Today in History in 1944, For the first time, the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City hosts a jazz concert. Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw are among the musicians performing.

The On This Day In History archives at “Simple English Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia” contains over 200,000 events, birthdays and deaths from 6,000 years of history. Here is a roundup of a few of them:

January 18 is the 18th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 347 days remaining until the end of the year (348 in leap years).

EVENTS

350 – General Magnentius deposes Roman Emperor Constans and proclaims himself Emperor.

1126 – Song Dynasty China: Emperor Huizong of Song decides to leave the throne to his son, Emperor Qinzong of Song.

1486 – King Henry VII of England marries Elizabeth of York.

1535 – Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro founds Lima, the present–day capital city of Peru.

1562 – Pope Pius IV re–opens the Council of Trent the its third and final session.

1591 – King Naresuan of Siam kills Crown Prince Minchit Sra of Burma in single combat.

1671 – English pirate Henry Morgan plunders Panama City and sets it on fire, as well as massacring people who live there.

1701 – Frederick I crowns himself King of Prussia in Konigsberg.

1778 – Captain James Cook reaches the Hawaiian Islands, naming them "Sandwich Islands".

1788 – The first members of the First Fleet of convicts from England arrives in Botany Bay, present–day Sydney, Australia.

1825 – Moscow's Bolshoi Theater re–opens.

1871 – Wilhelm I of Germany become the first German Emperor.

1884 – Passenger steamer City of Columbus sinks off Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, killing 103 people, including all women and children on board.

1884 – Dr. William Price tries to cremate his infant son, Jesus Christ Price, eventually leading to a change in UK cremation law.

1886 – The Hockey Association is founded in England, setting out the rules of modern field hockey.

1911 – Eugene B. Ely lands on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania stationed in San Francisco Bay. This is the first successful landing of an aircraft on a ship.

1913 – First Balkan War: Greece secures the northern Aegean Sea islands after defeating the Ottoman Empire navy in the Battle of Lemnos.

1915 – Japan issues the "Twenty-One Demands" to the Republic of China in a bid to increase its power in East Asia.

1916 – A 611–gram chondrite type meteorite strikes a house near the village of Baxter in Stone County, Missouri.

1919 – The Paris Peace Conference begins in Versailles.

1919 – Ignacy Jan Paderewski becomes the first Prime Minister of newly independent Poland.

1919 – Bentley Motors Limited is founded.

1934 – An earthquake in the present–day Indian state of Bihar kills around 10,000 people.

1941 – World War II: British troops launch a general counter–offensive against then–Italian East Africa.

1944 – For the first time, the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City hosts a jazz concert. Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw are among the musicians performing.

1944 – World War II: Soviet forces liberate Leningrad.

1958 – Willie O'Ree, the first African Canadian in the NHL, makes his first appearance for the Boston Bruins.

1960 – Capital Airilnes Flight 20 crashes into a farm in Charles County, Virginia, killing all 50 people on board.

1967 – Albert DeSalvo is found guilty of being the Boston Strangler serial killer.

1969 – United Airlines Flight 266 crashes into Santa Monica Bay, killing all 32 passengers and 6 crew members.

1976 – Lebanese Christian militias carry out the Karantina massacre in Beirut, killing around 1,000 people.

1976 – Bangladesh and Pakistan fully have foreign bilateral relations between Islamabad and Dacca Officials.

1977 – Scientists identify a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of Legionnaires' disease.

1977 – A train crash at Granville, Sydney, Australia, kills 83 people.

1977 – Yugoslavian Prime Minister Dzemal Bijedic, his wife, and six other people are killed in a plane crash in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

1978 – The European Court of Human Rights finds the UK government guilty of poor treatment of prisoners in Northern Ireland, but finds it not guilty of torture.

1981 – Phil Smith and Phil Mayfield parachute off a Houston, Texas, skyscraper.

1983 – The International Olympic Committee restores Jim Thorpe's Olympic medals to his family.

1993 – Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is observed in all 50 states of the US for the first time. The holiday was first observed in 1986.

1997 – Borge Ousland of Norway becomes the first person to cross Antarctica alone and without help.

2000 – A meteor impacts on Tagish Lake in Northern Canada.

2002 – The Sierra Leone Civil War is officially declared over.

2003 – A bush fire kills four people in Canberra and destroys over 500 homes.

2005 – The Airbus A380, the world's largest commercial jet, is unveiled in a ceremony in Toulouse, France.

2007 – Hurricane Kyrill, a major storm, hits several countries in Western and Central Europe, killing 44 people in total (including 14 in the UK and 13 in Germany) and causing power failures and major damage.

2009 – A ceasefire is agreed in the Israel–Gaza War. The conflict had started with Operation Cast Lead on December 27, 2008.

2012 – The English language edition of Wikipedia blacks out for 24 hours, from midnight to midnight (Eastern Standard Time) in protest against the SOPA and PIPA internet laws proposed by the United States Congress.

2017 – An avalanche (after two earthquakes) buries a hotel in Abruzzo, Central Italy.

2018 – A bus fire near Aktobe, Kazakhstan, kills at least 52 people.

2019 – Andry Rajoelina takes office as President of Madagascar.

2019 – A fuel pipeline explosion in Tlahuelilpan, Hidalgo, Mexico, kills at least 85 people.