On this day 18th December

Some notable facts about this date, for more, visit http://www.onthisday.com

Facts

218 BC Second Punic War: Battle of the Trebia - Hannibal's Carthaginian army heavily defeat Roman forces on Italian soil

1271 Kublai Khan renames his empire "Yuan" (元 yuán), marking the start of the Yuan Dynasty of China

1603 First fleet of the Dutch East India Compnay under Admiral Steven van der Haghen departs for the East-Indies

1892 Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet "Nutcracker Suite" premieres

1957 World's 1st full scale nuclear power plant begins to generate electricity, at the Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania

Deaths

468 Huna Mari bar Mar Zutra, rabbi, executed in Pumpedita

1638 Le Pere Joseph, French mystic, dies

1839 Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, French naturalist (Lamarckian evolution), dies at 85

1915 Henry Enfield Roscoe, English Chemist, dies at 82

1971 Bobby Jones Jr, amateur golfer (Grand Slam 1930), dies at 69

1993 Sam Wanamaker, actor (Pvt Benjamin), dies of prostate cancer at 74

2000 Kirsty MacColl, English singer and songwriter (b. 1959)

2006 Joseph Barbera, American cartoonist (Hanna-Barbera - Tom and Jerry, Flintstones), dies at 95

2010 James Pickles, English jurist and columnist (b. 1925)

2011 Václav Havel, Czech politician (President of Czechoslovakia, 1990-2, Czech Republic, 1993-2003), dies at 75

2016 Zsa Zsa Gabor [Sari Gabor], Hungarian-born actress (Queen of Outer Space), dies at 99

Born on this day

1963 Brad Pitt, American actor (12 Monkeys, Fight Club) and producer (The Departed, 12 Years a Slave), born in Shawnee, Oklahoma

1978 Katie Holmes, American actress (Dawson's Creek, Batman Begins), born in Toledo, Ohio

1980 Christina Aguilera, American singer (Genie in a Bottle, What a Girl Wants), born in Staten Island, New York

A Couple of Pics from those no longer with us

Joseph Barbera