18 March: This Date in History

<< Mar 17| HISTORY “4” “2”DAY |Mar 19 >>
Events, deaths, births, of MAR 18
[For Mar 18 Julian go to Gregorian date: 1583~1699: Mar 28 — 1700s: Mar 29 — 1800s: Mar 30 — 1900~2099: Mar 31]

ALTERNATE SITES ALL FOR 030318 ANY DAY OF THE YEAR IN HISTORY ART “4” MAR 18

• Soap bubble theorem... • American Express is founded... • Capital Cities and ABC merge ... • GM acquires Opel... • GM founder dies… • Raid on mainland China from Formosa... • John Updike is born... • Wells Fargo founded... • Microsoft Windows 3.1... • MS home banking plan... • Injunction against Alta Vista Technology.... • Anti~Communist coup in Cambodia... • US bombs Cambodia... • US concentration camps for innocent Japanese~Americans... • Tornado kills 695... • Stamp Act is repealed... • UK martyrizes workers... • First Axis war council... • Calhoun is born... • Hawaiian statehood... • Hockey puck kills girl...

On a March 18:
2002 The stock of Nortel Networks Corporation (NT) falls to its lowest price since December 1995, to $4.64 intraday, because of poor prospects due to weak spending by network carriers. The stock sold as high as $124 in recent years. [5-year price chart >]
2001 El socialista Bertrand Delanoë, candidato de la coalición de izquierda (PSF-Verdes) a la alcaldía de París, se proclama vencedor en la segunda vuelta de las elecciones municipales y consigue romper con más de un siglo de dominio de la derecha en la capital francesa.
2000 Taiwan ends more than a half century of Nationalist Party rule, electing an opposition leader, Chen Shui-bian, whose party favored Taiwan's formal independence from mainland China. — Chen Shui-Bian, candidato del Partido Demócrata Progresista, resulta elegido nuevo presidente de Taiwan.

2000 Soap bubble theorem. ^top^
      Mathematicians announce the proof of Plateau's conjecture that two joined soap bubbles are portions of spheres separated by part of a sphere that bulges into the bigger bubble.
     Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau (born 18011014 Brussels, died 18830915 Ghent) was a physicist who is best remembered in mathematics for Plateau Problems. He used a solution of soapy water and glycerine and dipped wire contours into it, noting that the surfaces formed were minimal surfaces. He was blind for the last 40 years of his life after he experimented by staring at the Sun for 25 seconds.
      Plateau did not have the mathematical skills to investigate the problem theoretically but Weierstrass, Riemann and Schwarz worked on minimal surfaces problems, some of which were later solved by Douglas and Radó. Plateau wrote some mathematical work on number theory and wrote a joint article with Quételet.

1999 The Kosovar Albanian delegation signs a US-sponsored peace accord following talks in Paris; the Clinton administration warns that NATO would act against Serb targets if Yugoslav ruler Slobodan Milosevic doesn't accept the agreement.
1997 Las excavadoras israelíes comienzan a preparar el terreno para construir el barrio judío de Har Homá en zona árabe ocupada próxima a Jerusalén, una decisión rechazada o condenada por casi todo el mundo.

1997 Digital wins injunction against Alta Vista Technology ^top^
Digital Equipment, owners of the Alta Vista search engine, announced it had won an injunction against tiny Alta Vista Technology Inc. (ATI). ATI was accused of violating Digital's trademark on the Alta Vista name. Digital had purchased ATI's rights to the Alta Vista trademark in 1996 and licensed back to ATI two limited uses of the Alta Vista trademark: as part of its corporate name and in its Web site address. The judge found that Alta Vista had changed the appearance of its Web site to resemble Digital's Alta Vista site more closely and had started selling banner advertising. The ruling prohibited ATI from using the Alta Vista trademark to identify products or services and to avoid linking to Digital's site in a way that implied its site was part of the search engine.

