| 18 July 1100 | Kingdom of Jerusalem [administration] | Godfrey of Bouillon, Defender of the Holy Sepulchre, dies. He is succeeded by his brother, Baldwin I, who takes the title king of Jerusalem. |
| 18 July 1216 | Italy [administration] | Cencio Savelli is elected Pope Honorius III. |
| 18 July 1290 | England [political events] | King Edward I of England expels the Jews from England. |
| 18 July 1610 | Tuscany [births and deaths] | Caravaggio (real name Michelangelo Merisi), outstanding Italian baroque painter, whose major works include The Supper at Emmaus (1596–98) and Death of the Virgin (1605–06), dies in Porto Ercole, Tuscany, Italy (c. 37). |
| 18 July 1658 | Holy Roman Empire [elections] | Leopold I, second son of Ferdinand III, is elected Holy Roman Emperor, defeating the candidature of King Louis XIV of France and ending the short interregnum. |
| 18 July 1817 | England [births and deaths] | Jane Austen, English novelist, dies in Winchester, England (41). |
| 18 July 1870 | Papal States [Catholicism] | The Vatican council issues the ‘Declaration of Papal Infallibility’, declaring that papal pronouncements on spiritual questions are not questionable. |
| 18 July 1918 | [births and deaths] | Nelson Mandela, South African nationalist, political prisoner, and president from 1994, born in Umtata, Cape of Good Hope, South Africa. |
| 18 July 1936 | Spain, Morocco [revolution] | The right-wing Spanish general Francisco Franco leads an army mutiny in Morocco against the Spanish Republican government. Other mutinies break out on the Spanish mainland, marking the start of the Spanish Civil War. |
| 18 July 1954 | USA [jazz] | The first jazz festival at Newport, Rhode Island, takes place. |
| 18 July 1955 | USA [popular culture] | Disneyland, created by Walt Disney, opens in Anaheim, California. It is the first theme park in the world. |
| 18–20 July 1962 | UK [cricket] | The Gentlemen v. Players cricket match, established in 1806, is played for the last time at Lord's, London, England, as the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) votes to abolish the distinction between amateurs (‘gentlemen’) and professionals (‘players’). |
| 18 July 1965 | Congo [sports] | The first All-African Games sports festival opens in Brazzaville, Congo, with 29 nations competing. Because of political problems the next games are not held until 1973. |
| 18 July 1994 | Rwanda [political events] | The Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front claims victory in the Rwandan civil war; the following day, Pasteur Bizimungu assumes the presidency, with Hutu Faustin Twogiramunga as prime minister. |
| 18 July 1999 | [statistics and demography] | The US Census Bureau reports that the world population has reached 6 billion. |
