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History on the 18th of May

History
Date Text
18 May 1291 RELIGIOUS Acre, the last territory in Palestine taken by the first Crusaders, fell to invading Moslem armies. It signalled the end of a Christian "military presence" in the Near East. (Afterwards, friars sought to spread the gospel by preaching instead.)
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18 May 1631 RELIGIOUS The General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony decreed that 'no man shall be admitted to the body politic but such as are members of some of the churches within the limits' of the colony. (Separation of church and state was an unthinkable concept in early American colonialism.)
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18 May 1766 RELIGIOUS The Church of the United Brethren in Christ was organized in Lancaster, PA, under the leadership of Martin Boehm, 41, and Philip William Otterbein, 39. (It became a branch of the Evangelical United Brethren in 1946.)
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18 May 1814 RELIGIOUS In Philadelphia, the General Missionary Convention of the Baptist Denomination in the United States of America for Foreign Missions was established -- the first national organization of Baptists in the U.S. It was later called the Triennial Convention because it met every three years.
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18 May 1918 WW2 George Welch was born. 
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18 May 1920 WW2 USS R-1 arrived at New London, Connecticut, United States. 
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18 May 1920 WW2 USS R-5 arrived at Newport, Rhode Island, United States. 
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18 May 1925 RELIGIOUS Popular evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, 34, disappeared while on a beach outing. Turning up five weeks later, she claimed to have been kidnapped and held prisoner, before escaping from her abductors.
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18 May 1928 WW2 Giulio Cesare was decommissioned from service. 
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18 May 1928 WW2 Conte di Cavour was decommissioned from service. 
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18 May 1932 WW2 Joseph Goebbels arrived in Berlin, Germany. 
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18 May 1933 WW2 Franklin Roosevelt established the Tennessee Valley Authority for power generation and flood control in the namesake region in the United States. 
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18 May 1935 WW2 The world's worst air disaster to date, involving a heavier-than-air craft, occurred when the Soviet ANT-20 "Maxim Gorky" collided with another aircraft near Tushino, Russia, killing 56 on board. 
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18 May 1939 WW2 A degree from Adolf Hitler permitted Heinrich Himmler to call up older men on the outbreak of war to replace the permanent units of concentration camp guards. This would allow the younger men to be drafted into the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Regiments of a new SS Division, to be called Totenkopf. 
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18 May 1940 WW2 German troops captured Antwerp, Belgium; meanwhile, the German government re-incorporated into its borders the territory that Germany ceded to Belgium per the Versailles Treaty. In France, Erwin Rommel's German 7th Panzer Division reached Cambrai where it halted to consolidate his supply lines; in the past 5 days the division advanced 85 miles and captured 10,000 French prisoners and tanks, suffering only 150 casualties. The French called the German 7th Panzer Division the "Ghost Division" for its ability to strike in unexpected and vulnerable places. Elsewhere in France, German troops captured Petonne and Amiens. 
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18 May 1940 WW2 German submarines U-60 and U-62 departed Kiel. 
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18 May 1940 WW2 Arthur Seyß-Inquart was appointed Reich Commissar of the Netherlands. 
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18 May 1940 WW2 British Prime Minister Churchill sent a telegram to US President Roosevelt, noting "if American assistance is to play any part it must be available ." 
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18 May 1940 WW2 HMS Effingham was scuttled by torpedo after suffering serious damage incurred on the previous day after striking the Faksen Shoal off Norway. 
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18 May 1940 WW2 Walter Grabmann, flying a Bf 110 heavy fighter, was shot down by British Hurricane fighters over Douai, France; he parachuted to safety but was captured. 
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18 May 1941 WW2 After sundown, German battleship Bismarck and cruiser Prinz Eugen departed Gotenhafen, Germany (now Gdynia, Poland) for the North Atlantic. The fleet was commanded by Admiral Günther Lütjens aboard Bismarck. 
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18 May 1941 WW2 Italy annexed Dalmatia into its borders. 
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18 May 1941 WW2 Battleship Bismarck anchored in the bay at 1200 hours to embark supplies and fuel for Operation Rheinübung. 
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18 May 1941 WW2 Prinz Eugen departed for Operation Rheinübung. 
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18 May 1941 WW2 German submarine U-107 sank British ship Piako 130 miles west of Freetown, Sierra Leone, British West Africa at 2227 hours; 10 were killed, 65 survived and rescued by British sloop HMS Bridgewater. 
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18 May 1941 WW2 British battleship HMS Nelson and aircraft carrier HMS Eagle, en route from Cape Town, South Africa to Freetown, Sierra Leone, British West Africa in search of German armed merchant cruiser Atlantis, sailed within 7 kilometers of the German ship without detecting her. 
