Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/December 18
December 18: Republic Day in Niger (1958).
- 218 BC – Second Punic War: Hannibal (pictured) had his first great victory over the Roman Republic at the Battle of the Trebia.
- 1865 – Slavery in the United States was abolished when the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution was adopted.
- 1892 – The first performance of Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's fairy tale-ballet The Nutcracker was held at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg.
- 1966 – Epimetheus, one of the moons of Saturn, was discovered, but was mistaken as Janus. It took 12 years to determine that they are two distinct objects sharing the same orbit.
- 1987 – Programmer Larry Wall released the first version of the programming language Perl via the comp.sources.misc newsgroup.
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