March 18 is the 77th day of the year (78th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 288 days remaining until the end of the year.
Holidays
- Anniversary of the Oil Expropriation (Mexico)
- Christian Feast Day:
- Earliest date on which Holy Wednesday can fall, while April 21 is the latest; celebrated on the week before Easter. (Christianity)
- Flag Day (Aruba)
- Gallipoli Memorial Day (Turkey)
- Mens and Soldiers Day (Mongolia)
History
In AD 37, The Roman Senate annuls Tiberius‘s will and proclaims Caligula emperor.
In 633, Ridda Wars: The Arabian Peninsula is united under the central authority of Caliph Abu Bakr.
In 1068, An earthquake affects the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula, leaving up to 20,000 dead.
In 1229, Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, declares himself King of Jerusalem in the Sixth Crusade.
In 1241, First Mongol invasion of Poland: Mongols overwhelm Polish armies in Kraków in the Battle of Chmielnik and plunder the city.
In 1314, Jacques de Molay, the 23rd and the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, is burned at the stake.
In 1438, Albert II of Habsburg becomes Holy Roman Emperor.
In 1608, Susenyos is formally crowned Emperor of Ethiopia.
In 1662, The first buses, eight-seat vehicles known as “carrosses a cinq sols,” began running in Paris, France. Carriages to five floors are the first experience in the world of urban transit, a concept developed by the philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal. Five lines connect several neighborhoods in Paris from March 18, 1662. The restrictions imposed by the Parliament of Paris , and the rate increase, cause the company to collapse rapidly and disappears in 1677.
In 1644, The Third Anglo-Powhatan War begins in the Colony of Virginia.
In 1741, New York governor George Clarke‘s complex at Fort George is burned in an arson attack, starting the New York Conspiracy of 1741.
In 1766, American Revolution: The British Parliament repeals the Stamp Act.
In 1793, The first republic in Germany, the Republic of Mainz, is declared by Andreas Joseph Hofmann.
In 1834, Six farm labourers from Tolpuddle, Dorset, England are sentenced to be transported to Australia for forming a trade union.
In 1834, The first American railroad tunnel is completed in Pennsylvania. The Allegheny Portage Railroad opens the first track of the 37- mile, hemp cable drawn railroad.
In 1845, Johnny Appleseed, British-American environmentalist (b. 1774) dies. His real name, John Chapman (September 26, 1774 – March 18, 1845), was often called Johnny Appleseed, was an American pioneer nurseryman who introduced apple trees to large parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, as well as the northern counties of present day West Virginia. He became an American legend while still alive, due to his kind, generous ways, his leadership in conservation, and the symbolic importance he attributed to apples. He was also a missionary for The New Church (Swedenborgian) and the inspiration for many museums and historical sites such as the Johnny Appleseed Museum in Urbana, Ohio and the Johnny Appleseed Heritage Center in between Lucas, Ohio and Mifflin, Ohio.
In 1848, March Revolution: in Berlin there is a struggle between citizens and military, costing about 300 lives.
In 1850, American Express is founded by Henry Wells and William Fargo. It was the first Stagecoach Company , later changed to Wells Fargo, a coast to coast express business.
In 1865, American Civil War: The Congress of the Confederate States adjourns for the last time.
In 1871, Declaration of the Paris Commune; President of the French Republic, Adolphe Thiers, orders the evacuation of Paris.
In 1874, Hawaii signs a treaty with the United States granting exclusive trade rights.
In 1892, Former Governor General Lord Stanley pledges to donate a silver challenge cup, later named after him, as an award for the best hockey team in Canada the Stanley Cup.
In 1898, Matilda Joslyn Gage, American author and activist (b. 1826) dies. She was a suffragist, a Native American activist, an abolitionist, a freethinker, and a prolific author, who was “born with a hatred of oppression”.
In 1906, Traian Vuia flies a heavier-than-air aircraft for 11 meters at an altitude of one meter.
In 1913, King George I of Greece is assassinated in the recently liberated city of Thessaloniki.
In 1915, World War I: During the Battle of Gallipoli, three battleships are sunk during a failed British and French naval attack on the Dardanelles.
In 1919, The Order of DeMolay was established in Kansas City. Although not a “Masonic organization” as such, DeMolay is considered to be part of the general “family” of Masonic and associated organizations, along with other youth groups such as The Organization of Triangles, Inc. of New York, the Order of the Knights of Pythagoras, Job’s Daughters and International Order of the Rainbow for Girls. A family connection to Masonry is not a prerequisite for membership into DeMolay.
In 1921, The second Peace of Riga is signed between Poland and the Soviet Union.
In 1922, In India, Mohandas Gandhi is sentenced to six years in prison for civil disobedience, of which he serves only two.
