March 18

What happened that day?

• 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.
• 2014: The parliaments of Russia and Crimea sign an accession treaty.
• 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.
• 1996: A nightclub fire in Quezon City, Philippines kills 162 people.
• 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.
• 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.
• 1990: Germans in the German Democratic Republic vote in the first democratic elections in the former communist dictatorship.
• 1980: A Vostok-2M rocket at Plesetsk Cosmodrome Site 43 explodes during a fueling operation, killing 48 people.
• 1971: Peru: a landslide crashes into Yanawayin Lake, killing 200 people at the mining camp of Chungar.
• 1970: Lon Nol ousts Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia.
• 1969: The United States begins secretly bombing the Sihanouk Trail in Cambodia, used by communist forces to infiltrate South Vietnam.
• 1968: Gold standard: The U.S. Congress repeals the requirement for a gold reserve to back US currency.
• 1967: The supertanker Torrey Canyon runs aground off the Cornish coast.
• 1965: Cosmonaut Alexey Leonov, leaving his spacecraft Voskhod 2 for 12 minutes, becomes the first person to walk in space.
• 1962: The Évian Accords end the Algerian War of Independence, which had begun in 1954.
• 1959: The Hawaii Admission Act is signed into law.
• 1953: An earthquake hits western Turkey, killing 265 people.
• 1948: Soviet consultants leave Yugoslavia in the first sign of the Tito-Stalin Split.
• 1944: The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Italy kills 26 people and causes thousands to flee their homes.
• 1942: The War Relocation Authority is established in the United States to take Japanese Americans into custody.
• 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.
• 1938: Mexico creates Pemex by expropriating all foreign-owned oil reserves and facilities.
• 1937: Spanish Civil War: Spanish Republican forces defeat the Italians at the Battle of Guadalajara.
• 1937: The New London School explosion in New London, Texas, kills 300 people, mostly children.
• 1925: The Tri-State Tornado hits the Midwestern states of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, killing 695 people.
• 1922: In India, Mohandas Gandhi is sentenced to six years in prison for civil disobedience, of which he serves only two.
• 1921: The second Peace of Riga is signed between Poland and the Soviet Union.
• 1915: World War I: During the Battle of Gallipoli, three battleships are sunk during a failed British and French naval attack on the Dardanelles.
• 1913: King George I of Greece is assassinated in the recently liberated city of Thessaloniki.
• 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.
• 1874: Hawaii signs a treaty with the United States granting exclusive trade rights.
• 1871: Declaration of the Paris Commune; President of the French Republic, Adolphe Thiers, orders the evacuation of Paris.
• 1865: American Civil War: The Congress of the Confederate States adjourns for the last time.
• 1850: American Express is founded by Henry Wells and William Fargo.
• 1848: March Revolution: In Berlin there is a struggle between citizens and military, costing about 300 lives.
• 1834: Six farm labourers from Tolpuddle, Dorset, England are sentenced to be transported to Australia for forming a trade union.
• 1793: Flanders Campaign of the French Revolution, Battle of Neerwinden.
• 1793: The first modern republic in Germany, the Republic of Mainz, is declared by Andreas Joseph Hofmann.
• 1766: American Revolution: The British Parliament repeals the Stamp Act.
• 1741: New York governor George Clarke's complex at Fort George is burned in an arson attack, starting the New York Conspiracy of 1741.
• 1644: The Third Anglo-Powhatan War begins in the Colony of Virginia.
• 1608: Susenyos is formally crowned Emperor of Ethiopia.
• 1438: Albert II of Habsburg becomes Holy Roman Emperor.
• 1314: Jacques de Molay, the 23rd and final Grand Master of the Knights Templar, is burned at the stake.
• 1241: First Mongol invasion of Poland: Mongols overwhelm Polish armies in Kraków in the Battle of Chmielnik and plunder the city.
• 1229: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, declares himself King of Jerusalem in the Sixth Crusade.
• 1068: An earthquake affects the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula, leaving up to 20,000 dead.
• 633: Ridda wars: The Arabian Peninsula is united under the central authority of Caliph Abu Bakr.
• AD 37: The Roman Senate annuls Tiberius's will and proclaims Caligula emperor.