1996 Microsoft's home banking plan ^top^
Microsoft announces plans to expand home banking on the Internet. The plan would allow banks and service companies to establish connections to customers using Microsoft Money, the company's personal finance program. The move threatened the home banking ventures of rival Intuit, publishers of Quicken software.

1996 MCI announces that it will offer free Internet access for its long-distance customers, matching a similar offer by AT&T, and that it will increase the capacity of its network system to handle an anticipated rise in traffic.
1996 Rejecting an insanity defense, a jury in Dedham, Mass., convicts John C. Salvi III of murdering two women in a pair of attacks at two Boston-area abortion clinics in 1994.
1992 La población blanca de Sudáfrica con derecho a voto apoya la política reformista del presidente Frederick Willem de Klerk.
1991 Results from a nonbinding referendum in the Soviet Union show overwhelming support for preserving the union, a victory for Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. However, in a boost for Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, voters in his republic also endorse electing the federation president by direct ballot.
1990 Los candidatos de los frentes nacionalistas de Letonia y Estonia vencen en las elecciones celebradas en ambas repúblicas soviéticas.
1990 First free elections in East Germany, Conservatives beat Communists.
1988 Declaración soviético-yugoslava al finalizar la visita del dirigente Mijail Sergeievich Gorbachov al país balcánico, en la que se considera superado el conflicto de Stalin con Tito de 1948.
1986 François Mitterrand nombra primer ministro a Jacques René Chirac, cuyo partido ganó las elecciones en Francia. De esta forma, el país galo tiene un presidente socialista y un jefe de Gobierno conservador (es la “cohabitación”).
1986 US Treasury Departement announces plans to alter paper money.

1985 Capital Cities merges with American Broadcasting (ABC) ^top^
After a few months of negotiations, Capital Cities Communications seals a deal to acquire media stalwart American Broadcasting Cos. (ABC). Capital Cities handed over $3.5 billion in cash and warrants, marking what was then one of the biggest mergers in US corporate history. On paper, the acquisition was a tremendous boon for Capital Cities who, despite having but a fraction of ABC's revenues, was able to translate healthy profit margins and an efficient management system into a major stake in the broadcast industry. The deal also made sense for ABC, which had recently become ripe fodder for a hostile takeover. However, selling out to Capital Cities was something of a bittersweet moment for seventy-nine-year-old company chief Leonard Goldenson. Indeed, when Goldman took control of ABC in the early 1950s, the network was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy; not only did he save ABC from the scrap heap, but Goldman also kept the company humming along for roughly three decades. Wall Street, however, held back its tears and stamped its seal of approval on the deal: in a day of zesty trading, ABC's stock surged $31.375 to close at $105.875.

1974 Most Arab oil-producing nations end their embargo against the United States.
1973 Estado de sitio en Phnom Penh (Camboya) después del bombardeo del palacio presidencial de Lon Nol por un avión pilotado por Norodom Sihanuk.

1970 Anti-Communist coup in Cambodia. ^top^
Returning to Cambodia after visits to Moscow and Peking, Prince Norodom Sihanouk is ousted as Cambodian chief of state in a bloodless coup by pro-western Lt. Gen. Lon Nol, premier and defense minister, and First Deputy Premier Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak, who proclaim the establishment of the Khmer Republic. Sihanouk had tried to maintain Cambodian neutrality, but the Communist Khmer Rouge, supported by their North Vietnamese allies, had waged a very effective war against Cambodian government forces. After ousting Sihanouk and taking control of the government, Lon Nol immediately set about to defeat the Communists. Between 1970 and 1975, he and his army, the Forces Armées Nationales Khmères (FANK), with US support and military aid, would battle the Khmer Rouge communists for control of Cambodia.
When the US forces departed South Vietnam in 1973, both the Cambodians and South Vietnamese found themselves suddenly fighting the communists alone. Without US support, Lon Nol's forces succumbed to the Khmer Rouge in April 1975. The victorious Khmer Rouge evacuated Phnom Penh and began reordering Cambodian society, which resulted in a killing spree and the notorious "killing fields." Eventually, hundreds of thousands of Cambodians were murdered or died from exhaustion, hunger, and disease. During the five years of bitter fighting for control of the country, approximately 10% of Cambodia's 7 million people died.

