18 April 2026 (MIA)

– International Day for Monuments and Sites

1954 – Gamal Abdel Nasser seizes power in Egypt.

1955 – Twenty-nine nations meet at Bandung, Indonesia, for the first Asian-African Conference.

1958 – A United States federal court rules that poet Ezra Pound be released from an insane asylum.

1961 – The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, a cornerstone of modern international relations, is adopted.

1961 – CONCP is founded in Casablanca as a united front of African movements opposing Portuguese colonial rule.

1974 – The Prime Minister of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto inaugurates Lahore’s dry port.

1980 – The Republic of Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) comes into being, with Canaan Banana as the country’s first President. The Zimbabwean dollar replaces the Rhodesian dollar as the official currency.

1981 – The longest professional baseball game is begun in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The game is suspended at 4:00 the next morning and finally completed on June 23.

1983 – A suicide bomber destroys the United States embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 63 people.

1988 – The United States launches Operation Praying Mantis against Iranian naval forces in the largest naval battle since World War II.

1992 – General Abdul Rashid Dostum revolts against President Mohammad Najibullah of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and allies with Ahmad Shah Massoud to capture Kabul.

1996 – In Lebanon, at least 106 civilians are killed when the Israel Defense Forces shell the United Nations compound at Quana where more than 800 civilians had taken refuge.

2007 – The Supreme Court of the United States upholds the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in a 5–4 decision.

2007 – A series of bombings, two of them being suicides, occur in Baghdad, killing 198 and injuring 251.

2013 – A suicide bombing in a Baghdad cafe kills 27 people and injures another 65.

2014 – Sixteen people are killed in an avalanche on Mount Everest.