On this day: October 18

October 18: Feast day of Saint Luke; Independence Day in Azerbaijan (1991); Alaska Day (1867)

Replica of Venera 4

• 1081 – Byzantine–Norman wars: Robert Guiscard led an invasion of the Byzantine Empire, capturing Dyrrhachium in present-day Albania.
• 1561 – Sengoku period: The fourth battle of Kawanakajima, one of the most famous in Japanese history, was fought in present-day Nagano Prefecture.
• 1851 – Moby-Dick, a novel by American writer Herman Melville, was first published as The Whale in London.
• 1929 – In the Persons Case, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council decided that women were eligible to sit in the Canadian Senate.
• 1967 – The Soviet space probe Venera 4 (replica pictured) became the first spacecraft to perform direct in situ analysis of the environment of another planet (Venus).

Lady Mary Wroth (b. 1587) · Jacob Jordaens (d. 1678) · Maria Antonescu (d. 1964)

More anniversaries:

• October 17
• October 18
• October 19

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