Template:On this day - May 18

Félix de Azara

• 1013 – Death of Hisham II, third Umayyad caliph of Córdoba (present-day Spain) (b. 965).
• 1499 – A fleet of four ships sets out from Puerto de Santa María (Spain), commanded by Alonso de Ojeda and accompanied by Amerigo Vespucci and Juan de la Cosa. They will reach the coasts of Suriname, where they will explore the Gulf of Paria and the island of Curaçao, in the Caribbean Sea.
• 1525 – In the Governorate of Honduras the village of Trujillo is founded.
• 1541 – In New Spain, Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza founds the town of Valladolid de la Nueva España (the present-day city of Morelia in Mexico).
• 1565 – In the southern city of Concepción (present-day Chile) the Real Audiencia of Chile is established, by Royal Decree of King Philip II of Spain.
• 1642 – Death of Alonso de Bonilla, Spanish poet, forerunner of conceptismo (b. 1570).
• 1643 – In the Ardennes (France), French troops commanded by Louis II de Bourbon-Condé defeat the Spanish ones of Francisco de Melo during the Battle of Rocroi.
• 1680 – In Spain the compilation of the Laws of the Indies is published, consisting of nine books and more than 6,000 laws.
• 1731 – Birth of José Camarón Bonanat, Spanish painter, draftsman and engraver (d. 1803).
• 1742 – Birth of Félix de Azara, Spanish military officer, engineer, explorer, cartographer, anthropologist and naturalist (d. 1821).
• 1756 – France declares war on England, and immediately afterwards French forces launch an landing operation to capture the Spanish island of Menorca.
• 1781 – José Gabriel Condorcanqui, Túpac Amaru II, Hispano-Peruvian cacique, Inca and caudillo, leader of the Indigenous Rebellion of 1780, is executed.
• 1793 – During the Roussillon Campaign, General Antonio Ricardos carries out the military action of Thuir, defeating the French revolutionary troops.
• 1811 – The Battle of Las Piedras takes place, the first important triumph of José Gervasio Artigas in command of the revolutionary forces of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata in what would later be Uruguay.
• 1845 – Infante Carlos María Isidro de Borbón abdicates his claimed rights to the Crown of Spain in favor of his son Carlos Luis.
• 1875 – The city of Cúcuta (Colombia) is destroyed by a magnitude 7.3 earthquake, which leaves 30,500 victims. It also affects the Venezuelan state of Táchira.
• 1903 – In Spain, King Alfonso XIII opens the Cortes with a speech in which he set out a vision of modernization and national cohesion.
• 1909 – Death of Isaac Albéniz, Spanish composer and pianist (b. 1860).
• 1910 – Infanta Isabel de Borbón arrives in Buenos Aires, representing the King of Spain at the celebrations of the first centenary of the May Revolution.
• 1954 – In Argentina construction begins of the 1,490 km oil pipeline between the oil fields of Campo Durán (Salta Province) and the Argentine Littoral.
• 1960 – In Cuba, Ernesto Che Guevara takes part in a marlin fishing contest together with the United States writer Ernest Hemingway and Fidel Castro.
• 1994 – In Venezuela, former president Carlos Andrés Pérez is imprisoned for embezzlement of public funds.
• 2019 – Death of Analía Gadé, Spanish-Argentine actress (b. 1931).