On this day

July 18, 1937

Revisit the news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.

Portrait 1080 × 1920 PNG · created on your device

Filter by:

Headlines from July 18, 1937

Notable Births

Roald Hoffmann

1937Roald Hoffmann, Polish chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate[†]

Roald Hoffmann is a Polish-American theoretical chemist who won the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He has also published plays and poetry. He is the Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters Emeritus at Cornell University.

Hunter S. Thompson

1937Hunter S. Thompson, American journalist and author (died 2005)[†]

Hunter Stockton Thompson was an American journalist and author, regarded as a pioneer of New Journalism along with Gay Talese, Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Joan Didion, and Tom Wolfe. He rose to prominence with the book Hell's Angels (1967), for which he lived a year among the Hells Angels motorcycle club to write a first-hand account of their lives and experiences. In 1970, he wrote an unconventional article titled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for Scanlan's Monthly, which further raised his profile as a countercultural figure. It also set him on the path to establish the subgenre of New Journalism that he called "Gonzo", a style in which the writer becomes central to, and participant in the narrative.

Notable Deaths

Julian Bell

1937Julian Bell, English poet and academic (born 1908)[†]

Julian Heward Bell was an English poet, and the son of Clive and Vanessa Bell. The writer Quentin Bell was his younger brother and the writer and painter Angelica Garnett was his half-sister.