November 18: Facts & Historical Events On This Day

The Brazilian Space Agency announced that the country’s Amazon rainforest had suffered its biggest spike in deforestation in over a decade.

An American 26-year-old, John Allen Chau, was killed by natives living on the forbidden Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal.

The island is notorious for being unfriendly to outsiders, with many who try to visit losing their lives.

Shawn Mendes claimed his third number 1 single on the Billboard list, making him the first person under the age of 20 to do so.

NASA’s MAVEN space probe was launched from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The probe's mission was to study the escape of Mars' atmospheric gases into space, to try and understand more about the history of Mars' climate.

After two and a half years of Alpha and Beta development, the full version of Minecraft was released.

Markus "Notch" Persson came up with the idea for Minecraft during his "off-hours" from work, and after a weekend of programming, he released the first Alpha for private testing on May 16, 2009. After working tirelessly for five years, Persson was rewarded rather well when he sold his shares of Minecraft to Microsoft for $2.5 billion in 2014.

The UK’s repealed anti-gay amendment, Section 28, came to a complete end in the UK.

Section 28 of the Local government Act 1986 stated authorities "shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" or "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.", It was repealed on 21 June 2000 in Scotland and was fully repealed for the UK on this day.

Sony Music Soundtrax released their “Titanic: Music from the Motion Picture” album.

It sold over 30 million albums and became one of the top 100 best-selling albums in the US.

The movie “Malcolm X,” starring Denzel Washington, was released in the US.

Push-button telephones were made available to the general public for the first time.

The Bell Telephone Company's new type of phone allowed users to simply press a button for each number instead of dialing the number on a rotary dial.

Morocco’s King Mohammed V returned after being exiled in 1955.

Although Morocco gained independence on March 2, 1956, and originally celebrated this as their independence day, the date changed. During the French occupation, the King of Morocco was exiled in 1955. When King Mohammed V returned, he gave a famous speech and regained power over Morocco. When he died, Morocco's independence day moved to the date Mohammed V returned to Morocco.

The people of Latvia gathered together to proclaim the Republic of Latvia as an independent nation.

The Russian Empire was less than amused by this and invaded Latvia the very next month. It wasn't until August 11, 1920, that a peace treaty was signed between Russia and Latvia.

Suffragette Susan B. Anthony was arrested in New York State for illegally voting in the presidential race.

St. Peter’s Basilica in The Vatican City was consecrated, becoming the world’s largest Christian basilica.

St. Elizabeth’s flood began in the evening when a seawall at the Zuiderzee dike in the Netherlands broke.

The flood killed around 10,000 people and flooded 72 villages. St. Elizabeth's flood is noted as the twentieth worst flood in history.