Today in History

71 views0

Today in History

By Correspondent

YEARDAYEVENT
37Mar 18The Roman Senate annulled Tiberius’ will and proclaims Caligula emperor.
235Mar 18Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander (b.208), Syrian emperor of Rome (222-235), was murdered.
978Mar 18Edward the Martyr (15), King of Anglo-Saxons (975-78), was murdered.
1190Mar 18Crusaders killed 57 Jews in Bury St. Edmonds, England.
1229Mar 18German emperor Frederick II crowned himself king of Jerusalem.
1314Mar 18In France Jacques de Molay (b.1244), Grand Master of the Templars, was burned at the stake along with his aides. Surviving monks fled, with some absorbed by other orders.
1455Mar 18Fra Angelico, Italian monk and Renaissance painter born around 1387 as Guido di Pietro, died. Fra Angelico gained a reputation as a painter under that name before joining the Dominicans in the 1420s. However, much of the influence found in his work is thought to come from Dominican teachings. He stayed at Dominican monasteries in Florence for most of his life doing a variety of religious painting until being called to Rome in 1445 by Pope Eugene IV, where he completed several chapel frescoes. Returning to Florence in the early 1450s, he died on a return visit to Rome in 1455 and is entombed at the church of Santa Maria della Minerva. In 1984 Fra Angelico was beatified by Pope John Paul II
1532Mar 18English parliament banned payments by English church to Rome.
 1584Mar 18Ivan IV (53), the terrible, Russian tsar (1547-84), died. He was succeeded by his weak-minded son, Fyodor I. Boris Godunov, Fyodor’s brother-in-law, assumed general control. During his rule Ivan replaced the sale of beer and mead with vodka at state-run taverns.
1692Mar 18William Penn was deprived of his governing powers.
1745Mar 18Robert Walpole (68), 1st British premier (1721-42), died. His children found that he had run up debts of over £50,000. In 2007 Edward Pearce authored “The Great Man ”“ Sir Robert Walpole: Scoundrel, Genius and Britain’s First Prime Minister.
1765Mar 18David H. Chass, Dutch baron, general (fought Napoleon at Waterloo), was born.
1766Mar 18Britain repealed the Stamp Act of 1765.
1782Mar 18John C. Calhoun (d.1850), U.S. statesman, was born.  He served as US vice-president from 1825-1832 under Adams and Jackson.
1793Mar 18The 2nd Battle at Neerwinden: Austria army beat France.
1835Mar 18Charles Darwin departed Santiago, Chile, on his way to Portillo Pass.
1837Mar 18Stephen Grover Cleveland was born in Caldwell, N.J. He was the 22nd (1885-1889) and 24th (1893-1897) president of the United States, the only President elected for two nonconsecutive terms.
1838Mar 18Randal Cremer, British trade unionist, pacifist (Nobel 1903), was born.
1842Mar 18Stephane Mallarme (d.1898), French essayist and symbolist poet, was born. “Every soul is a melody which needs renewing.”
1850Mar 18Henry Wells & William Fargo formed American Express in Buffalo.
1852Mar 18Henry C. Wells founded Wells, Fargo & Co. with William C. Fargo in San Francisco as a Western equivalent to their east coast American Express. It evolved into Wells Fargo Bank, headquartered in San Francisco and now one of the largest financial institutions in the U.S. In 2002 Philip L. Fradkin authored “Stagecoach: Wells Fargo and the American West” for the company’s 150th anniversary.
1858Mar 18Rudolf Diesel, German mechanical engineer, was born in Paris. He designed the compression-ignition engine (1893).
1863Mar 18Confederate women rioted in Salisbury, N.C. to protest the lack of flour and salt in the South.
1864Mar 18The Dale Dike on Humber River, England, crumbled drowning some 240.
1865Mar 18The Congress of the Confederate States of America adjourned for the last time.
1869Mar 18Neville Chamberlin, British Prime Minister (1937-40), was born. He tried to make peace “in our time” with German Chancellor Adolf Hitler, but instead made it easier for Hitler to take over continental Europe.
1870Mar 18The 1st US National Wildlife Preserve was Lake Merritt in Oakland, Calif. Lake Merritt, actually a tidal lagoon, was named after Samuel Merritt, a physician and one of the 1st mayors of Oakland.
1874Mar 18Hawaii signed a treaty giving exclusive trading rights with the islands to the United States.
1877Mar 18Edgar Cayce (d.1945), self-proclaimed psychic, was born in Hopkinsville, Ky. In 2000 Sidney D. Kirkpatrick authored “Edgar Cayce, An American Prophet.”
1881Mar 18Barnum and Bailey’s Greatest Show on Earth opened in Madison Square Gardens.
1890Mar 18The 1st US state naval militia was organized in Massachusetts.
1893Mar 18Wilfred Owen (d.1918), World War I English poet, was born. He was killed one week before Armistice Day of WW I. His fellow poet Siegfried Sassoon published Owen’s single slim volume of poetry.
1895Mar 18Some 200 blacks left Savannah, Ga., for Liberia.
1897Mar 18Fr. Anthony Maraschi (b.1820), founder of the University of San Francisco and Saint Ignatius College Preparatory as well as the first pastor of Saint Ignatius Church in San Francisco, California, died.
1899Mar 18Lavrenti Beria (d.1953), chief of Soviet secret police under Stalin, was born.