1969 US bombs Cambodia for the first time ^top^
US B-52 bombers are diverted from their targets in South Vietnam to attack suspected communist base camps and supply areas in Cambodia for the first time in the war. President Nixon approved the mission--formally designated Operation Breakfast--at a meeting of the National Security Council on March 15. This mission and subsequent B-52 strikes inside Cambodia became known as the "Menu" bombings. A total of 3630 flights over Cambodia dropped 110'000 tons of bombs during a 14-month period through April 1970. This bombing of Cambodia and all follow up "Menu" operations were kept secret from the American public and the US Congress because Cambodia was ostensibly neutral. To keep the secret, an intricate reporting system was established at the Pentagon to prevent disclosure of the bombing. Although the New York Times broke the story of the secret bombing campaign in May 1969, there was little adverse public reaction.

1963 Supreme Court's Miranda Decision; defendants must have lawyers.

1962 Algerian War ends after 7 years (250'000 killed) ^top^
      France and the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) sign a peace agreement to end the seven-year Algerian War, signaling the end of 130 years of colonial French rule in Algeria. In late October 1954, a faction of young Algerian Muslims established the Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN) as a guerrilla organization dedicated to winning independence from France. They staged several bloody uprisings during the next year, and by 1956 the FLN was threatening to overrun the colonial cites, home to Algeria's sizable European settler population.
      In France, a new administration, led by Guy Mollet, promised to quell the Muslim rebellion and sent 500'000 French soldiers to Algeria to crush the FLN. To isolate the rebels and their area of operations, France granted Tunisia and Morocco independence, and their borders with Algeria were militarized with barbed wire and electric fencing. When FLN leaders attempted to travel to Tunisia in October 1956 to discuss the Algerian War, French forces diverted their plane and jailed the men. In response, the FLN launched a new campaign of terrorism in the colonial capital of Algiers. General Jacques Massu, head of France's crack parachute unit, was given extraordinary powers to act in the city, and through torture and assassination the FLN presence in Algiers was destroyed. By the end of 1957, the rebels had been pushed back into rural areas, and it seemed the tide had turned in the Algerian War.
      However, in May 1958, a new crisis began when European Algerians launched massive demonstrations calling for the integration of Algeria with France and for the return of Charles de Gaulle to power. In France, the Algerian War had seriously polarized public opinion, and many feared the country was on the brink of army revolt or civil war. On 01 June, de Gaulle, who had served as leader of France after World War II, was appointed prime minister by the National Assembly and authorized to write a new national constitution. Days after returning to power, de Gaulle visited Algiers, and though he was warmly welcomed by the European Algerians he did not share their enthusiasm for Algerian integration. Instead, he granted Muslims the full rights of French citizenship and in 1959 declared publicly that Algerians had the right to determine their own future.
      During the next two years, the worst violence in Algeria was perpetrated by European Algerians rather than the FLN, but scattered revolts and terrorism did not prevent the opening of peace negotiations between France and the FLN-led provisional government of the Algerian Republic in 1961. On 16 March 1962, a peace agreement was signed at Évian-les-Bains, France, promising independence for Algeria pending a national referendum on the issue. French aid would continue, and Europeans could return to their native countries, remain as foreigners in Algeria, or take Algerian citizenship. On 01 July 1962, Algerians overwhelmingly approved the agreement, and most of the one million Europeans in Algeria poured out of the country. More than 100'000 Muslim and 10'000 French soldiers were killed in the seven-year Algerian War, along with thousands of Muslim civilians and hundreds of European colonists.