In 1925, The Tri-State Tornado hits the Midwestern states of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, killing 695 people.
In 1937, The New London School explosion in New London, Texas, kills 300 people, mostly children.
In 1937, Spanish Civil War: Spanish Republican forces defeat the Italians at the Battle of Guadalajara.
In 1937, The human-powered aircraft, Pedaliante, flies 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) outside Milan.
In 1938, Mexico nationalizes all foreign-owned oil properties within its borders.
In 1940, World War II: Axis Powers – Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini meet at the Brenner Pass in the Alps and agree to form an alliance against France and the United Kingdom.
In 1942, The War Relocation Authority is established in the United States to take Japanese Americans into custody.
In 1944, The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Italy kills 26 people and causes thousands to flee their homes.
In 1945, World War II: One thousand two hundred fifty American bombers attack Berlin.
In 1946, Diplomatic relations between Switzerland and the Soviet Union are established.
In 1947, William C. Durant, American businessman, co-founded General Motors and Chevrolet (b. 1861) dies. was a leading pioneer of the United States automobile industry, who created the system of multi-brand holding companies with different lines of cars; and the co-founder of General Motors with Frederic L. Smith, and of Chevrolet with Louis Chevrolet. He also founded Frigidaire.
In 1948, Soviet consultants leave Yugoslavia in the first sign of the Tito-Stalin split.
In 1953, An earthquake hits western Turkey, killing 265 people.
In 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a bill into law allowing for Hawaiian statehood, which would become official on August 21.
In 1962, The Evian Accords end the Algerian War of Independence, which had begun in 1954.
In 1965, Cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov, leaving his spacecraft Voskhod 2 for 12 minutes, becomes the first person to walk in space.
In 1967, The supertanker Torrey Canyon runs aground off the Cornish coast.
In 1968, Gold standard: The U.S. Congress repeals the requirement for a gold reserve to back US currency.
In 1969, The United States begins secretly bombing the Sihanouk Trail in Cambodia, used by communist forces to infiltrate South Vietnam.
In 1970, Lon Nol ousts Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia.
In 1970, The U.S. postal strike of 1970 begins, one of the largest wildcat strikes in U.S. history.
In 1971, In Peru a landslide crashes into Yanawayin Lake, killing 200 people at the mining camp of Chungar.
In 1974, Oil embargo crisis: Most OPEC nations end a five-month oil embargo against the United States, Europe and Japan.
In 1980, At Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia, 50 people are killed by an explosion of a Vostok-2M rocket on its launch pad during a fueling operation.
In 1985, First episode of Neighbours broadcast.
In 1990, Germans in the German Democratic Republic vote in the first democratic elections in the former communist dictatorship.
In 1990, In the largest art theft in US history, 12 paintings, collectively worth around $300 million, are stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts.
In 1992, In a national referendum white South Africans vote overwhelmingly in favour of ending the racist policy of Apartheid.
In 1994, Bosnia‘s Bosniaks and Croats sign the Washington Agreement, ending war between the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia and the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and establishing the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In 1996, A nightclub fire in Quezon City, Philippines kills 162 people.
In 1997, The tail of a Russian Antonov An-24 charter plane breaks off while en route to Turkey causing the plane to crash and killing all 50 people on board and leading to the grounding of all An-24s.
In 2009, Natasha Richardson, English-American actress (b. 1963) dies from an epidural hematoma, after hitting her head in a skiing accident in Quebec, Canada. She was an English actress of stage and screen. Richardson was a member of the Redgrave family, being the daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave and director/producer Tony Richardson, and the granddaughter of Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson. Early in her career, she portrayed Mary Shelley in Ken Russell‘s Gothic (1986) and Patty Hearst in the eponymous 1988 film directed by Paul Schrader, and later received critical acclaim and a Theatre World Award for her Broadway debut in the 1993 revival of Anna Christie. She won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical, and the Outer Critics Circle Award for her performance as Sally Bowles in the 1998 Broadway revival of Cabaret. Some of her notable films included Patty Hearst (1988), The Handmaid’s Tale (1990), Nell (1994), The Parent Trap (1998), and Maid in Manhattan (2002).
She was married to actor Liam Neeson in the summer of 1994, at the home they shared near Millbrook, New York; and had become a naturalized American citizen. Richardson had two sons; Micheál Neeson (born 1995) and Daniel Neeson (born 1996).
In 2012, Tupou VI becomes King of Tonga.
In 2014, The parliaments of Russia and Crimea sign an accession treaty.
In 2015, The Bardo National Museum in Tunisia is attacked by gunmen. 23 people, almost all tourists, are killed, and at least 50 other people are wounded.