WHAT HAPPENED ON 18. NOVEMBER
Want to find out what all happened on 18. November

The Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty is signed by the United States and Panama, giving the United States exclusive rights over the Panama Canal Zone. (18. November 1903)

General Esteban Huertas steps down after the government of Panama fears he wants to stage a coup. (18. November 1904)

Prince Carl of Denmark becomes King Haakon VII of Norway. (18. November 1905)

Two United States warships are sent to Nicaragua after 500 revolutionaries (including two Americans) are executed by order of José Santos Zelaya. (18. November 1909)

World War I: First Battle of the Somme – in France, British Expeditionary Force commander Douglas Haig calls off the battle which started on July 1, 1916. (18. November 1916)

Latvia declares its independence from Russia. (18. November 1918)

George Bernard Shaw refuses to accept the money for his Nobel Prize, saying, "I can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize." (18. November 1926)

Release of the animated short Steamboat Willie, the first fully synchronized sound cartoon, directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, featuring the third appearances of cartoon characters Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse. This is considered by the Disney corporation to be Mickey's birthday. (18. November 1928)

1929 Grand Banks earthquake: off the south coast of Newfoundland in the Atlantic Ocean, a Richter magnitude 7.2 submarine earthquake, centered on Grand Banks, breaks 12 submarine transatlantic telegraph cables and triggers a tsunami that destroys many south coast communities in the Burin Peninsula. (18. November 1929)

Soka Kyoiku Gakkai, a Buddhist association later renamed Soka Gakkai, is founded by Japanese educators Tsunesaburo Makiguchi and Josei Toda. (18. November 1930)

Trade union members elect John L. Lewis as the first president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. (18. November 1938)

World War II: German leader Adolf Hitler and Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano meet to discuss Benito Mussolini's disastrous invasion of Greece. (18. November 1940)

World War II: Battle of Berlin – 440 Royal Air Force planes bomb Berlin causing only light damage and killing 131. The RAF loses nine aircraft and 53 air crew. (18. November 1943)

The Popular Socialist Youth is founded in Cuba. (18. November 1944)

The Ballantyne's Department Store fire in Christchurch, New Zealand, kills 41; it is the worst fire disaster in the history of New Zealand. (18. November 1947)

The Iva Valley Shooting occurs after the coal miners of Enugu in Nigeria go on strike over withheld wages; 21 miners are shot dead and 51 are wounded by police under the supervision of the British colonial administration of Nigeria. (18. November 1949)

United States President John F. Kennedy sends 18,000 military advisors to South Vietnam. (18. November 1961)

The first push-button telephone goes into service. (18. November 1963)

U.S. President Richard Nixon asks the U.S. Congress for $155 million in supplemental aid for the Cambodian government. (18. November 1970)

In Jonestown, Guyana, Jim Jones led his Peoples Temple cult to a mass murder-suicide that claimed 918 lives in all, 909 of them in Jonestown itself, including over 270 children. Congressman Leo J. Ryan is murdered by members of the Peoples Temple hours earlier. (18. November 1978)