September 18 Birthday

Famous Birthdays on September 18

• Greta Garbo (1905)

  Swedish-American actress known for silent and early sound films, and for retiring from acting at the height of her fame.

• Lance Armstrong (1971)

  American former professional cyclist stripped of seven Tour de France titles after a doping scandal.

• James Marsden (1973)

  American actor known for the X-Men film series and Westworld.

• Aisha Tyler (1970)

  American actress, comedian, and talk show host known for Archer and Whose Line Is It Anyway.

This Day in History

• 1793 — President George Washington laid the cornerstone of the United States Capitol building in a Masonic ceremony.

• 1851 — The New York Times published its first issue, then titled the New-York Daily Times.

• 1947 — The National Security Act took effect, formally establishing the United States Air Force as a separate military branch.

What September 18 Says About You

George Washington personally laid the cornerstone of the United States Capitol on September 18, 1793, in a Masonic ceremony conducted with the kind of ritual formality the young republic still leaned on to lend weight to its new institutions — a building site that, at the time, sat mostly in swamp and farmland rather than anything resembling a capital city. Institutions built on this date have a way of outgrowing their modest origins. In 1851, The New York Times published its first issue under the name the New-York Daily Times, a four-page paper competing against dozens of established rivals that would eventually become one of the most influential newspapers in the world. And in 1947, the National Security Act took effect, formally separating the Air Force from the Army and creating the modern structure of the U.S. military as most people recognize it today. Four performers born on September 18 have each, in very different ways, become known for a career built around image and reinvention. Greta Garbo, born in 1905, became one of Hollywood's most mysterious stars partly because she chose to retire from acting at 35 and largely withdrew from public life afterward. Lance Armstrong, born in 1971, built and then lost one of the most celebrated athletic reputations in modern sports history after admitting to systematic doping across seven Tour de France titles. James Marsden, born in 1973, has moved fluidly between blockbuster franchise work and prestige television. And Aisha Tyler, born in 1970, built a career spanning stand-up comedy, television hosting, and voice acting across genres. Numerology reduces the 18th to day number 9, traditionally tied to endings and a wider, more reflective view, a fitting undercurrent for a date whose history includes both institutions still standing after more than a century and a reputation that collapsed after decades of being taken at face value. As a Virgo date, September 18 carries the sign's grounded practicality, a useful counterweight to a birthday whose real stories include both patient institution-building and dramatic reversal. The New York Times, for its part, began in 1851 as a modest four-page daily selling for one cent, explicitly promising readers it would not be 'startled easily' by sensational reporting, a founding editorial philosophy that shaped its reputation for measured, careful journalism for the century and a half that followed, even as the paper shortened its name to The New York Times just a few years after launch, and it wouldn't add its now-famous motto, "All the News That's Fit to Print," to the front page until 1897. None of September's stone-and-flower symbolism, sapphire paired with aster and morning glory, singles out the 18th — it's assigned across the whole month — though there's a certain fit in a gem associated with steadiness sharing a date whose real history includes both institutions still standing after a century and a reputation that collapsed almost overnight.