1906Mar 18Roy L. Johnson, US admiral (WW II-Pacific Ocean), was born.
1909Mar 18Einar Dessau of Denmark used a short-wave transmitter to converse with a government radio post about six miles away in what is believed to have been the first broadcast by a “ham” operator.
1911Mar 18Theodore Roosevelt opened the Roosevelt Dam in Phoenix, Ariz., the largest dam in the U.S. to date.
1913Mar 18Greek King George I was killed by an assassin. Constantine I was to succeed.
1916Mar 18On the Eastern Front, the Russians countered the Verdun assault with an attack at Lake Naroch. The Russians lost 100,000 men and the Germans lost 20,000.
1917Mar 18The Germans sank the U.S. ships, City of Memphis, Vigilante and the Illinois, without any type of warning.
1921Mar 18Steamer “Hong Koh” ran aground off Swatow China killing 1,000.
1922Mar 18Mohandas K. Gandhi was sentenced in India to six years’ imprisonment for civil disobedience. He was released after serving two years. [see Mar 22]
1925Mar 18The great Tri-State Tornado killed 695 people in Illinois, Indiana and Missouri and injured some 13,000 people, and causing $17 million in property damage. Several other destructive tornadoes in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Indiana, as well as tornadoes in Alabama and Kansas brought the total to at least 747 dead.
1931Mar 18Schick Inc. marketed the first electric razor.
1932Mar 18John Updike, American poet, novelist, was born. He wrote “Witches of Eastwick.”
1933Mar 18Unita Blackwell, 1st black mayor in Mississippi, was born.
1936Mar 18Frederik Willem de Klerk, president of the Republic of South Africa, was born in Johannesburg. He initiated the abolition of apartheid.
1937Mar 18Some 300 people, mostly children, were killed in a gas explosion at a school in New London, Texas.
1938Mar 18NY 1st required serological blood tests of pregnant women.
1939Mar 18The U.S. raised the duties on German imports by 25 percent.
 1940Mar 18Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini held a meeting at the Brenner Pass across the Alps during which the Italian dictator agreed to join in Germany’s war against France and Britain.
1942Mar 18The third military draft began in the U.S. because of World War II.
1943Mar 18The Reich called off its offensive in Caucasus.
1944Mar 18Nazi Germany occupied Hungary.
1945Mar 181,250 US bombers attacked Berlin.
1948Mar 18France, Great Britain and Benelux signed the Treaty of Brussels.
1950Mar 18Nationalist troops landed on the mainland of China and captured Communist held Sungmen.
1952Mar 18The 1st plastic lens for cataract patients was fitted in Phila.
1953Mar 18The Braves baseball team announced that they were moving from Boston to Milwaukee.
1954Mar 18Howard Hughes paid $23.5 million for the RKO motion picture company.
1959Mar 18President Eisenhower signed the Hawaii statehood bill. Hawaii became a state on Aug. 21, 1959.
1961Mar 18The “Poppin’ Fresh” Pillsbury Dough Boy was introduced.
1962Mar 18France and Algerian rebels agreed to a truce, which took effect the next day.
1963Mar 18The US Supreme Court made its Gideon v Wainwright ruling which said poor defendants have a constitutional right to an attorney. Gideon had been forced to defend himself in Florida in Jan 1962, and petitioned the Supreme Court to hear his complaint.
1964Mar 18Norbert Wiener (b.1894), American mathematician and considered to be the father of cybernetics, died in Stockholm, Sweden.
1965Mar 18The first spacewalk took place as Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov (30) left his Voskhod 2 capsule and remained outside the spacecraft for 20 minutes, secured by a tether.
1966Mar 18Hedda Hopper, American gossip columnist (1890-1966). died. “Having only friends would be dull anyway — like eating eggs without salt.”
1968Mar 18Pres. Johnson signed Public Law 90-269 removing gold backing from US paper money.
1969Mar 18President Richard M. Nixon authorized Operation Menu, the ‘secret’ bombing of Cambodia
1970Mar 18In Cambodia Prince Sihanouk was overthrown by Gen’l. Lon Nol. The next 8 years are covered in the 1988 book “Goodnight Cambodia, Forbidden History” by Vibol Ouk, who lived through the horrors of Pol Pot.
1971Mar 18U.S. helicopters airlifted 1,000 South Vietnamese soldiers out of Laos.
1975Mar 18South Vietnam abandoned most of the Central Highlands of Vietnam to Hanoi.
1977Mar 18In SF Paul Gaer transformed Al’s Transbay Tavern on Fourth St. into the Hotel Utah Saloon. The structure dated back to 1908 and in 2007 marked its 30th anniversary.
1978Mar 18In Pakistan the Punjab High Court condemned former pres. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to death on charges of a political murder.
1979Mar 18Iranian authorities detained American feminist Kate Millett, a day before deporting her and a companion for what were termed “provocations.”
1980Mar 18John Favara struck a killed Frank Gotti (12), the son of mobster John Gotti, as the boy darted in front of his car on a minibike in Brooklyn. Favara disappeared on July 28. In 2009 it was reported that mobster Charles Carneglia (62) had killed Favara and dissolved his body in acid.
