SMS Kaiser Karl der Grosse (His Majesty's Ship Charlemagne) was a pre-dreadnought battleship of the Kaiser Friedrich III class, launched on 18 October 1899 at the Blohm and Voss shipyard in Hamburg for the Imperial German Navy. A shipyard strike and an accidental grounding delayed her completion until February 1902. The ship was armed with four 24-centimeter (9.4 in) guns in two twin gun turrets and had a top speed of 17.5 knots (32.4 km/h; 20.1 mph). She served with the active fleet until 1908, participating in the normal peacetime routine of training cruises and fleet maneuvers. At the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, the ship was placed back in active duty for half a year for coastal defense. Kaiser Karl der Grosse was briefly used as a training ship and ended her career holding prisoners of war in Wilhelmshaven. (Full article...)

Part of the Battleships of Germany series, one of Wikipedia's featured topics.

Figure on the Pumuckl fountain

• ... that passersby in Munich's Luitpoldpark may get soaked when a figure on the Pumuckl fountain (pictured) spits intermittently?
• ... that during a 15-year period researching George Washington's correspondence, William Wright Abbot read or edited more than 135,000 documents?
• ... that Filipinos became the first Asians to have a documented presence in the Americas when they landed in what is now California on 18 October 1587?
• ... that basketball player Bol Bol received his first NCAA Division I offer at the age of 15?
• ... that the slots in the test of the six-holed keyhole urchin may help prevent it from being washed away by the current?
• ... that in 2017, Renee Rabinowitz successfully sued El Al after the airline forced her to move at the request of a Haredi Jewish man who refused to sit beside her?
• ... that there is in excess of 150 million tons of phosphorite ore on Ioah Guyot, a seamount in the Pacific Ocean?
• ... that professional League of Legends player Imaqtpie was married in a T-shirt and shorts?

Soyuz MS-10 launch

• A mass shooting at Kerch Polytechnic College in Kerch, Crimea, kills at least 19 people and injures at least 47 others.
• Hurricane Leslie makes landfall in Portugal as an extratropical cyclone with 110 kilometres per hour (68 mph) winds, causing 15 deaths.
• Both crew members survive an emergency landing when Soyuz MS-10 suffers a booster failure shortly after launch (pictured) from Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
• Hurricane Michael makes landfall in Florida, United States, as a Category 4 storm, causing more than 30 deaths after killing at least 15 people in Central America.

October 18: Vijayadashami begins (Hinduism, 2018); Feast day of Saint Luke; Independence Day in Azerbaijan (1991); Alaska Day (1867)

Bob Beamon

• 1565 – The first recorded naval battle between Europeans and the Japanese occurred when a flotilla of samurai attacked two Portuguese trade vessels in Nagasaki.
• 1748 – The War of the Austrian Succession ended with the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.
• 1929 – In the Persons Case, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council decided that women were eligible to sit in the Canadian Senate.
• 1968 – At the Summer Olympics in Mexico City, American Bob Beamon (pictured) set a world record of 8.90 metres (29.2 ft) in the long jump, a mark that stood for 23 years.

Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (d. 1744) · Lucy Stone (d. 1893) · Freida Pinto (b. 1984)