Les accords d'Évian annoncent la fin d'une guerre de huit ans et de 132 ans de domination française en Algérie. Le cessez-le-feu est prévu le lendemain à midi. Ensuite, des référendums en métropole et en Algérie doivent permettre de ratifier les accords. Dans les faits, les massacres vont se prolonger jusqu'à la proclamation de l'indépendance, le 03 Jul 1962. Un million de pieds-noirs (10% de la population) fuient les représailles du FLN (Front de libération nationale) et les attentats de l'OAS (Organisation de l'armée secrète).
      L'Algérie indépendante, en mal d'identité, va choisir le socialisme d'État à la manière soviétique et lentement sombrer dans le dénuement et l'anarchie. Avec la fin du fardeau colonial et l'arrivée des pieds-noirs, la France va, de son côté, connaître un regain de prospérité et de dynamisme. Mais elle restera longtemps marquée par le conflit et surtout le souvenir des tortures.
      De 1954 à 1962, la guerre non déclarée d'Algérie a mobilisé deux millions de jeunes Français du contingent. Elle a fait 9000 morts chez les soldats français, non compris 16'000 qui ont péri du fait d'accidents. 270'000 musulmans sont aussi morts du fait de la guerre (le FLN arrondit leur nombre à... un million). Le terrorisme a fait 4000 victimes en France et en Algérie du fait des règlements de comptes et des attentats perpétrés par le FLN. L'OAS, mouvement terroriste créé sur le tard par des militants de l'Algérie française, est pour sa part responsable de 6000 victimes tant françaises qu'algériennes.
      Parmi les principales victimes de l'évacuation hâtive de l'Algérie figurent les supplétifs musulmans, aussi appelés harkis. Avec leur famille, ils représentaient un million de personnes, soit un effectif équivalent à celui des pieds-noirs. Le ministre des Affaires algériennes, Louis Joxe, interdit leur embarquement sur les navires à destination de la métropole. 93'000 musulmans, y compris femmes, enfants et famille proche, doivent néanmoins leur salut à des officiers qui bafouent les consignes de leurs supérieurs. Mais 50'000 autres harkis sont massacrés dans les semaines qui suivent le «cessez-le-feu».

1959 Hawaiian statehood bill signed ^top^
     US President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Hawaiian statehood bill into law, approving the entrance of Hawaii into the United States pending approval by the electorate of the Pacific Ocean island chain.
      The first known settlers of the Hawaiian Islands were Polynesian voyagers who arrived sometime in the eighth century. In the early eighteenth century, the first American traders came to Hawaii to exploit the islands’ sandalwood, which was much valued in China at the time. In the 1830s, the sugar industry was introduced to Hawaii, and by the mid-nineteenth century, had become well established. American missionaries and planters brought about great changes in Hawaiian political, cultural, economic, and religious life, and in 1840, a constitutional monarchy was established, stripping the Hawaiian monarch of much of his authority.
      In 1893, a group of American expatriates and sugar planters supported by a division of US Marines deposed Queen Liliuokalani, the last reigning monarch of Hawaii. One year later, the Republic of Hawaii was established as a US protectorate with Hawaiian-born Sanford B. Dole as president. Many in Congress opposed the formal annexation of Hawaii, and it was not until 1898, and the use of the naval base at Pearl Harbor during the Spanish-American War, that Hawaii’s strategic importance became evident and formal annexation was approved.
      Two years later, Hawaii was organized into a formal US territory, and, during World War II, firmly entered into the American national identity following the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
      On March 18, 1959, the US government approved statehood for Hawaii, and, on June 27, the Hawaiian people voted by a wide majority to accept statehood. On August 21, 1959, Hawaii formally entered the Union as the fiftieth state

