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On This Day | September 18

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2011
2011 Sikkim earthquake

The 2011 Sikkim earthquake (also known as the 2011 Himalayan earthquake) occurred with a moment magnitude of 6.9 and was centered within the Kanchenjunga Conservation Area, near the border of Nepal and the Indian state of Sikkim. The earthquake was felt across northeastern India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and southern Tibet. At least 111 people were killed in the earthquake.

1974
Hurricane Fifi-Orlene

Hurricane Fifi, later known as Hurricane Orlene, was a catastrophic tropical cyclone that killed over 8,000 people in Honduras in September 1974, ranking it as the third deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record, only behind Hurricane Mitch in 1998, and the 1780 hurricane. The storm quickly intensified into a hurricane the following afternoon and attained its peak intensity on September 18 as a strong Category 2 hurricane. Maintaining hurricane intensity, Fifi brushed the northern coast of Honduras before making landfall in Belize the following day.

1916
Desná Dam breached

The Desná Dam was a dam constructed on the Bílá Desná river in the Jizera Mountains, which are in the Liberec Region of the Czech Republic. It is known for bursting on September 18, 1916, ten months after it was built, which caused the river to flood the nearby town of Desná, killing 67 people and causing hundreds of others to lose their homes.

1906
1906 Hong Kong typhoon dissipated

The 1906 Hong Kong typhoon was a tropical cyclone that hit Hong Kong on 18 September 1906. The natural disaster caused property damage exceeding a million pounds sterling, affected international trade, and took the lives of around 15,000 people: about 5% of the then Hong Kong population (a total of 320,000 people).

1860
Joseph Locke died

Joseph Locke was a notable English civil engineer of the nineteenth century, particularly associated with railway projects. Locke ranked alongside Robert Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel as one of the major pioneers of railway development.

1783
Leonhard Euler died

Leonhard Euler was a Swiss mathematician, physicist, astronomer, geographer, logician and engineer who founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made pioneering and influential discoveries in many other branches of mathematics such as analytic number theory, complex analysis, and infinitesimal calculus. Euler is held to be one of the greatest mathematicians in history and the greatest of the 18th century.

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