27 Mordad 1373

Events

• 1492 (534 years ago) The first grammar of the Spanish language (Gramática de la lengua castellana) is presented to Queen Isabella I.
• 1877 (149 years ago) American astronomer Asaph Hall discovers Phobos, one of Mars's moons.
• 1958 (68 years ago) Brojen Das from Bangladesh swims across the English Channel in a competition as the first Bengali and the first Asian to do so, placing first among the 39 competitors.
• 1971 (55 years ago) Vietnam War: Australia and New Zealand decide to withdraw their troops from Vietnam.
• 1976 (50 years ago) The Soviet Union's robotic probe Luna 24 successfully lands on the Moon.
• 1989 (37 years ago) Leading presidential hopeful Luis Carlos Galán is assassinated near Bogotá in Colombia.
• 2005 (21 years ago) A massive power blackout hits the Indonesian island of Java; affecting almost 100 million people, it is one of the largest and most widespread power outages in history.
• 2019 (7 years ago) One hundred activists, officials, and other concerned citizens in Iceland hold a funeral for Okjökull glacier, which has completely melted after having once covered six square miles (15.5 km2).

Births

• 1750 (276 years ago) Antonio Salieri, Italian composer and conductor (died 1825)
• 1830 (196 years ago) Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria from 1848-1916 (died 1916)
• 1932 (94 years ago) Luc Montagnier, French virologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2022)
• 1933 (93 years ago) Roman Polanski, French-Polish director, producer, screenwriter, and actor
• 1936 (90 years ago) Robert Redford, American actor, director, and producer (died 2025)
• 1952 (74 years ago) Patrick Swayze, American actor and dancer (died 2009)
• 1962 (64 years ago) Felipe Calderón, Mexican lawyer and politician, 56th President of Mexico
• 1969 (57 years ago) Edward Norton, American actor

Deaths

• 440 (1586 years ago) Pope Sixtus III,
• 1503 (523 years ago) Pope Alexander VI,
• 1559 (467 years ago) Pope Paul IV,
• 1850 (176 years ago) Honoré de Balzac, French novelist and playwright (born 1799)
• 1990 (36 years ago) B. F. Skinner, American psychologist and philosopher, invented the Skinner box (born 1904)
• 2009 (17 years ago) Kim Dae-jung, South Korean lieutenant and politician, 15th President of South Korea, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1925)
• 2018 (8 years ago) Kofi Annan, Ghanaian diplomat and seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations (born 1938)
• 2024 (2 years ago) Alain Delon, French-Swiss actor (born 1935)

All 369 events, births and deaths of August 18