1950 Nationalist Chinese forces raid mainland China ^top^
      In a surprise raid on the communist People's Republic of China (PRC), military forces of the Nationalist Chinese government on Taiwan invade the mainland and capture the town of Sungmen. Because the United States supported the attack, it resulted in even deeper tensions and animosities between the US and the PRC. In October 1949, the leader of the communist revolution in China, Mao Zedong, declared victory against the Nationalist government of China and formally established the People's Republic of China. Nationalist troops, politicians, and supporters fled the country and many ended up on Taiwan, an island off the Chinese coast.
      Once there, they declared themselves the real Chinese government and were immediately recognized as such by the United States. Officials from the United States refused to have anything to do with the PRC government and adamantly refused to grant it diplomatic recognition. Nationalist Chinese leader Chiang Kai-Shek bombarded the mainland with propaganda broadcasts and pamphlets dropped from aircraft signaling his intention of invading the PRC and removing what he referred to as the "Soviet aggressors." In the weeks preceding the 18 March 1950 raid, Chiang had been particularly vocal, charging that the Soviets were supplying the PRC with military advisors and an imposing arsenal of weapons.
      On 18 March, thousands of Nationalist soldiers, supported by air and sea units, attack the coast of the PRC, capturing the town of Sungmen that lay about 300 km south of Shanghai. The Nationalists reported that they killed over 2500 Communist soldiers.
      Battles between the raiding group and communist forces continued for weeks, but eventually the Nationalist forces were defeated and driven back to Taiwan. Perhaps more important than the military encounter was the war of words between the United States and the PRC. Communist officials immediately charged that the United States was behind the raid, and even suggested that American pilots and advisors accompanied the attackers. (No evidence has surfaced to support those charges.) US officials were cautiously supportive of the Nationalist attack, though what they hoped it would accomplish beyond minor irritation to the PRC remains unknown.
      Just eight months later, military forces from the PRC and the United States met on the battlefield in Korea. Despite suggestions from some officials, including the commander of US troops Gen. Douglas MacArthur, that the United States "unleash" the Nationalist armies against mainland China, President Harry S. Truman refrained from this action, fearing that it would escalate into World War III.

1949 Los representantes de EE.UU., Gran Bretaña, Francia y el Benelux firman un pacto de defensa mutua, de una duración de 20 años y con supervisión de la OTAN
1943 La Guayana francesa se une a la Francia Libre.

1942 US concentration camps for innocent Japanese-Americans. ^top^
      The War Relocation Authority is created to "Take all people of Japanese descent into custody, surround them with troops, prevent them from buying land, and return them to their former homes at the close of the war." Anger toward and fear of Japanese Americans began in Hawaii shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor; everyone of Japanese ancestry, old and young, prosperous and poor, was suspected of espionage. This suspicion quickly broke out on the mainland; as early as 19 February 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered that German, Italian, and Japanese nationals — as well as Japanese Americans — be barred from certain areas deemed sensitive militarily.
      California, which had a significant number of Japanese and Japanese Americans, saw a particularly virulent form of anti-Japanese sentiment, with the state's attorney general, Earl Warren (who would go on to be the chief justice of the United States), claiming that a lack of evidence of sabotage among the Japanese population proved nothing, as they were merely biding their time.
      While roughly 2000 persons of German and Italian ancestry were interned during this period, US citizens and residents of Japanese ancestry suffered most egregiously. The War Relocation Authority, established on 18 March 1942, was aimed at them specifically: 120'000 men, women, and children were rounded up on the West Coast. Three categories of internees were created: Nisei (native US citizens of Japanese immigrant parents), Issei (Japanese immigrants), and Kibei (native US citizens educated largely in Japan). The internees were transported to one of 10 relocation centers in California, Utah, Arkansas, Arizona, Idaho, Colorado, and Wyoming. The quality of life in a relocation center was only marginally better than prison: Families were sardined into 6-by-8-meter rooms and forced to use communal bathrooms. No razors, scissors, or radios were allowed. Children attended War Relocation Authority schools.
      One Japanese American, Gordon Hirabayashi, fought internment all the way to the Supreme Court. He argued that the Army, responsible for effecting the relocations, had violated his rights as a US citizen. The court shamefully ruled against him, citing the nation's right to protect itself against sabotage and invasion as sufficient justification for curtailing his and other Japanese Americans' constitutional rights.
      In 1943, Japanese Americans who had not been interned were finally allowed to join the US military and fight in the war. More than 17'000 Japanese Americans fought; the all-Nisei 442nd Regiment, which fought in the Italian campaign, became the single most decorated unit in US history. The regiment won 4667 medals, awards, and citations, including 1 Medal of Honor, 52 Distinguished Service Crosses, and 560 Silver Stars. Many of these soldiers, when writing home, were writing to relocation centers.
      In 1990, belated and inadequate reparations were made to surviving internees and to the heirs of those deceased in the form of a formal apology by the US government and a measly check for $20'000.

