MIke Badham looks back at events in history on September 18:

1709: Samuel Johnson was born in Lichfield, Staffs. After leaving Oxford, he became the centre of London's literary life, and published a dictionary in 1755. Although hard up, he always gave money to beggars. He was immortalised by his biographer, James Boswell.

1790: George Washington, first president of the US, went into print seeking to prove that the country's economic troubles were all the fault of the British.

1815: The New York Times was first published.

1883: Eccentric Lord Berners was born. He built a 100ft folly on his estate and nailed up a notice: People committing suicide from this tower do so at their own risk. His sure-fire way of getting a railway compartment to himself was to grin at passers-by and beckon them in.

1905: Greta Garbo was born Greta Gustafson in Stockholm. Taken to Hollywood by her director Mauritz Stiller, she made many fine films and retired after 12 years.

1976: For three minutes, a fifth of the world's population stood in silence as 800 million Chinese paid tribute to the late Chairman Mao.

1931: Hitler's blonde teenage niece Geli Raubal was found shot dead. Was it suicide or murder? Probably murder: she lived in Hitler's flat, and they had kinky sex. A journalist who had evidence of this was later killed.

1940: Americans from 21 to 35 had to register for military service.

1941: Britain agreed to reveal its radar secrets to Russia.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.