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18 May 1941 WW2 German dive bombers attacked British hospital ship Aba 50 miles south of Crete, Greece. Petty Officer Alfred Sephton of British light cruiser HMS Coventry won the Victoria Cross for directing anti-aircraft fire against the German aircraft despite being partially blinded by a machine gun bullet; he would die from his injuries on the next day. In anticipation of a German invasion of Crete, Greece, 700 Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders were transported from Port Said, Egypt, on troopship Glengyle; they would land at Tymbaki, Crete after sundown. 
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18 May 1941 WW2 British aircraft from RAF Habbaniya bombed Iraqi positions in Falluja throughout the day. Meanwhile, Arab troops loyal to Britain relieved the besieged RAF Habbaniyah which was defended only by out-of-date training aircraft. The base had been under attack from the pro-German forces of General Rashid Ali using Bf 110 and He 111 aircraft. 
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18 May 1941 WW2 General Mosley Mayne, British commander of Indian 5th Division, had lunch with Italian commander Duke of Aosta at Amba Alagi, Abyssinia. The Italian duke agreed to not destroy guns, to not destroy supplies, and to dismantle or identify mines. 
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18 May 1941 WW2 Soviet leadership began a purge against Soviet Air Force officers. 
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18 May 1942 WW2 The Royal Navy rejected American request for one of the three British carriers in the Indian Ocean to serve in the Southwest Pacific. 
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18 May 1942 WW2 Most of the retreating troops of BURCORPS reached India. 
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18 May 1942 WW2 German submarine U-162 sank Norwegian tanker Beth (sailing in service of the British Royal Fleet Auxiliary force) off Barbados at 0210 hours. U-558 sank Dutch ship Fauna 25 miles northwest of British North Caicos island at 0615 hours. German submarine U-156 sank American ship Quaker City 460 miles east of Martinique at 1018 hours; 10 were killed, 29 survived. At 1852 hours, U-156 fired what would be the first of four torpedoes at British tanker San Eliseo between this evening and the next morning as she unsuccessfully chased the tanker. 
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18 May 1942 WW2 German submarine U-125 sank US tanker Mercury Sun in the Caribbean Sea at 0606 hours. At 2150 hours, U-125 struck again, sinking US ship William J. Salman. 
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18 May 1942 WW2 Soviet submarine ShCh-205 sank Turkish ship Duatepe with torpedoes and schooner Kaynardzha with the deck gun 10 miles off Bulgaria; these ships were suspected of smuggling weapons to southern Ukraine for German forces. 
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18 May 1942 WW2 British submarine HMS Turbulent arrived in the Gulf of Sirte north of Libya in the early hours of the day. At 0510 hours, 50 miles northwest of Benghazi, she spotted and sank Italian ship Bolsena. 
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18 May 1942 WW2 Sydir Kovpak was made a Hero of the Soviet Union for the first time. 
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18 May 1942 WW2 Australian 14th Militia Brigade arrived at Port Moresby, British Territory of Papua on New Guinea island. 
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18 May 1942 WW2 RAF bombers conducted a raid on Mannheim, Germany. 
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18 May 1942 WW2 Prinz Eugen arrived at Kiel, Germany to receive a new stern, which was destroyed on 23 Feb by a torpedo from HMS Trident. 
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18 May 1942 WW2 USS Hornet departed Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii for Midway Atoll. 
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18 May 1942 WW2 At Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii, Edwin Layton informed Joseph Rochefort that while Chester Nimitz would like to receive further evidence that Midway Atoll was indeed the next Japanese target. Meanwhile, Chester Nimitz ordered William Halsey to bring his carrier group back to the Hawaiian Islands as a precaution. 
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18 May 1942 WW2 Nikita Khrushchev phoned Joseph Stalin at Moscow, Russia, requesting Stalin to pause the Kharkov offensive in Ukraine in order to focus on other more important campaigns; Stalin rejected the request. 
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18 May 1942 WW2 14th and 16th Panzer Divisions of the German 1st Panzer Army destroyed 130 Soviet tanks in combat in Ukraine, forcing Soviet forces to evacuate forward airfields at Izium and Petrovskaia. Semyon Timoshenko requested for permission to fall back from his positions near Kharkov, Ukraine due to this latest German counteroffensive; Joseph Stalin refused to grant his permission, ordering Timoshenko to continue the westward offensive. 
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18 May 1942 WW2 The newspaper New York Times published an article in an inside page that Germans had killed 100,000 Jews in the Baltic states, 100,000 in Poland, and 200,000 in Russia. 
