Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/August 18

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 * Long Tan Day in Australia (1966)
 * 684 – Second Fitna: Umayyad partisans defeated the supporters of Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr near Damascus, cementing Umayyad control of Syria.
 * 1487 – Reconquista: After a four-month siege, the Catholic Monarchs of Spain conquered the city of Málaga from the Emirate of Granada.
 * 1590 – John White, governor of the Roanoke Colony, the first English settlement in North America (located in present-day North Carolina), returned after a three-year absence to find it deserted (depicted).
 * 1612 – The trials of the Pendle and Samlesbury witches (statue pictured), among the most famous of England's witch trials, began at the assizes in Lancaster.
 * 1783 – A meteor procession blazed across the night sky over Great Britain.
 * 1864 – American Civil War: At the Battle of Globe Tavern, Union forces attempted to sever the Weldon Railroad during the Siege of Petersburg.
 * 1891 – A hurricane struck the Caribbean island of Martinique, killing about 700 people, injuring at least 1,000 others, and causing severe damage.
 * 1940 – Second World War: During the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe made an all-out effort to destroy RAF Fighter Command, with both sides combined losing more aircraft on this day than at any other point during the campaign.
 * 1945 – World War II: Amid a Soviet invasion of Japanese-held Sakhalin, Japanese police massacred 18 Koreans in Kamishisuka.
 * 1948 – Australia won the fifth Test of the 1948 Ashes series, becoming the first Test cricket team to go undefeated in England, earning them the nickname "The Invincibles".
 * 1966 – Vietnam War: Members of the 6th Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment were surrounded by a much larger Viet Cong unit at the Battle of Long Tan, but held them off for several hours until reinforcements arrived.
 * 1983 – Hurricane Alicia made landfall near Galveston, Texas, causing $3 billion in damage and 21 fatalities.
 * 2008 – Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf resigned under pressure from a movement to impeach him.
 * 2017 – Two people were killed and eight others wounded when a rejected asylum seeker went on a knife rampage in Turku, Finland.
 * Born/died this day: | Olaf I of Denmark |d|1095| Knut Alvsson |d|1502| Baji Rao I |b|1700| Ruth Norman |b|1900| Maria Ulfah Santoso |b|1911| Robert Redford |b|1936| Edward Norton |b|1969| Evan Gattis |b|1986|