
The Almohads were victorious over the forces of King Alfonso VIII of Castile in the Battle of Alarcos.