1940 First Axis war council ^top^
     In the Brenner Pass in the Alps, Adolf Hitler, leader of Nazi Germany, and Benito Mussolini, leader of Fascist Italy, meet to discuss Italy’s imminent entrance into World War II in an alliance with Germany.
      After seizing power over Italy in 1925, Mussolini appealed to his country’s former Western allies for new treaties, but his brutal 1935 invasion of Ethiopia ended all hope of alliance with the Western democracies.
      In 1936, Mussolini joined Hitler in his support of Francisco Franco’s Nationalist forces in the Spanish Civil War, prompting the signing of a treaty of cooperation in foreign policy between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany in 1937. In 1939, in the last few months preceding the outbreak of World War II in Europe, the two governments’ relationship was reinforced by a new military alliance, known as the "Pact of Steel."
      However, as German armies stormed across Europe, Italy waited until it was assured of Germany’s success before officially entering the war. In March of 1940, Hitler and Mussolini met, and on June 10 of the same year, Italy declared war against the Allied powers.
      In September of 1940, Japan, which had signed a cooperative pact with Italy and Germany in late 1936, strengthened its participation in the "Axis" with the signing of the Tripartite Pact in Berlin.

1938 Mexico takes control of foreign-owned oil properties. — La industria mexicana del petróleo es nacionalizada por el presidente Lázaro Cárdenas.
1937 Encíclica Divini Redemptoris de Pío XI contra el ateísmo comunista.
1931 El rey Alfonso XIII concede el indulto al capitán Sediles, condenado por los sucesos ocurridos en Jaca.
1930 Pluto discovered by Clyde Tombaugh (US)

1929 GM to acquires Opel ^top^
General Motors announces its plans to acquire Opel AG, one of Germany’s largest car companies. When Alfred P. Sloan became president of GM in 1923, there was already a GM of Canada, but all other foreign markets were still being served through export. Throughout the 1920s the economic nationalism of European countries made international expansion difficult for the US car companies. Ford attempted to crack foreign markets by setting up manufacturing subsidiaries in other countries. GM’s Sloan decided that purchasing existing companies in countries with desirable markets was a better policy. In 1925 GM purchased Vauxhall Motors of Great Britain. Sloan’s policies allowed GM to expand its market without attracting attention as a foreign company. On this day in 1929 GM announced its plans to buy the Adam Opel A.G. GM still runs Opel under the Opel name. Alfred Sloan is credited with turning General Motors from one of the most successful car companies in America into one of the greatest industrial giants in the world.

1922 Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is sentenced in India to 6 years' imprisonment for civil disobedience. He would be released after two years.
1920 Greece adopts the Gregorian calendar
1915 Turkey's Canakkale (Trojan) Sea Victory against allied powers (USA, Australia, England, Italy) during First World War.
1895 200 Blacks leave Savannah, Georgia, for Liberia
1885 Se alza en Valencia el último cadalso para ejecutar en público a un condenado a muerte.
1871 Estalla en París el movimiento revolucionario conocido por el nombre de La Comuna.
1865 Wilson's Raid to Selma, Alabama begins
1865 Confederate Congress adjourns
1862 George W. Randolph named Confederate Secretary of War
1859 Vera Cruz besieged by Miramón (Cons) in Mexican War of Reform.
1839 Se ratifican los tratados que ponen fin a la Guerra de los Pasteles, conflicto entre México y Francia.

