What happened on 18 September?

12 events from the Ever-When timeline, ranked by how much they mattered.

1. 1709 Born: Samuel Johnson English writer; lexicographer; author of A Dictionary of the English Language.
2. 2014 Scottish independence referendum Scotland votes 55–45 to remain in the United Kingdom.
3. 1931 Mukden Incident / Japanese invasion of Manchuria Japanese officers stage an explosion on the South Manchuria Railway near Mukden and use it as a pretext to invade Manchuria; the puppet state of Manchukuo follows in 1932.
4. 1598 Death of Hideyoshi — the regents' pact Dying with his heir aged five, Hideyoshi binds the five greatest lords by oath to rule jointly until the boy comes of age — verses on his lips about life as 'a dream within a dream
5. 1850 Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 The law that made the North complicit: citizens compelled to help catch escapees, alleged fugitives denied a jury — and thousands flee onward to Canada.
6. 1898 Fashoda Incident A British-French standoff in Sudan that nearly triggered war over control of the Nile.
7. 1793 Siege of Toulon (1793) Republican forces retake the royalist port from an Anglo-Spanish fleet; a 24-year-old artillery captain, Napoleon Bonaparte, sites the decisive batteries and is made a brigadier ge
8. 1914 Home Rule passes — and is shelved for the war Irish Home Rule finally reaches the statute book — suspended for the duration of the European war, with Ulster's exclusion left unresolved. Redmond urges Irishmen to enlist to earn
9. 96 Reign of Nerva Senator chosen as emperor after Domitian's murder; adopts Trajan as heir, initiating the 'Five Good Emperors' succession.
10. 2007 Burmese Saffron Revolution Buddhist monk-led protests in Myanmar against the military junta.
11. 1968 Zond 5 circles the Moon first A Soviet probe loops around the Moon and returns to Earth carrying tortoises, the first living creatures to travel to the Moon and back — and a warning shot that Moscow may still s
12. 1885 Bulgarian unification Bulgaria annexes Eastern Rumelia in a bloodless coup, then routs a Serbian invasion within weeks — enlarging the young state by half in defiance of the Berlin settlement.