By The Associated Press
                  - Today is Sunday, April 18, the 108th day of 1999. There are 257 days
                    left in the year.

                  - On April 18, 1949, the Irish republic was proclaimed.
                  - In 1775, Paul Revere began his famous ride from Charlestown to
                    Lexington, Mass., warning American colonists that the British were
                    coming.
                  - In 1906, a devastating earthquake struck San Francisco, followed by
                    raging fires. About 700 people died.
                  - In 1942, an air squadron from the USS Hornet led by Lt. Col. James
                    H. Doolittle raided Tokyo and other Japanese cities.
                  - In 1945, famed American war correspondent Ernie Pyle, 44, was killed
                    by Japanese gunfire on a Pacific island off Okinawa.
                  - In 1946, the League of Nations went out of business.
                  - In 1955, physicist Albert Einstein died in Princeton, N.J.
                  - In 1978, the U.S. Senate voted 68-32 to turn the Panama Canal over
                    to Panamanian control Dec. 31, 1999.
                  - In 1983, 62 people, including 17 Americans, were killed at the U.S.
                    Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, by a suicide bomber.
                  - Ten years ago: Thousands of Chinese students demanding democracy
                    tried to storm Communist Party headquarters in Beijing.
                  - Five years ago: Former President Richard Nixon suffered a stroke at
                    his home in Park Ridge, N.J., and was taken to New York
                    Hospital-Cornell Medical Center; he died four days later.
                  - One year ago: Despite fierce internal dissent, Northern Ireland's
                    main Protestant party, the Ulster Unionists, approved a peace
                    agreement. The remains of Pol Pot were cremated, three days after
                    the Khmer Rouge leader blamed for the killings of up to 2 million
                    Cambodians died at age 73. Former North Carolina governor and U.S.
                    Sen. Terry Sanford died in Durham at age 80.

                  *Happy Birthday*
                  - Actress Barbara Hale is 77.
                  - Blues singer Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown is 75.
                  - Actor Clive Revill is 69.
                  - Actor James Drury is 65.
                  - Actor Robert Hooks is 62.
                  - Actress Hayley Mills is 53.
                  - Actor James Woods is 52.
                  - Actress-director Dorothy Lyman is 52.
                  - Actress Cindy Pickett is 52.
                  - Country musician Walt Richmond (The Tractors) is 52.
                  - Actor Rick Moranis is 45.
                  - Actress Melody Thomas Scott is 43.
                  - Actor Eric Roberts is 43.
                  - Actor John James is 43.
                  - Talk show host Conan O'Brien is 36.
                  - Rock musician Greg Eklund (Everclear) is 29.