Unix Timestamp: 1061164800
Monday, August 18. 2003, 12:00:00 AM UTC

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who was facing impeachment, announces his resignation as President. Indirect presidential elections will be held within 30 days. //news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7567451.stm (BBC News)

Taliban insurgents kill 10 and injure 21 French soldiers in an ambush in Afghanistan.

Pervez Musharraf resigns as President of Pakistan, under impeachment pressure from the coalition government.

A suicide bomber rams a car into an Algerian military academy, killing 43 and injuring 45.

One person is dead, four people are missing, after a fire at the Penhallow Hotel in Newquay, Cornwall. //news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/cornwall/6953427.stm (BBC)

Australia: The first person convicted under new anti-terrorism laws has been acquitted on appeal. Jack Thomas was convicted in March on two counts of receiving funds from a terrorist network and for carrying a falsified passport. According to //www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200608/s1718664.htm ABC News his 5-year sentence was today quashed by the Victorian Court of Appeal, which ruled information obtained during an interview with Australian Federal Police Officers in Pakistan, conducted without legal representation and under threat of torture, was inadmissible.

Peace Mission 2005, the first joint China–Russiamilitary exercise, begins its 8-day training on the Shandong peninsula.

In Dublin, Ireland, the Dublin Port Tunnel excavation works are completed and the final tunnel boring machine breakthrough ceremony takes place.

Irish mobster Martin Cahill is assassinated in Dublin.

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom John Major announces the creation of the Iraqi no-fly zones.

In Beverly Hills, California, Lyle and Erik Menendez shoot their wealthy parents to death in the family's den.

The Pan-European Picnic, a peace demonstration held on the Austrian-Hungarian border.

August 19–21 ndash In response to the murder of a judge, a provincial police chief, and presidential candidate Galán, the authorities of Colombia arrest 11,000 suspected Colombian drug traffickers.

All of Australia's 1,645 domestic airline pilots resign over an airline's move to sack and sue them over a dispute.

Polish president Wojciech Jaruzelski nominates Solidarity activist Tadeusz Mazowiecki to be Prime Minister, the first non-communist in power in 42 years.

Fifty-one people die when the Marchioness pleasure boat collides with a barge on the River Thames adjacent to Southwark Bridge.

Leading presidential hopeful Luis Carlos Galán is assassinated near Bogotá in Colombia.

Hungary removes border restrictions with Austria.

Two million indigenous people of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, then still occupied by the Soviet Union, join hands to demand freedom and independence, forming an uninterrupted 600 km human chain called the Baltic Way.

The Republican National Convention in New Orleans, Louisiana nominates George H.W. Bush for President and Dan Quayle for Vice President of the United States of America.

At Panmunjom, North Korea, 2 United States soldiers are killed while trying to chop down part of a tree in the Korean Demilitarized Zone which had obscured their view.

Two charter buses push into the Hida River on National Highway Route 41 in Japan, in an accident caused by heavy rain 104 are killed.

The State of Tamil Nadu, India is established.

Vietnam War ndash Battle of Long Tan: D Company, 6th Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment, meets and defeats a Viet Cong force estimated to be 4 times larger, at the in Phuoc Tuy Province, Republic of Vietnam.

Vietnam War ndash Operation Starlite: 5,500 United States Marines destroy a Viet Cong stronghold on the Van Tuong peninsula in Quang Ngai Province, in the first major American ground battle of the war. The Marines were tipped-off by a Viet Cong deserter who said that there was an attack planned against the U.S. base at Chu Lai.

Cable 243: In the wake of the Xa Loi Pagoda raids, the Kennedy administration orders the US Embassy, Saigon to explore alternative leadership in South Vietnam, opening the way towards a coup against Diem.

American civil rights movement: James Meredith becomes the first black person to graduate from the University of Mississippi.

Xa Loi Pagoda raids: The Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces loyal to Ngo Dinh Nhu, brother of President Ngo Dinh Diem, vandalise Buddhist pagodas across the country, arresting thousands and leaving an estimated hundreds dead.

The second Kinsey Report, "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female", is published in the US.

Danube Commission created by Belgrade Convention (enters into force 11 May1949).

The Vergarolla explosion in Croatia kills 70.

