Template:On this day - June 18

José Saramago

• 1291 – Death of Alfonso III, King of Aragon, of Valencia, and Count of Barcelona (b. 1265).
• 1483 – The Catholic Monarchs found the town of Puerto Real (present-day Spain) by settlement charter.
• 1538 – The Truce of Nice is agreed between Charles I of Spain and Francis I of France.
• 1570 – Birth of Joan Pau Pujol, Spanish composer and organist (d. 1626).
• 1673 – Birth of Antonio de Literes, Spanish composer (d. 1747).
• 1679 – At the Royal Monastery of El Escorial (Madrid), lightning sets fire to the lantern of the dome.
• 1790 – In Madrid (Spain), the Count of Floridablanca suffers an assassination attempt from which he emerges unharmed.
• 1794 – In the Captaincy General of Chile the Villa Nueva Bilbao de Gardoqui is founded, which in 1828 will be renamed Constitución.
• 1812 – The United States declares war on the United Kingdom, beginning the War of 1812.
• 1837 – In Spain, the Queen Regent María Cristina de Borbón (during the minority of the future Queen Isabella II) swears the Constitution of 1837, which allows the alternation of progressive and moderate parties.
• 1851 – In Spain, the start of the works of the Canal de Isabel II is ordered by Royal Decree.
• 1870 – In Spain the law establishing the Spanish Penal Code is decreed.
• 1982 – In Argentina, after the Argentine military defeat in the Falklands War, the dictator Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri resigns his office and is replaced by the dictator Alfredo Oscar Saint-Jean.
• 2004 – The member countries of the European Union approve the draft European Constitution (formally called the «Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe»).
• 2007 – In Colombia, the FARC murder 11 deputies.
• 2010 – Death in Tenerife (Spain) of José Saramago, Portuguese writer, proponent of the creation of a united Iberia, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1998 (b. 1922).
• 2016 – Death of Leandro de Borbón Ruiz Moragas, illegitimate son of King Alfonso XIII and the actress Carmen Ruiz Moragas (b. 1929).