On This Date... In Literary History! (For starters...)

July 18th, 1925: Seven months after he was released from jail, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler published the first volume of his personal manifesto, Mein Kampf.
July 18th is also the birthdate of eccentric author Hunter S. Thompson (in 1937) whose gonzo journalism writing style is often imitated and seldom replicated (which one do I usually do? YOU tell me...!) *LOL* ;)

My - imagine that! Thompson was only two years-old, hence, when Hitler got the ball rrrreally rolling... Killing millions and millions in the process.

Also happening in 1939, on a July 18th: MGM had a sneak preview of The Wizard of Oz after which producers debated about removing one of the songs because it seemed to slow things down. They finally decided to leave it in. The song: Over the Rainbow.

Over The Rainbow did not slow down the Aryan juggernaut that year - nor did it stop the Holocaust from happening with its touching sound and lyrics...
More casualties of a July 18th:
1969: A car driven by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., plunged into a pond on Chappaquiddick Island, Mass., killing his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne.
2003: British scientist David Kelly, a government adviser and former weapons inspector in Iraq, was found dead, an apparent suicide.

We can take comfort that, after all the killings, after all the storms, there is usually much-needed calm (granted, only until the NEXT storm...)
Calm and some retribution as well...
July 18th, 1977 -after all that went on there - Vietnam was admitted to the United Nations.
And, also on a July 18th, in 2005 this time, Eric Rudolph was sentenced to two life terms for a deadly 1998 bombing at an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama. He also faced later sentencing in Atlanta for bombings at the 1996 Olympics and two other sites.