Important Historical Events of the year 2018, Year 2018 in History
List of 2018 Major News Events in History, Most Important Historical Events in 2018
What happened in the year 2018?
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| January 3, 2018 | For the first time in history, all five major storm surge gates in the Netherlands are closed simultaneously in the wake of a storm. |
| January 4, 2018 | Hennenman–Kroonstad train crash: A passenger train operated by Shosholoza Meyl collides with a truck on a level crossing at Geneva Station between Hennenman and Kroonstad, Free State, South Africa. Twenty people are killed and 260 injured. |
| January 13, 2018 | A false emergency alert warning of an impending missile strike in Hawaii causes widespread panic in the state. |
| January 15, 2018 | British multinational construction and facilities management services company Carillion went into liquidation |
| January 16, 2018 | Myanmar police open fire on a group of ethnic Rakhine protesters, killing seven and wounding twelve. |
| January 18, 2018 | A bus catches fire on the Samara–Shymkent road in Yrgyz District, Aktobe, Kazakhstan.[8] The fire kills 52 passengers, with three passengers and two drivers escaping.[9][10] |
| January 20, 2018 | A group of four or five gunmen attack The Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan, sparking a 12-hour battle. The attack kills 40 people and injures many others. |
| January 20, 2018 | Syrian civil war: The Government of Turkey announces the initiation of the Afrin offensive and begins shelling Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) positions in Afrin Region. |
| January 21, 2018 | Rocket Lab's Electron becomes the first rocket to reach orbit using an electric pump-fed engine and deploys three CubeSats. |
| January 23, 2018 | A 7.9 Mw earthquake occurs in the Gulf of Alaska. It is tied as the sixth-largest earthquake ever recorded in the United States, but there are no reports of significant damage or fatalities. |
| January 23, 2018 | A double car bombing in Benghazi, Libya, kills at least 33 people and wounds "dozens" of others. The victims include both military personnel and civilians, according to local officials. |
| January 23, 2018 | The China–United States trade war begins when President Donald Trump places tariffs on Chinese solar panels and washing machines. |
| January 24, 2018 | Former doctor Larry Nassar is sentenced up to 175 years in prison after being found guilty of using his position to sexually abuse female gymnasts. |
| January 31, 2018 | Both a blue moon and a total lunar eclipse occur. |
| February 6, 2018 | SpaceX's Falcon Heavy, a super heavy launch vehicle, makes its maiden flight. |
| February 9, 2018 | Winter Olympics: Opening ceremony is performed in Pyeongchang County in South Korea. |
| February 10, 2018 | Nineteen people are killed and 66 injured when a Kowloon Motor Bus double decker on route 872 in Hong Kong overturns. |
| February 11, 2018 | Saratov Airlines Flight 703 crashes near Moscow, Russia with 71 deaths and no survivors. |
| February 14, 2018 | Jacob Zuma resigns as President of South Africa. |
| February 14, 2018 | A shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida is one of the deadliest school massacres with 17 fatalities and 15 injuries. |
| February 22, 2018 | A man throws a grenade at the U.S embassy in Podgorica, Montenegro. He dies at the scene from a second explosion, with no one else hurt. |
| March 4, 2018 | Former MI6 spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter are poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent in Salisbury, England, causing a diplomatic uproar that results in mass-expulsions of diplomats from all countries involved. |
| March 5, 2018 | Syrian civil war: The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) pause the Deir ez-Zor campaign due to the Turkish-led invasion of Afrin.[11][12] |
| March 6, 2018 | Forbes names Jeff Bezos as the world's richest person, for the first time, at $112 billion net worth. |
| March 8, 2018 | The first Aurat March (social/political demonstration) was held being International Women's Day in Karachi, Pakistan, since then annually held across Pakistan and feminist slogan Mera Jism Meri Marzi (My body, my choice), in demand for women's right to bodily autonomy and against gender-based violence came into vogue in Pakistan.[36][37] |
| March 23, 2018 | President of Peru Pedro Pablo Kuczynski resigns from the presidency amid a mass corruption scandal before certain impeachment by the opposition-majority Congress of Peru. |
| March 24, 2018 | Syrian civil war: The Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) and Syrian National Army (SNA) take full control of Afrin District, marking the end of the Afrin offensive. |
| March 24, 2018 | Students across the United States stage the March for Our Lives demanding gun control in response to the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. |
| March 25, 2018 | Syrian civil war: Following the completion of the Afrin offensive, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) initiate an insurgency against the Turkish occupation of the Afrin District.[12][13] |
| March 30, 2018 | Israeli Army killed 17 Palestinians and wounded 1,400 in Gaza during Land Day protests. |
