On This Day: October 18th

Basel earthquake, the most significant historic seismological event north of the Alps, destroys the town of Basel, Switzerland.

Pope Martin IV excommunicates King Peter III of Aragon for usurping the crown of Sicily (a sentence renewed on 7 May and 18 November 1282).

Michael the Syrian, one of the most important Syriac historians, is consecrated as Syriac Orthodox Patriarch at the Mor Bar Sauma Monastery.

The Normans defeat the Byzantine Empire in the Battle of Dyrrhachium.

The Danes defeat the English in the Battle of Assandun.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a Christian church in Jerusalem, is completely destroyed by the Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, who hacks the Church's foundations down to bedrock.

Dagobert I is crowned King of the Franks.

King Chlothar II promulgates the Edict of Paris (Edictum Chlotacharii), a sort of Frankish Magna Carta that defends the rights of the Frankish nobles while it excludes Jews from all civil employment in the Frankish Kingdom.

Pappus of Alexandria, Greek philosopher, observes an eclipse of the Sun and writes a commentary on The Great Astronomer (Almagest).

Heartbroken by the deaths of her sons Nero and Drusus, and banished to the island of Pandateria by Tiberius, Agrippina the Elder dies of self-inflicted starvation.