1981Mar 18The U.S. disclosed that there were biological weapons tested in Texas in 1966.
1983Mar 18Mexico’s financial crisis was causing a surge of illegal aliens over the border into Texas.
1985Mar 18Baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth reinstated Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle.
1986Mar 18Buckingham Palace announced the engagement of Prince Andrew to Sarah Ferguson.
1987Mar 18Susan Butcher won her second consecutive Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, covering the distance from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska, in 11 days, 2 hours, 5 minutes and 13 seconds.
1988Mar 18The government of Panama, controlled by Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, declared a “state of urgency” in a move apparently aimed at forcing the reopening of banks and other businesses that closed during Panama’s economic and political crisis.
1989Mar 18The space shuttle Discovery landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California, completing a five-day mission.
1990Mar 18An alliance of conservative parties won a surprising victory over the Communists in East Germany’s first free elections.
1992Mar 18Leona Helmsley was sentenced to 4 years for tax evasion.
1993Mar 18On Capitol Hill, the House approved President Clinton’s deficit-reduction blueprint on a virtual party-line 243-183 vote.
1994Mar 18The space shuttle Columbia returned from a two-week mission.
1995Mar 18The United States Catholic Conference’s administrative board criticized a Republican welfare reform plan, saying it would hurt poor children and could push women to have abortions.
1996Mar 18Jacquetta Hawkes (85), British archaeologist, died.
1997Mar 18Labor Secretary-designate Alexis Herman got a generally favorable reception from Democrats and Republicans alike at her Senate confirmation hearing.
1998Mar 18The NYC Board of Education voted to require its schoolchildren to wear uniforms. The dress code would begin in 1999.
1999Mar 18A US federal judge ordered US telephone companies to pay $6.2 million owed to Cuba to the families of 3 Cuban Americans killed in 1996.
2000Mar 18In Kenya it was reported that some 10,000 cattle, 25,000 camels and 20,000 goats had starved to death over the last 3 months. 2 million people faced famine and 20 died in the last 2 weeks in the Wajir district.
2001Mar 18John Phillips, who co-founded the Mamas and the Papas and wrote its biggest hits, including “California Dreamin” and “Monday,” died in Los Angeles at age 65.
2002Mar 18The FBI “Operation Candyman” snared over 90 people following a 14-month investigation of child pornography over the Internet.
2003Mar 18The US mounted “Operation Liberty Shield” to detain asylum seekers from suspect countries.
2004Mar 18Addressing thousands of soldiers at Fort Campbell, Ky., President Bush warned that terrorists could never be appeased and said there was no safety for any nation that “lives at the mercy of gangsters and mass murderers.”
2005Mar 18The US State Department said it had denied a diplomatic visa to the Hindu nationalist chief minister of Gujarat state, Narendra Modi, and revoked his existing tourist/business visa under the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act due to his role in religious riots in 2002.
2006Mar 18Anti-war protesters marched in Australia, Asia, Turkey and Europe in demonstrations that marked the third anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq with a demand that coalition troops pull out.
2007Mar 18An estimated 3,000 protesters marched in SF to mark the 4th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq and demanding an end to the war there.
2008Mar 18The US Federal Reserve approved a .75% cut in the federal funds rate to 2.25%. This was aimed at shoring up the US financial system shaken by huge losses in the housing market. The DJIA responded with a gain of 420.41 to close at 12,392.66.
2009Mar 18US Pres. Barack Obama named retired Air Force general Scott Gration as his special envoy to Sudan to confront what Washington sees as a “horrendous” situation in Darfur.
2010Mar 18Pres. Obama signed a $17.6 billion job-creation measure a day after it was passed by Congress.
2011Mar 18President Barack Obama endorsed military action against Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi, saying US values and credibility are at stake to stop “the potential for mass murder” of innocents.
2012Mar 18Mitt Romney won all 20 delegates in the Puerto Rico Republican presidential primary.
2013Mar 18Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced her support for gay marriage, putting her in line with other potential Democratic presidential candidates on a social issue that is rapidly gaining public approval.
2014Mar 18US Vice President Joe Biden warned Russia that the US and Europe will impose further sanctions as Moscow seeks to annex the Ukrainian territory.
Source: Timelines of History
   

Discover more from NewsBreakers

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

What's your reaction?

Excited
0
Happy
0
In Love
0
Not Sure
0
Silly
0
Previous
Next

Comments are closed.