| March 31, 2018 | Start of the 2018 Armenian revolution. |
| April 3, 2018 | YouTube headquarters shooting: A 38-year-old gunwoman opens fire at YouTube Headquarters in San Bruno, California, injuring 3 people before committing suicide. |
| April 6, 2018 | A bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos junior ice hockey team collides with a semi-truck in Saskatchewan, Canada, killing 16 people and injuring 13 others. |
| April 7, 2018 | Former Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is arrested for corruption by determination of Judge Sérgio Moro, from the “Car-Wash Operation”.[27] Lula stayed imprisoned for 580 days, after being released by the Brazilian Supreme Court. |
| April 7, 2018 | Syria launches the Douma chemical attack during the Eastern Ghouta offensive of the Syrian Civil War. |
| April 11, 2018 | An Ilyushin Il-76 which was owned and operated by the Algerian Air Force crashes near Boufarik, Algeria, killing 257. |
| April 16, 2018 | The New York Times and the New Yorker win the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for breaking news of the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse scandal. |
| April 18, 2018 | King Mswati III of Swaziland announces that his country's name will change to Eswatini. |
| April 23, 2018 | A vehicle-ramming attack kills 10 people and injures 16 in Toronto. A 25-year-old suspect, Alek Minassian, is arrested. |
| April 26, 2018 | American comedian Bill Cosby is convicted of sexual assault. |
| April 27, 2018 | The Panmunjom Declaration is signed between North and South Korea, officially declaring their intentions to end the Korean conflict. |
| May 1, 2018 | Syrian civil war: The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) resumes the Deir ez-Zor campaign in order to clear the remnants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) from the Iraq–Syria border.[16] |
| May 9, 2018 | The historic defeat for Barisan Nasional, the governing coalition of Malaysia since the country's independence in 1957 in 2018 Malaysian general election. |
| May 12, 2018 | Paris knife attack: A man is fatally shot by police in Paris after killing one and injuring several others. |
| May 18, 2018 | A school shooting at Santa Fe High School in Texas kills ten people. |
| May 19, 2018 | The wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle is held at St George's Chapel, Windsor, with an estimated global audience of 1.9 billion. |
| May 25, 2018 | The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) becomes enforceable in the European Union. |
| May 25, 2018 | Ireland votes to repeal the Eighth Amendment of their constitution that prohibits abortion in all but a few cases, choosing to replace it with the Thirty-sixth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland. |
| May 27, 2018 | Maryland Flood Event: A flood occurs throughout the Patapsco Valley, causing one death, destroying the entire first floors of buildings on Main Street in Ellicott City, and causing cars to overturn. |
| June 10, 2018 | Opportunity rover, sends it last message back to earth. The mission was finally declared over on February 13, 2019. |
| June 12, 2018 | United States President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un of North Korea held the first meeting between leaders of their two countries in Singapore. |
| June 13, 2018 | Volkswagen is fined one billion euros over the emissions scandal. |
| June 18, 2018 | An earthquake of magnitude 6.1 strikes northern Osaka. |
| June 19, 2018 | The 10,000,000th United States Patent is issued. |
| June 19, 2018 | Antwon Rose II was fatally shot in East Pittsburgh by East Pittsburgh Police Officer Michael Rosfeld after being involved in a near-fatal drive-by shooting. |
| June 23, 2018 | Twelve boys and an assistant coach from a soccer team in Thailand are trapped in a flooding cave, leading to an 18-day rescue operation. |
| July 15, 2018 | France win their second World Cup title, defeating Croatia 4-2. |
| July 17, 2018 | Scott S. Sheppard announces that his team has discovered a dozen irregular moons of Jupiter. |
| July 19, 2018 | The Knesset passes the controversial Nationality Bill, which defines the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. |
| July 23, 2018 | A wildfire in East Attica, Greece caused the death of 102 people. It was the deadliest wildfire in history of Greece and the second-deadliest in the world, in the 21st century, after the 2009 bushfires in Australia that killed 180.[12][13][14] |
| July 25, 2018 | As-Suwayda attacks: Coordinated attacks occur in Syria. |
| July 28, 2018 | Australian Wendy Tuck becomes the first woman skipper to win the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race. |
| August 3, 2018 | Two burka-clad men kill 29 people and injure more than 80 in a suicide attack on a Shia mosque in eastern Afghanistan. |
| August 4, 2018 | Syrian civil war: The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) expel the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) from the Iraq–Syria border, concluding the second phase of the Deir ez-Zor campaign. |
