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FILE NO. 09.18 5 specimens · est. 324-1975

What happened on September 18?

Real photographs, all filed under this date. Name each event before you read on.
Case Timeline 324-1975 · 1651 years
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What happened on September 18

All 5 specimens from this file, spanning 324 to 1975, with the story behind each photograph.

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  1. A colossal bronze head of a clean-shaven man with heavy-lidded eyes and a fringe of curls, displayed on a plinth in a gallery.
    Antiquity · 324

    An emperor defeats his last rival and rules Rome alone

    Constantine beat Licinius at Chrysopolis on 18 September 324 and became sole ruler of the Roman world. Within months he began rebuilding Byzantium as his new capital. He had already legalised Christianity; from here he made it the religion of the court.

  2. A black and white portrait of a man in a dark suit looking downwards with a slight smile.
    Politics · 1961

    The head of the United Nations dies in a plane crash on a peace mission

    Dag Hammarskjold, the UN secretary-general, was killed on 18 September 1961 when his aircraft came down near Ndola in what is now Zambia, on his way to ceasefire talks over Katanga. He remains the only person awarded the Nobel Peace Prize after their death. Three inquiries have never fully settled what brought the plane down.

  3. A black and white photograph of a guitarist with a large afro in a braided military jacket, holding a white electric guitar in front of an amplifier stack.
    Music · 1970

    A guitarist dies in London at twenty-seven

    Jimi Hendrix died in a Notting Hill hotel on 18 September 1970, aged twenty-seven, after taking sleeping pills. His recording career had lasted barely four years. He was left-handed and played a right-handed Stratocaster upside down, restringing it himself.

  4. A young woman in a striped dress and handcuffs being led towards a van by two women in uniform jackets.
    Crime · 1975

    A kidnapped heiress who joined her kidnappers is finally arrested

    Patty Hearst, granddaughter of the newspaper magnate, was taken from her flat in February 1974 by the Symbionese Liberation Army. Two months later a bank camera filmed her holding a carbine during one of their raids. The FBI caught up with her on 18 September 1975; she gave her occupation on the booking form as "urban guerrilla".

  5. A wood engraving of a crowd of men in top hats and bowlers standing on a pavement outside a shuttered bank, with braced timbers across the shopfront and a policeman among them.
    Business · 1873

    A bank failure sets off a panic that shuts the stock exchange for ten days

    Jay Cooke and Company, the biggest bank in America, closed its doors on 18 September 1873, having tied up its money in an unfinished railway. The New York Stock Exchange shut for ten days, the first time it had ever closed. The depression that followed lasted the rest of the decade and was called the Great Depression until a worse one came along.