Today in history March 18 37 The Roman Senate annuls Tiberiuss will and proclaims Caligula emperor. 235 Emperor Alexander Severus and his mother Julia Mamaea are murdered by legionaries near Moguntiacum (modern Mainz). The Severan dynasty ends. 1229 Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor declares himself King of Jerusalem during the Sixth Crusade. 1241 Mongols overwhelm Polish armies in Kraków in the Battle of Chmielnik and plunder the city. 1314 Jacques de Molay, the 23rd and the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, is burned at the stake. 1438 Albert II of Habsburg becomes Holy Roman Emperor. 1608 Susenyos is formally crowned Emperor of Ethiopia. 1673 John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton sells his part of New Jersey to the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as Quakers. 1766 American Revolution: The British Parliament repeals the Stamp Act. 1793 The first republican state in Germany, the Republic of Mainz, is declared by Andreas Joseph Hofmann. 1834 Six farm labourers from Tolpuddle, Dorset, England are sentenced to be transported to Australia for forming a trade union. 1848 The March Revolution goes onin the German Confederation; in Berlin a struggle between citizens and military occurs, costing ca. 300 lives. This starts the revolution in Northern Germany. 1850 American Express is founded by Henry Wells and William Fargo. 1865 American Civil War: The Congress of the Confederate States adjourns for the last time. 1871 Declaration of the Paris Commune; President of the French Republic, Adolphe Thiers, orders evacuation of Paris. 1874 Hawaii signs a treaty with the United States granting exclusive trading rights. 1893 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; originally presented to amateur champions, the Stanley Cup has been awarded to the top pro team since 1910, and since 1926, only to National Hockey League teams. 1906 Traian Vuia flies a heavier-than-air aircraft for 20 meters at 1 meter altitude. 1913 King George I of Greece is assassinated in the recently liberated city of Thessaloniki. 1915 World War I: Massive naval attack in Battle of Gallipoli. Three battleships are sunk during a failed British and French naval attack on the Dardanelles. 1921 The second Peace of Riga between Poland and Soviet Union. 1922 In India, Mohandas Gandhi is sentenced to six years in prison for civil disobedience. He would serve only 2 years. 1925 The Tri-State Tornado hits the Midwestern states of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, killing 695 people. 1937 The New London School explosion kills three hundred, mostly children. 1937 Spanish Civil War: Spanish Republican forces defeat the Italians at the Battle of Guadalajara. 1937 The human-powered aircraft, Pedaliante, flies 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) outside Milan. 1938 Mexico nationalizes all foreign-owned oil properties within its borders. 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. 1942 The War Relocation Authority is established in the United States to take Japanese Americans into custody. 1944 The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Italy kills 26 and causes thousands to flee their homes. 1945 World War II: 1,250 American bombers attack Berlin. 1946 Diplomatic relations between Switzerland and the Soviet Union are established. 1948 Soviet consultants leave Yugoslavia in the first sign of a Tito-Stalin split. 1953 An earthquake hits western Turkey, killing 250. 1959 President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a bill into law allowing for Hawaiian statehood, which would become official on August 21. 1962 The Evian Accords put an end to the Algerian War of Independence, which began in 1954. 1965 Cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov, leaving his spacecraft Voskhod 2 for 12 minutes, becomes the first person to walk in space. 1967 The supertanker Torrey Canyon runs aground off the Cornish coast. 1968 Gold standard: The U.S. Congress repeals the requirement for a gold reserve to back US currency. 1969 The United States begins secretly bombing the Sihanouk Trail in Cambodia, used by communist forces to infiltrate South Vietnam. 1970 Lon Nol ousts Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia. 1971 In Peru a landslide crashes into Lake Yanahuani, killing 200 at the mining camp of Chungar. 1974 Oil embargo crisis: Most OPEC nations end a five-month oil embargo against the United States, Europe and Japan. 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. 1989 In Egypt, a 4,400-year-old mummy is found nearby the Pyramid of Cheops. 1990 The Germans in the German Democratic Republic are called to the first democratic elections in this former communist dictaturship. 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. 1992 White South Africans vote overwhelmingly in favour, in a national referendum, to end the racist policy of Apartheid. 1994 Bosnias Bosniaks and Croats sign the Washington Agreement, ending warring between the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia and the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and establishing the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. 1996 A nightclub fire in Quezon City, Philippines kills 162. 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 on board and leading to the grounding of all An-24s.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 07:04:06 +0000
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