How many days and weeks until December 18th?

On December 18th 1912 the Geological Society of London was told that bones found in a gravel pit at Piltdown in Sussex belonged to the earliest Englishman, a creature agreeably intermediate between ape and man and, as it happened, discovered in England rather than in Germany or France. It was accepted for forty years and taught in schools. In 1953 chemical tests showed a medieval human skull joined to the jaw of an orangutan, stained with iron and chromic acid, with the teeth filed flat. Nobody has ever been proved to have done it.

The House of Lords voted on December 18th 1969 to make permanent the abolition of the death penalty for murder in Great Britain, two days after the Commons had done the same by 343 votes to 185. The last executions had taken place in 1964.

The Nutcracker was first danced at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg on December 18th 1892 by the Gregorian calendar, December 6th by the Julian one Russia was still using. The critics disliked it. The concert suite Tchaikovsky had extracted beforehand was the part everybody wanted.

Two boys from the same Dartford primary school lost touch and met again on the platform at Dartford station in 1961. One was Mick Jagger; the other, Keith Richards, guitarist of the Rolling Stones, had been born in the town on December 18th 1943.

Born on December 18th: star sign, birthstone and birth flower

Keith Richards and Steven Spielberg — both named above — share this star sign with everyone else born in the same window.

None of this is settled fact in the way the history above is — zodiac dates, birthstones and birth flowers are conventions rather than laws, and different sources hedge them slightly differently. The birthstone is the most standardised of the three (set by the trade in 1912 and revised since); the birth flower is the least, resting on Victorian tradition rather than any governing body.

Gift ideas for a December 18th birthday

A small, themed starting point rather than a shopping list — turquoise or lapis lazuli for the stone, Sagittarius for the sign, and the sky itself on the day.

December birthstone necklace

A simple pendant in the actual December birthstone colour, from a long-running UK jewellery brand.

View on Amazon

Sagittarius constellation necklace

Stainless steel, sign selectable at checkout — choose Sagittarius for a December 18th birthday.

View on Amazon

Personalised birth flower & birthstone disc

Engraved with a name, the December birthstone and the narcissus or holly — both in one pendant, in a gift box.

View on Amazon

Personalised star map print

The actual night sky over a chosen place on December 18th, whichever year — a print rather than jewellery.

View on Amazon

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Availability and links were checked on 15 August 2026 and can change.