July 18

Gallic forces defeat Roman troops at the Battle of the Allia, opening the way for the sack of Rome days later.

King Edward I ordered the expulsion of all Jewish people from England, seizing their property and forcing thousands into exile across the English Channel. The expulsion remained in effect for over 350 years until Jewish resettlement was informally permitted under Oliver Cromwell in the mid-seventeenth century.

Attila the Hun's forces sack the strategically vital city of Aquileia in northern Italy.

Construction began on the campanile, or bell tower, of Florence's cathedral complex, designed by the celebrated painter and architect Giotto di Bondone. The tower's colorful marble facade and intricate relief panels made it a defining example of Florentine Gothic architecture, though Giotto died before its completion.

King Edward I issues the Edict of Expulsion, banishing England's Jewish population, estimated at around 16,000 people.

As part of his prolific output as Leipzig's director of church music, Bach premiered a new cantata for the day's Lutheran liturgical service, reflecting his systematic practice of composing weekly works for the church calendar. His cantata cycles from this period remain foundational to the Baroque choral repertoire.

The foundation stone is blessed for the bell tower of Florence Cathedral, designed by the artist Giotto.

Convened partly in response to challenges to papal power posed by modernizing political movements across Europe, the council declared that the pope, when speaking formally on matters of faith and morals, is preserved from error. The controversial doctrine deepened tensions between the Catholic Church and secular European governments.

Johann Sebastian Bach leads the premiere of one of his cantatas in Leipzig.

While imprisoned following his failed 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler dictated the first volume of his political manifesto, blending autobiography with antisemitic and nationalist ideology that would later underpin Nazi policy. Initially a modest seller, the book's sales soared after Hitler's rise to power in 1933.

The First Vatican Council formally declares the doctrine of papal infallibility.

NASA's Gemini 10 mission, crewed by astronauts John Young and Michael Collins, launched on a flight that achieved the first docking between two spacecraft in orbit and included a challenging spacewalk. The mission provided crucial operational experience for the rendezvous and docking techniques later required for the Apollo lunar missions.

Adolf Hitler publishes the first volume of "Mein Kampf," outlining his political ideology.

Competing at the Montreal Summer Olympics, fourteen-year-old Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci became the first athlete in Olympic history to receive a perfect score of 10, a feat the scoreboard technology wasn't even designed to display, showing 1.00 instead. She went on to earn six more perfect scores during the same Games.

NASA's Gemini 10 spacecraft launches on a mission that includes the first docking with an Agena target vehicle.

A man armed with gasoline set fire to the offices of Kyoto Animation, a beloved Japanese animation studio, killing dozens of employees in one of the deadliest mass-casualty attacks in modern Japanese history. The tragedy prompted an outpouring of international grief and support from anime fans and the broader entertainment industry.

Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci scores the first perfect 10 in Olympic gymnastics history at the Montreal Games.

As the Huns swept through northern Italy under Attila's leadership, his forces besieged and destroyed the prosperous Roman city of Aquileia, one of the largest cities in the empire at the time. Survivors reportedly fled into the surrounding lagoons, and later tradition credits their descendants with founding the city of Venice.

An arson attack on an animation studio in Kyoto, Japan, kills 36 people.

Gallic warriors under the chieftain Brennus routed a hastily assembled Roman army just north of Rome along the Allia River, a defeat so catastrophic that the date was long remembered in Roman tradition as inauspicious. The victory opened the path for the Gauls to sack Rome itself just days later.