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18 May 1943 WW2 The Papal Nuncio in Romania asked the Romanian foreign minister to allow the immigration of 8,000 Jewish orphans in Transnistria to Palestine. 
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18 May 1943 WW2 After sundown, German submarine U-304 spotted Allied convoy SC 130 in the North Atlantic. 
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18 May 1943 WW2 The Japanese Navy formed the 12th Air Fleet on paper with Vice Admiral Michitaro Tozuka in command and Rear Admiral Yoshiyuki Ichimiya as the chief of staff. 
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18 May 1943 WW2 USS Pollack sank Japanese ship Terushima Maru in the Marshall Islands with two of three torpedoes fired. 
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18 May 1943 WW2 Japanese 3rd Division captured Songzi, Hubei Province, China. 
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18 May 1943 WW2 At 0730 hours, a Spitfire aircraft of No. 542 Squadron RAF flew across the Ruhr region in Germany and photographed the extent of the damage from the Dambuster Raid. 
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18 May 1943 WW2 Naka arrived at Jaluit Atoll, Marshall Islands. 
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18 May 1943 WW2 Joseph Rochefort was detached from the Western Sea Frontier based in San Fracisco, California, United States. 
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18 May 1944 WW2 Allied bombers conducted a raid on Belgrade, Yugoslavia. 
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18 May 1944 WW2 USS Puffer attacked a Japanese convoy in the South China Sea, firing 9 torpedoes, 2 of which hit and sank freighter Shinryu Maru. 
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18 May 1944 WW2 Anglo-Indian troops attacked Japanese positions at Ninthoukgong, India. 
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18 May 1944 WW2 Joseph Stilwell arrived at the Myitkyina airfield in Burma just a day after the airfield was captured, congratulating Frank Merrill in advance for the capture of the rest of the city, which he believed would be achieved within days. Later on the same day, Merrill dispatched a Chinese unit to attack the city; the attack was called off when two Chinese battalions mistakenly engaged each other in a fierce firefight. 
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18 May 1944 WW2 The Buckley-class destroyer-escort USS England (Commander W. B. Pendleton) attacked and sank Japanese submarine I-16, the first of six enemy submarines to be sunk by USS England over a twelve-day period. 
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18 May 1944 WW2 British 78th Division linked up with the Polish Corps in the Liri River valley 3.2 kilometers west of Cassino, Italy. Later on the same day, Polish troops captured the ruins of the Monte Cassino monastery. 
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18 May 1944 WW2 Kichisaburo Nomura was made a Privy Councillor. 
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18 May 1945 WW2 Specially-modified American B-29 bombers arrived at Tinian, Mariana Islands in preparation of future atomic bomb missions. 
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18 May 1945 WW2 Destroyer USS Longshaw, stuck on a reef, was sunk by Japanese shore battery at Okinawa, Japan. 
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18 May 1945 WW2 King George VI of the United Kingdom awarded Philip Gardner a Victoria Cross for his daring rescue of comrades at Tobruk, Libya on 23 Nov 1941. 
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18 May 1945 WW2 USS Missouri arrived at Apra Harbor, Guam, Mariana Islands. In the afternoon, she became the flagship of Admiral William Halsey of the US Navy 3rd Fleet. 
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18 May 1945 WW2 Captain Keiji Furutani was named the commanding officer of light carrier Hosho. 
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18 May 1945 WW2 Marshal Tito, in negotiations with British and US representatives over disputed territory, claimed to have the right to add Trieste to Yugoslav territory, and refused to leave the area. 
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18 May 1945 WW2 German Field Marshal Ferdinand Schörner was captured by Americans in Austria. 
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18 May 1945 WW2 USS Flying Fish arrived at Guam, Mariana Islands. 
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18 May 1945 WW2 USS Springer arrived at Guam, ending her second war patrol. 
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18 May 1945 WW2 P-47 Thunderbolt aircraft based in Ie Shima near Okinawa attacked airfields on Kyushu, Japan. 
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18 May 1945 WW2 USS Segundo encountered two bodies floating in the water in the East China Sea; her crew identified them to be one American and one Japanese. 
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18 May 1945 WW2 USS Bergall damaged a small Japanese vessel with her deck gun in the South China Sea. 
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18 May 1945 WW2 US Navy gave the firm North American Aviation a contract for three XP-86 prototype jet fighters. 
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18 May 1946 WW2 USS Gunnel was decommissioned from service at New London, Connecticut, United States. 
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18 May 1947 WW2 Chinese communist forces captured Huaide County, Jilin Province, China. 
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