1834 Tolpuddle martyrs ^top^
     Banished to Australia In England, six English agricultural laborers are sentenced to seven years of banishment to Australia’s New South Wales penal colony for their trade union activities.
      In 1833, after several years of reductions in their agricultural wages, several workers in Tolpuddle, a small village east of Dorchester, England, formed the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers. Led by George Loveless, a farm laborer, the union rapidly grew in the area, and it was agreed that the men would not accept work for less than ten shillings a week.
      With the urging of the British government, which feared a repetition of the rural unrest of 1830, local authorities arrested Loveless and five others on charges of taking an unlawful oath, citing an outdated law that had been passed in the late eighteenth century to deal with naval mutiny.
      On 18 March 18 1834, these six men, including one who had never taken the oath, were sentenced to seven years imprisonment at an Australian penal colony. However, public reaction throughout the country made the six into popular heroes, and, in 1836, after continuous agitation, the sentence against the so-called "Tolpuddle Martyrs" was finally remitted.
      Only one of the six returned to Tolpuddle; the rest emigrated to Canada, where one Tolpuddle Martyr — John Standfield — became mayor of his district. The popular movement surrounding the Tolpuddle controversy is generally regarded as the beginning of trade unionism in Great Britain.

1814 Un decreto de Napoleón restituye los Estados Pontificios a Pío VII.
1808 Continúa el Motín de Aranjuez, levantamiento popular provocado por el descontento con el gobierno de Manuel de Godoy y Alvarez de Faria (una sola persona con demasiados nombres) y la evidente huida de la familia real española.
1785 Se prohíbe el vals en Viena mediante un edicto imperial.
1783 Carlos III deroga un mandamiento de Juan II, rey de Castilla y León, fechado en 1417, que prohibía a los caballeros el ejercicio de oficios bajos o viles, entre los que se cita una serie de artesanías y el comercio de provisiones y especias.

1766 British parliament repeals the Stamp Act ^top^
      After four months of organized American protests, the British Parliament repeals the Stamp Act, a taxation measure enacted to raise revenues for a standing British army in America.
      The Stamp Act was passed on 22 March 1765, leading to the first American opposition to a subject that was to be a major cause of the revolution: taxation without representation. There was a general call for repeal in the American colonies (see the Stamp Act Resolves of 19 October 1765). On November 1, 1765, despite a general call for repeal in the American colonies, the Stamp Act was enacted. The controversial act forced colonists to buy a British stamp for every official document they obtained. The stamp itself displayed an image of a Tudor rose framed by the word "America" and the Latin phrase Honni soit qui mal y pense--"Shame to him who thinks evil of it."
      The colonists, who had convened the Stamp Act Congress in October of 1765 to vocalize their opposition to the impending enactment, greeted the arrival of the stamps with outrage and violence. Most colonists called for a boycott of British goods and some organized attacks on the customhouses and homes of tax collectors.
      After months of protest, and an appeal by Benjamin Franklin before the British House of Commons, Parliament voted to repeal the Stamp Act on March 18, 1765. However, the same day, Parliament passed the Declaratory Acts, asserting that the British government had free and total legislative power over the colonies.

