This Day in History: August 18

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This Day In History: August 18

Take a look at all of the important historical events that took place on August 18.

On this day, Aug. 18 ...

1963: James Meredith becomes the first Black student to graduate from the University of Mississippi.

Also on this day:

• 1587: Virginia Dare becomes the first child of English parents to be born in present-day America, on what is now Roanoke Island in North Carolina.
• 1862: Dakota Indians begin an uprising in Minnesota. (The revolt would be crushed by U.S. forces some six weeks later.)
• 1894: Congress establishes the Bureau of Immigration.
• 1914: President Woodrow Wilson issues his Proclamation of Neutrality aimed at keeping the United States out of World War I.
• 1920: The 19th Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing all American women's right to vote, is ratified as Tennessee becomes the 36th state to approve it.

Henry Diltz's photograph of Jimi Hendrix at the original Woodstock festival in August 1969. (PRNewsFoto) (AP)

• 1969: The Woodstock Music and Art Fair in Bethel, N.Y., comes to a close after three nights with a midmorning set by Jimi Hendrix.
• 1976: Two U.S. Army officers are killed in Korea's demilitarized zone as a group of North Korean soldiers wielding axes and metal pikes attacks U.S. and South Korean soldiers.
• 1993: A judge in Sarasota, Fla., rules that Kimberly Mays, the 14-year-old girl who had been switched at birth with another baby, need never again see her biological parents, Ernest and Regina Twigg, in accordance with her wishes. (However, Kimberly would later move in with the Twiggs.)
• 1995: Shannon Faulkner, who'd won a 2-1/2-year legal battle to become the first female cadet at the Citadel, quits the South Carolina military college after less than a week, most of it spent in the infirmary.
• 2004: In Athens, Paul Hamm wins the men's gymnastics all-around Olympic gold medal by the closest margin ever in the event; controversy follows after it is discovered a scoring error cost Yang Tae-young of South Korea the title.

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• 2017: Steve Bannon leaves his post as President Trump's chief White House strategist; he returns immediately to his previous position as executive chairman of Breitbart News.