August 18

684 – Battle of Marj Rahit: Umayyad partisans defeat the supporters of Ibn al-Zubayr and cement Umayyad control of Syria. 707 – Princess Abe accedes to the imperial Japanese throne as Empress Genmei. 1304 – The Battle of Mons-en-Pévèle is fought to a draw between the French army and the Flemish militias. 1487 – The Siege of Málaga ends with the taking of the city by Castilian and Aragonese forces. 1492 – The first grammar of the Spanish language (Gramática de la lengua castellana) is presented to Queen Isabella I. 1572 – The Huguenot King Henry III of Navarre marries the Catholic Margaret of Valois, ostensibly to reconcile the feuding Protestants and Catholics of France. 1590 – John White, the governor of the Roanoke Colony, returns from a supply trip to England and finds his settlement deserted. 1612 – The trial of the Pendle witches, one of England's most famous witch trials, begins at Lancaster Assizes. 1634 – Urbain Grandier, accused and convicted of sorcery, is burned alive in Loudun, France. 1721 – The city of Shamakhi in Safavid Shirvan is sacked. 1783 – A huge fireball meteor is seen across Great Britain as it passes over the east coast. 1809 – The Senate of Finland is established in the Grand Duchy of Finland after the official adoption of the Statute of the Government Council by Tsar Alexander I of Russia. 1826 – Major Gordon Laing becomes the first European to enter Timbuktu. 1838 – The Wilkes Expedition, which would explore the Puget Sound and Antarctica, weighs anchor at Hampton Roads. 1848 – Camila O'Gorman and Ladislao Gutierrez are executed on the orders of Argentine dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas. 1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Globe Tavern: Union forces try to cut a vital Confederate supply-line into Petersburg, Virginia, by attacking the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad. 1868 – French astronomer Pierre Janssen discovers helium. 1870 – Franco-Prussian War: Battle of Gravelotte is fought. 1877 – American astronomer Asaph Hall discovers Phobos, one of Mars’s moons.