WWII: Submarine "Rasher" sinks "Teia Maru", "Eishin Maru", "Teiyu Maru", and carrier

WWII: Submarine \'\'Rasher\'\' sinks "Teia Maru", "Eishin Maru", "Teiyu Maru", and carrier

Adolf Hitler orders a temporary halt to Nazi Germany's systematic euthanasia of the mentally ill and handicapped due to protests. However, graduates of the T-4 Euthanasia Program are then transferred to concentration cs, where they continue in their trade.

WWII: Winston Churchill pays tribute in the House of Commons to the Royal Air Force: Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

HRH The Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor, is installed as Governor of the Bahamas.

Leon Trotsky is attacked with an ice axe in his Mexico home by NKVD agent Ramón Mercader.

France begins to withdraw its troops from Germany.

The Bolshevik fleet at Kronstadt, near Petrograd, Russia, on the Baltic Sea, is mostly destroyed by German warplanes and torpedo boats in a combined operation.

The Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917 in Greece destroys 32% of the city, leaving 70,000 individuals homeless.

Chris Watson resigns as Prime Minister of Australia and is succeeded by George Reid.

William Ewart Gladstone assumes British premiership at head of Liberal government, with Irish Nationalist Party support.

The Married Women's Property Act 1882 receives royal assent in Britain it enables women to buy, own and sell property and to keep their own earnings.

The Married Women's Property Act 1882 receives royal assent in Britain it enables women to buy, own and sell property and to keep their own earnings.

Asaph Hall discovers Phobos, the inner moon of Mars.

The element later named as helium is first detected in the spectrum of the Sun's chromosphere by French astronomer Jules Janssen during a total eclipse in Guntur, India, but assumed to be sodium.

American Civil War ndash Battle of Globe Tavern: Forces under Union General Ulysses S. Grant try to cut a vital Confederate supply-line into Petersburg, Virginia, by attacking the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad, forcing the Confederates to use wagons.

The Canadian ship SS \\\'\\\'Royal William\\\'\\\' sets out from Pictou, Nova Scotia on a 25-day passage of the Atlantic Ocean largely under steam to Gravesend, Kent, England.

The Canadian ship SS "Royal William" sets out from Pictou, Nova Scotia on a 25-day passage of the Atlantic Ocean largely under steam to Gravesend, Kent, England.

Explorer Alexander Gordon Laing becomes the first European to reach Timbuktu.ref name=Pocket On This Day

Gregor MacGregor issues a £300,000 loan with 2.5% interest through the London bank of Thomas Jenkins Company. His actions lead to the Panic of 1825, the first modern stock market crash in London.

September ndash The Lady Margaret Boat Club is founded by 12 members of St John's College, Cambridge.

A large fireball passes on a thousand-mile track across the North Sea, the United Kingdom and France, prompting scientific discussion.

Josef II becomes Holy Roman Emperor.

Battle of Lagos: The British fleet of Edward Boscawen defeats a French force under Commodore Jean-François de La Clue-Sabran off the Portuguese coast.

Two of the four rebellious Scottish lords, Earl of Kilmarnock and Lord Balmeniro, are beheaded in the Tower (Lord Lovat was executed in 1747).

War of the Spanish Succession: Capture of Minorca by British forces.ref name=Cassell's Chronology/

Urbain Grandier, a priest accused of sorcery, is burned alive in Loudun, France.

John White, governor of the Colony of Roanoke, returns from a supply-trip to England and finds his settlement deserted. After the unsuccessful search, he returns to England on October 24.

According to legend, Saul Wahl is deposed.

Polish and Lithuanian nobles elect Sigismund III Vasa as their king.

According to legend, Saul Wahl is named king of Poland.

Huguenot King Henry III of Navarre marries Marguerite de Valois, sister of King Charles and daughter of Catherine de Medici, in a supposed attempt to reconcile Protestants and Catholics in France.

The Third War of Religion begins in France after an unsuccessful attempt by the Royalists to capture Condé and Coligny, the Huguenot leaders.

Mary of Burgundy marries Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor in Ghent, bringing her Flemish and Burgundian lands into the Holy Roman Empire and detaching them from France.

Pope Sixtus III dies after a 8-year reign in which he has resisted heresy and sponsored major construction programs in Rome. He is succeeded by Leo I as the 45th pope.