Events of the day 18 March
Events of day 18 March
AD 37:
The Roman Senate annuls Tiberius's will and proclaims Caligula emperor.
633:
Ridda wars: The Arabian Peninsula is united under the central authority of Caliph Abu Bakr.
1068:
An earthquake in the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula, leaves up to 20,000 dead.
1229:
Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, declares himself King of Jerusalem in the Sixth Crusade.
1241:
First Mongol invasion of Poland: Mongols overwhelm Polish armies in Kraków in the Battle of Chmielnik and plunder the city.
1314:
Jacques de Molay, the 23rd and final 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.
1644:
The Third Anglo-Powhatan War begins in the Colony of Virginia.
1741:
New York governor George Clarke's complex at Fort George is burned in an arson attack, starting the New York Conspiracy of 1741.
1766:
American Revolution: The British Parliament repeals the Stamp Act.
1793:
The first modern republic in Germany, the Republic of Mainz, is declared by Andreas Joseph Hofmann.
1793:
Flanders Campaign of the French Revolution, Battle of Neerwinden.
1834:
Six farm labourers from Tolpuddle, Dorset, England are sentenced to be transported to Australia for forming a trade union.
1848:
March Revolution: In Berlin there is a struggle between citizens and military, costing about 300 lives.
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 the evacuation of Paris.
1874:
Hawaii signs a treaty with the United States granting exclusive trade rights.
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.
1913:
King George I of Greece is assassinated in the recently liberated city of Thessaloniki.
1915:
World War I: During the Battle of Gallipoli, three battleships are sunk during a failed British and French naval attack on the Dardanelles.
1921:
The second Peace of Riga is signed between Poland and the Soviet Union.
1922:
In India, Mohandas Gandhi is sentenced to six years in prison for civil disobedience, of which he serves only two.
1925:
The Tri-State Tornado hits the Midwestern states of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, killing 695 people.
1937:
The New London School explosion in New London, Texas, kills 300 people, mostly children.
1937:
Spanish Civil War: Spanish Republican forces defeat the Italians at the Battle of Guadalajara.
1938:
Mexico creates Pemex by expropriating all foreign-owned oil reserves and facilities.
1940:
World War II: 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 people and causes thousands to flee their homes.
1948:
Soviet consultants leave Yugoslavia in the first sign of the Tito–Stalin Split.
1953:
An earthquake hits western Turkey, killing 265 people.
1959:
The Hawaii Admission Act is signed into law.
1962:
The Évian Accords end the Algerian War of Independence, which had begun in 1954.
1965:
Cosmonaut Alexey 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:
Peru: a landslide crashes into Yanawayin Lake, killing 200 people at the mining camp of Chungar.
1980:
A Vostok-2M rocket at Plesetsk Cosmodrome Site 43 explodes during a fueling operation, killing 48 people.
1990:
Germans in the German Democratic Republic vote in the first democratic elections in the former communist dictatorship.
1990:
In the largest art theft in US history, 12 paintings, collectively worth around $500 million, are stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.
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.
1996:
A nightclub fire in Quezon City, Philippines kills 162 people.
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.
2014:
The parliaments of Russia and Crimea sign an accession treaty.
2015:
