April 18 (UPI) – On this date in history:

In 1506 the foundation stone for St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome was laid.

In 1775, US patriot Paul Revere began his famous ride through the Massachusetts countryside, shouting “The British are coming!” to rouse the Minutemen.

In 1906, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck San Francisco, causing buildings to collapse and fires to destroy much of what was left of the city. Researchers and historians have concluded that the quake and its aftermath killed around 3,000 people and left around 250,000 homeless.

In 1912, three days after the Titanic sank, its survivors arrived in New York City aboard the RMS Carpathia.

The original Yankee Stadium opened in New York in 1923. The stadium was demolished in 2010 after being replaced by the new Yankee Stadium a year earlier.

In 1942, Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle led a squadron of B-25 bombers in a surprise raid on Tokyo in response to the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

(In 1945, US journalist Ernie Pyle, a popular World War II correspondent, was killed by Japanese machine gun fire on the Pacific island of Ie Shima

In 1949, the Republic of Ireland officially declared its independence from Great Britain.

In 1968, McCulloch Oil Corp. paid $2.24 million to purchase the London Bridge, which had sunk into the Thames under the weight of 20th century traffic. The oil company rebuilt the bridge block by block over Lake Havasu in Arizona.

In 1980, Rhodesia became the independent African state of Zimbabwe.

In 1983, the US embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, was severely damaged by a car bomb explosion. 63 people, including 17 Americans, lost their lives.

In 1992, an 11-year-old boy from Florida filed a lawsuit seeking to “divorce” his biological parents and stay with his foster parents. The boy eventually won his case.

In 2002, former U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey (Democrat of Nebraska) announced that at least 13 civilians were killed by his U.S. Marine unit in a Vietnamese village in 1969.

In 2007, more than 125 people were killed in a suicide car bomb attack near a market in Baghdad.

In 2014, 16 Sherpa guides were killed in an avalanche on a route to the summit of Mount Everest in the Himalayas that was considered particularly dangerous.

In 2018, the first cinemas in Saudi Arabia opened with a public screening of Black Panther.

In 2023, Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation case against Fox News for spreading false information about the 2020 presidential election reached a $787.5 million settlement.