1983
Aug 18, Samantha Druce earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the youngest person to swim the English Channel. She completed the crossing in 15 hours 26 minutes at the age of 12 years 118 days.

1994
Aug 18, Stella Liebeck, who spilled scalding coffee from McDonald’s on her lap, was awarded $2.7 million in punitive damages. She ended up getting only $480,000. The Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants product liability lawsuit became a flashpoint in the debate in the US over tort reform.

1995
Aug 18, Shannon Faulkner, who’d won a two-and-a-half-year legal battle to become the first female cadet at The Citadel, quit the South Carolina military college after less than a week, most of it spent in the infirmary. After her departure, the male cadets openly celebrated on the campus. By May 2005, The Citadel's Corps of Cadets included 118 female cadets, 6% of the total student population.

2003
Aug 18, A 24-year-old woman from China tipped over 303,621 dominos, breaking a long-standing record for the world's longest solo domino topple.

2005
Aug 18, Cindy Sheehan, who'd started an anti-war demonstration near President Bush's Texas ranch nearly two weeks earlier, left the camp after learning her mother had suffered a stroke, but told supporters the protest would go on.

2005
Aug 18, A pride of lions attacked a Japanese woman (50) visiting the Lion and Cheetah Park at Norton, a Zimbabwe wildlife park. She died the next day.


2010
Aug 18, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said the US Army has expressed willingness to discuss the online whistleblower's request for help in reviewing classified documents from the Afghan war and removing information that could harm civilians. The Pentagon said it would not negotiate with WikiLeaks to create "a sanitized version" of a second batch of classified Afghan war documents the whistleblower website plans to release.

2010
Aug 18, In Yemen a woman was killed and two police officers wounded when a wanted southern militant fired at a security patrol which was attempting to arrest him in Al-Afar area of the Lahj province. Five policemen were wounded in an explosion when a masked biker hurled a hand grenade through the window of a police station in Zinjibar.

2011
Aug 18, In India Anna Hazare, who has been fasting since Aug 16, reached an agreement with police to hold a 15-day demonstration fast starting Aug 19 to push for tough new anti-corruption legislation, after a two-day standoff at a New Delhi jail.

2012
Aug 18, In China Yu Wenxia, Miss China, won the Miss World crown for 2012, defeating more than 100 other hopefuls the world's biggest beauty pageant in at a glittering ceremony in Ordos, a Chinese mining city on the edge of the Gobi desert.

2012
Aug 18, In Iraq Maryam Rajavi, president of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which includes the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran (PMOI), said: “As a gesture of goodwill, the residents of Ashraf will commence the 6th convoy of 400 residents from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty on August 23."

why not add pictures..informative anyways