History for January 18

History for January 18 - On-This-Day.com
Peter Roget 1779, Daniel Webster 1782, A.A. Milne 1882


Oliver Hardy (Laurel & Hardy) 1892, Cary Grant 1904, Kevin Costner 1955


1778 - English navigator Captain James Cook discovered the Hawaiian Islands, which he called the "Sandwich Islands."


1788 - The first English settlers arrived in Australia's Botany Bay to establish a penal colony. The group moved north eight days later and settled at Port Jackson.


1911 - For the first time an aircraft landed on a ship. Pilot Eugene B. Ely flew onto the deck of the USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco harbor.


1943 - During World War II, the Soviets announced that they had broken the Nazi siege of Leningrad, which had began in September of 1941.


1967 - Albert DeSalvo, who claimed to be the "Boston Strangler," was convicted in Cambridge, MA, of armed robbery, assault and sex offenses. He was sentenced to life in prison. Desalvo was killed in 1973 by a fellow inmate.


1975 - "The Jeffersons" debuted on CBS-TV.


1990 - A jury in Los Angeles, CA, acquitted former preschool operators Raymond Buckey and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, of 52 child molestation charges.


1990 - In an FBI sting, Washington, DC, Mayor Marion Barry was arrested for drug possession. He was later convicted of a misdemeanor.