April 18 historic events
1775 American Revolution: The British advancement by sea begins; Paul Revere began his ride from Charlestown to Lexington, Mass., warning American colonists that the British were coming.
1783 Fighting ceases in the American Revolution, eight years to the day since it began.
1848 American victory at the battle of Cerro Gordo opens the way for invasion of Mexico.
General Santa Anna, who had killed all defenders of the Alamo and massacred the prisoners of war captured at Goliad, was forced to flee in such haste that he left his artificial leg behind. The leg is currently on display in the Illinois State Military Museum.
1906 The San Francisco earthquake and fire destroys much of San Francisco, California.
1912 The Cunard liner RMS Carpathia brings 705 survivors from the RMS Titanic to New York City.
Remains of the piers on the lower West Side of Manhattan that were used by Cunard (Carpathia’s parent company) and White Star (Titanic’s parent) still exist.
1915 French pilot Roland Garros is shot down and glides to a landing on the German side of the lines during World War I.
Garros was the first pilot to invent a system that allowed fighter aircraft to fire machine guns thru the spinning blades of a propeller. He shielded the prop’s blades so the bullets would deflect off to the side without destroying the prop. Anthony Fokker, a German, devised a much better system, whereby the machine gun was synchronized with the spinning prop so the bullets were able to pass thru the blades without striking them.
1923 Yankee Stadium, “The House that Ruth Built,” opens.
The Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox 4-1 on its opening day, with Babe Ruth contributing a homer. A pile of rubble, known as “The House that George Demolished” is now all that remains of that stadium. Despite their disappointment over the destruction of the historic stadium, Yankee fans were largely mollified by capture of yet another world championship.
1942 World War II: The Doolittle Raid on Japan. Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe and Nagoya bombed.
Although the raid didn’t accomplish much strategically, it was a huge morale boost for the U.S. and a shock to the Japanese who had been promised by their leaders that they couldn’t be attacked. The B-25 bombers had to fly further than originally planned, and none of them were able to make it safely to the original Chinese landing site. In a wartime atrocity, three captured American prisoners-of-war were executed by the Japanese.
1943 World War II: Operation Vengeance, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is killed when his aircraft is shot down by U.S. fighters over Bougainville Island.
Isoroku Yamamoto was a top Japanese admiral who had studied at Harvard for three years. Although he strongly opposed going to war vs. the U.S., he was the primary planner of the Pearl Harbor attack. By 1943 American code-breakers had cracked the top secret Japanese code, but didn’t want to tip their hand unless presented with a major opportunity. This opportunity occurred when they intercepted Admiral Yamamoto’s flight plans. A special mission to shoot down Yamamoto’s plane was planned, using P-38 fighters specially equipped with drop tanks (disposable fuel tanks) to extend their range. The attack took the Japanese by surprise and was a complete success; Yamamoto was killed when his plane was shot down, and almost all of the P-38s returned successfully. Yamamoto is credited with the famous quote following the Pearl Harbor attack, that “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”
1946 The League of Nations went out of business.
What appeared to be a successful transition of power was hijacked when the corrupt, racist, and incompetent Robert Mugabe assumed power.