Today in History: April 18

2002: After 29 years in exile, the former king of Afghanistan, Mohammad Zahir Shah, returned to the capital city of Kabul in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of the country and toppling of the Taliban government.

1983: A suicide bomber kills U.S. Marines at the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon.

1980: Zimbabwe's (Rhodesia) formal independence from Britain is proclaimed.

1978: The U.S. Senate approves the transfer of the Panama Canal to Panama.

1954: Colonel Nasser seizes power in Egypt.

1950: The first transatlantic jet passenger trip is completed.

1949: The Republic of Ireland withdraws from British Commonwealth.

1946: The League of Nations dissolves.

1945: During the U.S. invasion of the Japanese island of Okinawa in World War II, American war correspondent Ernie Pyle was killed on nearby Ie Island by Japanese gunfire.

1943: Traveling in a bomber, Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the mastermind of the attack on Pearl Harbor, is shot down by American P-38 fighters.

1942: James H. Doolittle bombs Tokyo and other Japanese cities.

1937: Leon Trotsky calls for the overthrow of Soviet leader Josef Stalin.

1923: Yankee Stadium opens with Babe Ruth hitting a three-run homer as the Yankees beat the Red Sox 4-1.

1906: San Francisco was rocked by an earthquake measuring 8.25 on the Ritcher scale caused by slippage along the San Andreas Fault.

1885: The Sino-Japanese war ends.

1861: Colonel Robert E. Lee turns down an offer to command the Union armies.

1857: American defense lawyer, public speaker, debater, and writer Clarence Darrow—among whose high-profile court appearances was the Scopes Trial, in which he defended a Tennessee high-school teacher who had broken a state law by presenting the Darwinian theory of evolution—was born.

1853: The first train in Asia begins running from Bombay to Tanna.

1847: U.S. forces defeat Mexicans at Cerro Gordo in one of the bloodiest battle of the war.

1838: The Wilkes' expedition to the South Pole sets sail.

1834: William Lamb becomes prime minister of England.

1818: A regiment of Indians and blacks is defeated at the Battle of Suwanna, in Florida, ending the first Seminole War.

1791: National Guardsmen prevent Louis XVI and his family from leaving Paris.

1775: Paul Revere, a renowned silversmith, is better remembered as a folk hero of the American Revolution who this night in 1775 made a dramatic ride on horseback to warn Boston-area residents of an imminent British attack.

1775: American revolutionaries Paul Revere and William Dawes ride though the towns of Massachusetts warning that "the British are coming."

1676: Sudbury, Massachusetts is attacked by Indians.

1521: Martin Luther confronts the emperor Charles V, refusing to retract the views which led to his excommunication.

1506: Pope Julius II laid the first stone of the new St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

310: St. Eusebius begins his reign as Catholic Pope.