Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf narrowly escapes an assassination attempt.
Wilma Mankiller takes office as the first woman elected to serve as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.
Apollo program: Eugene Cernan is the most recent person to walk on the Moon, after he and Harrison Schmitt complete the third and final extravehicular activity (EVA) of the Apollo 17 mission.
NASA's Mariner 2 becomes the first spacecraft to fly by Venus.
Convention against Discrimination in Education of UNESCO is adopted.
The 3rd Soviet Antarctic Expedition becomes the first to reach the southern pole of inaccessibility.
Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Ceylon, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Laos, Libya, Nepal, Portugal, Romania and Spain join the United Nations through United Nations Security Council Resolution 109.
Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann are granted a patent for their cathode-ray tube amusement device, the earliest known interactive electronic game.
Plutonium (specifically Pu-238) is first isolated at Berkeley, California.
Wozzeck, Alban Berg's first opera, is premiered at the Berlin State Opera conducted by Erich Kleiber.
Portuguese President Sidónio Pais is assassinated.
The 1918 United Kingdom general election occurs, the first where women were permitted to vote. In Ireland the Irish republican political party Sinn Féin wins a landslide victory with nearly 47% of the popular vote.
Haruna, the fourth and last Kongō-class ship, launches, eventually becoming one of the Japanese workhorses during World War I and World War II.
Roald Amundsen's team, comprising himself, Olav Bjaaland, Helmer Hanssen, Sverre Hassel, and Oscar Wisting, becomes the first to reach the South Pole.
The Wright brothers make their first attempt to fly with the Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
The Commercial Pacific Cable Company lays the first Pacific telegraph cable, from San Francisco to Honolulu.
American Civil War: The Confederate victory under General James Longstreet at the Battle of Bean's Station in East Tennessee ends the Knoxville Campaign, but achieves very little as Longstreet returns to Virginia next spring.
The Montgolfier brothers first test fly an unmanned hot air balloon in France; it floats nearly 2.5 km (1.6 mi).
Princess Mary Stuart becomes Queen of Scots at the age of one week on the death of her father, James V of Scotland.