Today is Wednesday, June 18, the 169th day of 2025
with 196 to follow.
The moon is waning. Morning stars are Mars, Neptune, Saturn and Venus. Evening stars are Jupiter and Mars.
On this date in history:
In 1812, the United States declared war on Britain, beginning the War of 1812.
In 1815, England's Duke of Wellington and Prussian Field Marshal Gebhard von Blucher defeated Napoleon at Waterloo in Belgium.
In 1975, Saudi Arabian Prince Museid was publicly beheaded in Riyadh for the assassination of his uncle, King Faisal.
In 1979, U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev signed a strategic arms control treaty (SALT II) in Vienna.
In 1983, Sally Ride became the first American woman in space after the shuttle Challenger was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla.
In 1990, gunman James Edward Pough, 42, whose car had been repossessed, killed nine people and wounded four before killing himself at a General Motors Acceptance Corp. loan office in Jacksonville, Fla. Investigators said he had killed two people and injured two others a day earlier.
In 1997, Turkish Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan resigned under pressure after his governing coalition lost its majority in Parliament.
In 2004, U.S. hostage Paul Johnson Jr., 49, was killed by his Saudi captors despite pleas from senior Muslim clerics.
In 2014, Spanish King Juan Carlos abdicated the throne amid scandal, massive unemployment and regional separatism. His son was crowned King Felipe VI one day later.
In 2018, President Donald Trump directed the Department of Defense to create a sixth branch of the military -- a Space Force.
In 2023, the U.S. Coast Guard announced that the Titan, a small submersible with five people on board, went missing off the coast of Newfoundland during an expedition to visit the site of the sunken Titanic. After days of searching, it was determined the submersible imploded, killing pilot and OceanGate founder Stockton Rush, crew member Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and tourists Hamish Harding, Shahzada Dawood and Suleman Dawood.
In 2024, AI-related earnings enabled chipmaker Nvidia to surpass Microsoft as the world's most valuable publicly traded company.
