ON THIS DATE: APRIL 18

Historical events from April 18 are brought to you by Encyclopaedia Britannica. Explore more at britannica.com.

2012: American television personality and businessman Dick Clark, who was the longtime host of American Bandstand (1957–87), died in California.

1999: Canadian ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky, considered one of the game’s greatest players, skated in his last NHL game.

1980: Zimbabwe achieved independence from the United Kingdom.

1956: Abandoning her Hollywood career, American actress Grace Kelly wed Rainier III, prince de Monaco, in a civil ceremony; an opulent religious ceremony took place the following day.

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.

1942: U.S. Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle led 16 B-25 bombers on a spectacular surprise attack on Tokyo and other Japanese cities; the Doolittle Raid, as it became known, caused little damage but boosted Allied morale.

1906: San Francisco was rocked by an earthquake caused by slippage along the San Andreas Fault.

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.