November 18

Events

326 – The old St. Peter's Basilica is consecrated.
401 – The Visigoths, led by king Alaric I, cross the Alps and invade northern Italy.
1095 – The Council of Clermont begins: called by Pope Urban II, it led to the First Crusade to the Holy Land.
1105 – Maginulfo is elected the Antipope as Sylvester IV.
1180 – Phillip II becomes king of France.
1210 – Pope Innocent III excommunicates Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV.
1282 – Pope Martin IV excommunicates King Peter III of Aragon.
1302 – Pope Boniface VIII issues the Papal bull Unam sanctam, claiming spiritual supremacy for the papacy.
1421 – A seawall at the Zuiderzee dike in the Netherlands breaks, flooding 72 villages and killing about 10,000 people. This event will be known as St Elizabeth's flood.
1493 – Christopher Columbus first sights the island now known as Puerto Rico.

701 – Itzam K'an Ahk II, Mayan ruler (d. 757)
709 – Emperor Kōnin of Japan (d. 782)
1522 – Lamoral, Count of Egmont (d. 1568)
1571 – Hippolytus Guarinonius, Italian physician and polymath (d. 1654)
1576 – Philipp Ludwig II, Count of Hanau-Münzenberg (d. 1612)
1630 – Eleonora Gonzaga, Italian wife of Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1686)
1647 – Pierre Bayle, French philosopher and author (d. 1706)
1727 – Philibert Commerson, French physician and explorer (d. 1773)
1736 – Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch, German harpsichord player and composer (d. 1800)
1756 – Thomas Burgess, English bishop and philosopher (d. 1837)
1772 – Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia (d. 1806)
1774 – Wilhelmine of Prussia, Queen of the Netherlands (d. 1837)

942 – Odo of Cluny, Frankish abbot and saint (b. c. 878)
953 – Liutgard of Saxony, duchess of Lorraine (b. 931)
1100 – Thomas of Bayeux, archbishop of York
1154 – Adelaide of Maurienne, French queen consort (b. 1092)
1170 – Albert the Bear, margrave of Brandenburg (b. c. 1100)
1247 – Robin Hood, heroic outlaw in English folklore (b. 1160)
1259 – Adam Marsh, English scholar and theologian
1305 – John II, duke of Brittany (b. 1239)
1313 – Constance of Portugal, Portuguese infanta (b. 1290)
1441 – Roger Bolingbroke, English cleric, astronomer, astrologer, magister and alleged necromancer
1472 – Basilius Bessarion, titular patriarch of Constantinople (b. c. 1403)
1482 – Gedik Ahmed Pasha, Ottoman politician, 17th Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire