British troops occupying Peking, China, loot and then burn the Yuanmingyuan, the fabulous summer residence built by the Manchu emperors in the 18th century. China’s Qing leadership surrendered to the Franco-British expeditionary force soon after, ending the Second Opium War and Chinese hopes of reversing the tide of foreign domination in its national affairs. In […]

At dawn on October 18, 1916, Private Harry Farr of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) is executed for cowardice after he refused to go forward into the front-line trenches on the Western Front during World War I. After joining the BEF in 1914, Farr was sent to the front in France; the following May, he […]

On October 18, 1933, the American philosopher-inventor R. Buckminster Fuller applies for a patent for his Dymaxion Car. The Dymaxion—the word itself was another Fuller invention, a combination of “dynamic,” “maximum,” and “ion”—looked and drove like no vehicle anyone had ever seen. It was a three-wheeled, 20-foot-long, pod-shaped automobile that could carry 11 passengers and […]

John Lennon and Yoko Ono are arrested for drug possession at their home near Montagu Square in London, England. The arrests came at a tempestuous time for the couple. Only days earlier, an announcement was made that Ono was pregnant, creating a scandal because both Lennon and Ono were still married to other people. Her […]

In the early morning hours of October 18, 1974, an ex-girlfriend of soul singer Al Green bursts in on him in while he is taking a bath in his Memphis, Tennessee, home and pours a pot of scalding-hot grits on his back. She then retreats to a bedroom and shoots herself dead with Green’s own […]

In a short-lived victory for the Nicaraguan policy of the Reagan administration, the President signs into law an act of Congress approving $100 million of military and “humanitarian” aid for the Contras. Unfortunately for Ronald Reagan and his advisors, the Iran-Contra scandal is just about to break wide open, seriously compromising their goal of overthrowing […]

On October 18, 1988, “Roseanne,“ a television sitcom about a blue-collar American family starring the comedian Roseanne Barr, premieres on ABC. The show was considered groundbreaking for its realistic portrayal of a working-class family and the issues they faced. Barr’s portrayal of the loud and abrasive Roseanne Conner posed a sharp contrast to the stereotypical […]