This Year in History:
1818
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is published. The book, by 20-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, is frequently called the world’s first science fiction novel. In Shelley’s tale, a scientist animates a creature constructed from dismembered corpses. The gentle, intellectually gifted creature is enormous and physically hideous. Cruelly rejected by its creator, it wanders, seeking companionship and […]
Frederick Douglass, a towering figure of American history, is born enslaved as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey in 1818 in Talbot County, Maryland. He would go on to make a daring escape North and become one of the most famous people in 19th-century America. As a celebrated orator, author and activist, he became a powerful and eloquent […]
Illinois achieves full statehood on this day. Though Illinois presented unique challenges to immigrants unaccustomed to the soil and vegetation of the area, it grew to become a bustling and densely populated state. The prairie lands east of the Mississippi and west of Lake Michigan were inhabited for generations by the Illinois nation, a confederation […]
