On This Day: October 18

Pierre Elliott Trudeau was born in Montreal. As prime minister of Canada from 1968 to 1979 and again from 1980 to 1984, he fought Quebec separatism, made Canada officially bilingual and patriated the Constitution with its Charter of Rights and Freedoms. His son Justin would become prime minister in 2015.

NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir made history by stepping outside the International Space Station together, in the first spacewalk conducted entirely by women. Their task was to replace a faulty power controller on the station's exterior.

Félicette, a black-and-white French cat, became the first feline to travel into space, riding a French Véronique rocket on a suborbital flight. She survived the trip, and she remains the only cat known to have made it to space.

The British Broadcasting Company was established in London. In 1927 it was replaced by the British Broadcasting Corporation, a public body that grew into one of the most influential broadcasters in the world, with radio, television and online services reaching audiences on every continent.

French King Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, which had granted limited religious freedom to French Protestants, the Huguenots. Hundreds of thousands of Huguenots fled France for Protestant countries, taking their skills with them, and some eventually settled in North America.

Herman Melville's classic novel was first published in London, under the title The Whale. The American edition, titled Moby-Dick, followed weeks later. Its tale of Captain Ahab's obsessive hunt for a white whale sold poorly in Melville's lifetime, but it is now considered one of the great novels in the English language.

Thomas Edison, the inventor known above all for his role in bringing about the modern age of electricity, died in West Orange, New Jersey, at 84. His more than 1,000 patents included the phonograph and a practical incandescent light bulb.

The film version of the Broadway musical West Side Story was released in American theatres. The modern retelling of Romeo and Juliet, set among rival gangs in New York, became a huge success and won 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture.