On this day February 18

On this day
February 18


1637 – Eighty Years' War: Off the coast of Cornwall, a Spanish fleet intercepted an Anglo-Dutch merchant convoy of forty-four vessels escorted by six men-of-war, destroying or capturing twenty ships.

1781 – Fourth Anglo-Dutch War: A British expedition against Dutch colonial outposts on the Gold Coast of Africa landed in Elmina in present-day Ghana.

 1873 – Vasil Levski (pictured), a national hero of Bulgaria, was executed in Sofia by the Ottoman authorities for his efforts to establish an independent Bulgarian republic.

1946 – President Harry S. Truman signed the Rescission Act, annulling benefits payable to Filipino troops who fought for the U.S. during World War II.

2010 – In a coup d'état, military rebels attacked the presidential palace in Niamey, Niger, and replaced President Mamadou Tandja with a ruling junta, the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy.