May 18th is the 138th day of the year (139th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 227 days remaining until the end of the year.

Events

Flag and Universities Day in Haiti; Day of Revival, Unity, and the Poetry of Magtymguly in Turkmenistan

1388 – During the Battle of Buir Lake, General Lan Yu led a Chinese army forward to crush the Mongol hordes of Toghus Temur, the Khan of Northern Yuan.

1896 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the landmark case Plessy v. Ferguson, upholding the legality of racial segregation in public transportation under the “separate but equal” doctrine.

1944 – The Soviet Union forcibly deported the entire population of Crimean Tatars to the Uzbek SSR and elsewhere in the country.

1955 – Operation Passage to Freedom, the evacuation of 310,000 Vietnamese civilians, soldiers and non-Vietnamese members of the French Army from communist North Vietnam to South Vietnam following the end of the First Indochina War, ended.

2006 – The Parliament of Nepal unanimously voted to strip King Gyanendra of many of his powers.

Celebrity Birthdays

Harry Potter Actress Miriam Margolyes turns 77

Actor Chow Yun-fat turns 63

SNL Alum Tina Fey turns 48

Real Housewife of New Jersey Teresa Giudice turns 46