TODAY HISTORY LESSON: MARCH 18
0037 The Roman Senate annuls Tiberius’ will and proclaims Caligula emperor.
1123 1st Latern Council (9th ecumenical council) opens in Rome, agreements of the Concordat of Worms ratified
1190 Crusaders kill 57 Jews in Bury St Edmonds England
1314 Jacques de Molay, the 23rd and the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, is burned at the stake by King Philip IV of France
1532 The English parliament banned payments by English church to Rome.
1692 William Penn is deprived of his governing powers.
1818 Congress approves 1st pensions for government service
1863 Confederate women riot in Salisbury, N.C. to protest the lack of flour and salt in the South.
1874 Hawaii signs a treaty giving exclusive trading rights with the islands to the United States.
1881 Barnum and Bailey’s Greatest Show on Earth opens in Madison Square Gardens.
1892 Lord Stanley of Preston pledges to donate a challenge cup for the best ice hockey team in Canada
1899 Phoebe, a moon of the planet Saturn, was discovered.
1900 Japan uses its influence over Korea to deny Russia’s efforts to obtain a naval station at Korean Port of Masampo, the lead up to the Russo-Japanese war
1911 Theodore Roosevelt opened the Roosevelt Dam in Arizona. It was the largest dam in the U.S. at the time.
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.
1925 (8) 60-MPH tornadoes speed through Missouri, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, & Tennessee killing 689
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.
1940 Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler meet at Brenner Pass where the Italian dictator agrees he will, in due course, join Germany’s impending war effort in the west
1942 The third military draft begins in the United States.
1954 RKO Pictures was sold for $23,489,478. It became the first motion picture studio to be owned by an individual. The person was Howard Hughes.
1961 Poppin’ Fresh Pillsbury Dough Boy introduced
1963 The Supreme Court held in Gideon v. Wainwright that public defenders must be provided for indigent defendants in felony cases.
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.
1974 Most of the Arab oil-producing nations ended their five-month embargo against the United States, Europe and Japan.
1977 US restricts citizens from visiting Cuba, Vietnam, N Korea & Cambodia
1981 The United States discloses biological weapons tests in Texas in 1966.
1990 East Germany holds its first and only free parliamentary elections. The election was held between the peaceful revolution leading to the demise of the German Democratic Republic in 1989 and the German reunification in 1990.
1990 The biggest art theft in U.S. history occurs at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. The works, including pieces by Vermeer and Rembrandt, were never recovered.
2004 A small asteroid made the closest approach to Earth ever recorded, only about 26,500 miles away.
2005 After a long legal battle, Terry Schiavo’s feeding tube was removed. She died 13 days later.
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
