On this day, April 18
1775 Paul Revere began his famous ride from Charlestown to Lexington, Mass., warning colonists that British Regular troops were approaching.
1865 Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston surrendered to Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman near Durham Station in North Carolina, bringing further closure to the Civil War, which had formally ended.
1906 A devastating earthquake struck San Francisco, followed by raging fires; estimates of the final death toll range between 3,000 and 6,000.
1955 Physicist Albert Einstein died in Princeton, N.J., at age 76.
1966 Bill Russell was named player-coach of the Boston Celtics, becoming the NBA’s first Black coach.
1978 The Senate approved the Panama Canal Treaty, providing for the complete turnover of control of the waterway to Panama on the last day of 1999.
1983 63 people, including 17 Americans, were killed at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, by a suicide bomber.
2015 A ship believed to be carrying migrants from Africa sank in the Mediterranean off Libya; about 500 are believed to have died.
2018 Cuba’s government selected 57-year-old First Vice President Miguel Mario Diaz-Canel Bermudez as the sole candidate to succeed President Raul Castro, a move that installed someone from outside the Castro family in the country’s highest office for the first time in nearly six decades; the 86-year-old Castro would remained head of the Communist Party.
2019 The final report from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation was made public; it outlined Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election but did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.
2023 Fox and Dominion Voting Systems reached a $787 million settlement in the voting machine company’s defamation lawsuit, averting a trial in a case that exposed how the toprated network chased viewers by promoting lies about the 2020 presidential election.
Today’s birthdays: Actor Clive Revill, 94. Actor Hayley Mills, 78. Actor James Woods, 77. Actor Rick Moranis, 71. Actor Melody Thomas Scott, 68. Actor Eric Roberts, 68. Actor John James, 68. Author-journalist Susan Faludi, 65. Talk show host Conan O’Brien, 61. Actor Eric McCormack, 61. Actor Maria Bello, 57. Actor Mary Birdsong, 56. Actor Melissa Joan Hart, 48. Reality TV star Kourtney Kardashian, 45. Former Detroit Tigers first baseman and DH Miguel Cabrera, 41. Actor America Ferrera, 40.