18 March History


Month:                           Date:     

  • 37    -    The Roman Senate annuls Tiberius' will and proclaims Caligula emperor.
  • 1692    -    William Penn is deprived of his governing powers.
  • 1863    -    Confederate women riot in Salisbury, N.C. to protest the lack of flour and salt in the South.
  • 1865    -    The Congress of the Confederate States of America adjourns for the last time.
  • 1874    -    Hawaii signs a treaty giving exclusive trading rights with the islands to the United States.
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  • 1881    -    Barnum and Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth opens in Madison Square Gardens.
  • 1911    -    Theodore Roosevelt opens the Roosevelt Dam in Phoenix, Ariz., the largest dam in the United States to date.
  • 1913    -    Greek King George I is killed by an assassin. Constantine I is to succeed.
  • 1916    -    On the Eastern Front, the Russians counter the Verdun assault with an attack at Lake Naroch. The Russians lose 100,000 men and the Germans lose 20,000.
  • 1917    -    The Germans sink the U.S. ships, City of Memphis, Vigilante and the Illinois, without any type of warning.
  • 1922    -    Mahatma Gandhi is sentenced to six years in prison for civil disobedience in India.
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  • 1939    -    Georgia finally ratifies the Bill of Rights, 150 years after the birth of the federal government. Connecticut and Massachusetts, the only other states to hold out, also ratify the Bill of Rights in this year.
  • 1942    -    The third military draft begins in the United States.
  • 1943    -    Adolf Hitler calls off the offensive in the Caucasus.
  • 1943    -    American forces take Gafsa in Tunisia.
  • 1944    -    The Russians reach the Rumanian border.
  • 1950    -    Nationalist troops land on the mainland of China and capture Communist-held Sungmen.
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  • 1953    -    The Braves baseball team announces that they are moving from Boston to Milwaukee.
  • 1965    -    Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov becomes the first man to spacewalk when he exits his Voskhod 2 space capsule while in orbit around the Earth.
  • 1969    -    President Richard M. Nixon authorizes Operation Menue, the'secret' bombing of Cambodia.
  • 1970    -    The U.S. Postal Service is paralyzed by the first postal strike.
  • 1971    -    U.S. helicopters airlift 1,000 South Vietnamese soldiers out of Laos.
  • 1975    -    South Vietnam abandons most of the Central Highlands to North Vietnamese forces.
  • 1981    -    The United States discloses biological weapons tests in Texas in 1966.
  • 1986    -    Buckingham Palace announces the engagement of Prince Andrew to Sarah Ferguson.

  • 18 March Birthdays

  • 1782    -    John C. Calhoun, U.S. statesman.
  • 1837    -    Stephen Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th President of the United States (1885-1889 and 1893-1897), the only U.S. president elected for two nonconsecutive terms.
  • 1842    -    Stephane Mallarme, French symbolist poet.
  • 1858    -    Rudolf Diesel, German engineer who designed the compression-ignition engine.
  • 1869    -    Neville Chamberlin, British Prime Minister (1937-40).
  • 1893    -    Wilfred Owen, World War I poet.
  • 1932    -    John Updike, American poet and novelist.
  • 1936    -    Frederik W. deKlerk, President of the Republic of South Africa.