1. On January 18, 1862, during the American Civil War, Confederate forces under General Henry Heth attacked the Union garrison at the town of Logan in what is now West Virginia. The Union defenders, under the command of Colonel Edward Siber, held off the attack and saved the town from capture.

2. In 1943, the West Virginia state legislature approved a law that prohibited the teaching of evolution in public schools. The law was later challenged in court and eventually struck down as unconstitutional in the landmark case of Edwards v. Aguillard.

3. On January 18, 1968, the Farmington Mine disaster occurred in northern West Virginia. An explosion in the mine killed 78 miners and sparked a nationwide movement for safer working conditions in the coal industry.

4. In 1989, the New River Gorge Bridge near Fayetteville was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The bridge, which spans the New River Gorge and is one of the longest steel-arch bridges in the world, is a popular tourist destination and base for extreme sports such as bungee jumping and BASE jumping.

5. On January 18, 2014, the West Virginia Mountaineers men's basketball team upset the number one-ranked team in the country, the Kansas Jayhawks, by a score of 92-86. The win marked the first time in school history that the Mountaineers had defeated a top-ranked team.