| August 10, 2018 | Horizon Air employee Richard Russell hijacks and performs an unauthorized takeoff on a Horizon Air Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 plane at Seattle–Tacoma International Airport in Washington, flying it for more than an hour before crashing the plane and killing himself on Ketron Island in Puget Sound. |
| August 10, 2018 | An anti-government rally turns into a riot when members of the Romanian Gendarmerie attack the 100,000 people protesting in front of the Victoria Palace, leading to 452 recorded injuries. The autorithies alleged that the crowd was infiltrated by hooligans who began attacking law enforcement agents. |
| August 12, 2018 | Thirty-nine civilians, including a dozen children, are killed in an explosion at a weapons depot in Sarmada, Syria. |
| August 26, 2018 | Three people are killed and eleven wounded during a mass shooting at a Madden NFL '19 video game tournament in Jacksonville, Florida. |
| September 6, 2018 | Supreme Court of India decriminalised all consensual sex among adults in private, making homosexuality legal on the Indian lands.[8] |
| September 13, 2018 | The Merrimack Valley gas explosions: One person is killed, 25 are injured, and 40 homes are destroyed when excessive natural gas pressure caused fires and explosions. |
| September 17, 2018 | A Russian reconnaissance aircraft carrying 15 people on board is brought down by a Syrian surface-to-air missile over the Mediterranean Sea. |
| September 20, 2018 | At least 161 people die after a ferry capsizes close to the pier on Ukara Island in Lake Victoria, Tanzania. |
| September 21, 2018 | Killing of Zak Kostopoulos, LGBT rights activist beaten to death on a busy street in Athens |
| September 25, 2018 | Bill Cosby is sentenced to three to ten years in prison for aggravated sexual assault. |
| September 28, 2018 | The 7.5 Mw 2018 Sulawesi earthquake, which triggered a large tsunami, leaves 4,340 dead and 10,679 injured. |
| October 1, 2018 | The International Court of Justice rules that Chile is not obliged to negotiate access to the Pacific Ocean with Bolivia. |
| October 2, 2018 | The Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi is assassinated in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. |
| October 6, 2018 | The United States Senate confirms Brett Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court Associate Justice, ending a contentious confirmation process. |
| October 10, 2018 | Hurricane Michael makes landfall in the Florida Panhandle as a catastrophic Category 5 hurricane. It kills 57 people in the United States, 45 in Florida, and causes an estimated $25.1 billion in damage. |
| October 11, 2018 | Soyuz MS-10, launching an intended crew for the ISS, suffers an in-flight abort. The crew lands safely. |
| October 12, 2018 | Princess Eugenie marries Jack Brooksbank at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. |
| October 15, 2018 | 13-year-old American girl, Jayme Closs, is kidnapped from her Barron, Wisconsin home after her parents were both murdered. |
| October 17, 2018 | The recreational use of cannabis is legalized in Canada. |
| October 17, 2018 | Kerch Polytechnic College attack in Crimea. |
| October 27, 2018 | A gunman opens fire on a Pittsburgh synagogue killing 11 and injuring six, including four police officers. |
| October 27, 2018 | Leicester City F.C. owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha dies in a helicopter crash along with four others after a Premier League match against West Ham United at the King Power Stadium in Leicester, England. |
| October 28, 2018 | Jair Bolsonaro is elected president of Brazil with 57 million votes, with Workers' Party candidate Fernando Haddad as the runner-up. It is the first time in 16 years that a Workers' Party candidate is not elected president. |
| October 29, 2018 | A Boeing 737 MAX plane crashes after taking off from Jakarta, Indonesia killing 189 people on board. |
| November 23, 2018 | Founders of Italian fashion brand Dolce & Gabbana issue an apology following a series of offensive advertisements on social media promoting a fashion show in Shanghai, China, which was canceled. |
| November 26, 2018 | The robotic probe Insight lands on Elysium Planitia, Mars. |
| November 30, 2018 | A magnitude 7.1 earthquake with its epicenter only 24 km from Anchorage, Alaska causes significant property damage but no deaths. |
| December 1, 2018 | The Oulu Police informed the public about the first offence of the much larger child sexual exploitation in Oulu, Finland. |
| December 18, 2018 | List of bolides: A meteor exploded over the Bering Sea with a force over 10 times greater than the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945. |
| December 22, 2018 | A tsunami caused by an eruption of Anak Krakatau in Indonesia kills at least 430 people and injures almost a thousand more. |
| December 22, 2018 | The 2018–2019 United States federal government shutdown, the longest shutdown of the U.S. federal government in history, begins. |
| December 24, 2018 | A helicopter crash kills Martha Érika Alonso, first female Governor of Puebla, Mexico, and her husband Rafael Moreno Valle Rosas, former governor. |
| December 31, 2018 | Thirty-nine people are killed after a ten-story building collapses in the industrial city of Magnitogorsk, Russia. |