1673 Lord Berkeley of England sold his half of the American colony of New Jersey to the Quakers.
1543 de Soto observes first recorded flood in America (Mississippi R)
1526 François I regresa a París, tras el cautiverio sufrido en Madrid después de la batalla de Pavía.
1123 The First Lateran Council opened in Rome. It was the Ninth Ecumenical Council, and the first one to be held in the West. Lateran I settled the right of investiture (i.e., the right to choose replacement clergy) by a treaty between Pope Calixtus II and Holy Roman Emperor Henry V. — A instancias del papa Calixto II, se inaugura en la basílica de San Juan de Letrán de Roma el Primer Concilio de Letrán.
0731 St Gregory III begins his reign as Pope
0417 Saint Zosimus is consecrated bishop of Rome (and therefore Pope)

TO THE TOP

Deaths which occurred on a March 18:

2002 Brittanie Cecil, from hockey puck injury.
      Brittanie Cecil [photo >] dies two days after being struck in the head by a puck at an NHL hockey game at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio. Her father had taken her to the game as an early present for her 14th birthday, 20 March 2002. They were sitting behind one of the goal areas, which does not have protective netting as in some arenas. A puck flew over the 2.4-meter-high protective plexiglas enclosure, hit Brittanie on the head, ricoched to the side of the head of Larry Young, 61 (who was hurt, but not severely), and then to the mouth of a 6-year-old girl, who caught the puck, which had split her lip and knocked out a tooth. Brittanie remained conscious as her mom and dad helped her to walk to the aid station and then as an ambulance took her to Children's Hospital.
      Brittanie lived in West Alexandria, a small farming town of 1500, and was an eighth-grader at Twin Valley South Middle School near Dayton.
       The coroner would deduce from the autopsy that when she was hit with the puck, her head snapped back in a type of whiplash action and caused damage to her right vertebral artery. But she did not show any symptom of a rupture to the vertebral artery — lethargy, slurred speech, partial facial paralysis — until she lapsed into unconsciousness at 09:00 today. Then the hospital did an angiogram and discovered the injury to the artery, which runs along the spine and pumps blood into the brain. The rupture had caused a clot to form in the artery, leading to more clots and a swelling of the brain that results in her death later in the day.

2002 Mohammed Abu Obeid, 26, Palestinian militant of the military wing of Fatah, by Israeli army gunfire in a clash Monday night near the Kissufim checkpoint in the Gaza Strip.
2002 Suleiman a-Zari'i, 50, Palestinian, by Israeli gunfire, in Dir al-Balah, adjacent to Gush Katif.
2001 Stella Riehl, 69, in Amtrak train derailment between Brooks and Nodaway, Iowa. She was returning home to Colorado Springs with the ashes of her brother Antoni Miszuk, 71, who had died in a Des Moines nursing home on 15 March, a few hours before she arrived to visit him.. They had immigrated from Prdy, Poland, in the 1950s. Some 90 of the 210 passengers on the train were injured.
2000 Big Mama, 25, halibut, and 19 other fish of the California Fish Hatchery in Redondo Beach, speared, cooked, and served at a birthday party by a very drunk Taras Poznik, 24. On 11 April 2000, he would be sentenced to 6 months in prison, 6 months in an alcoholism-treatment center, and to pay $50'000 to replace Big Mama (a sum he most likely will not be able to come up with). The murder of Big Mama, a 23-kg prolific egg-layer and a favorite of visitors, causes more outrage in the community than any murder of a human.
1998 One Kosovar shot by Serb police, during protests in Pristina. Several demonstrators are wounded.
1989 Jeffreys, mathematician.
1989 Francisco García Pavón, escritor español.
1986 Bernard Malamud, novelist and short story writer, born on 26 April 1914 in Brooklyn, son of Russian Jewish immigrants. About his novels: The Natural (1952) is an allegory about the rise and fall of a baseball player.. The Assistant (1957), his best novel, is about a Jewish grocery store owner (as Malamud's father Max was) and his Italian assistant during the Depression. The Fixer (1966) is inspired by the 1913 trial and acquittal of Jewish Mendel Beiliss fro ritual murder in Kiev. The Tenants through the conflict of a Jewish and a Black writer treats of the cultural and psychological upheaval among Blacks caused by the rise of nationalism, separatism and racial pride. God's Grace is concerned with man's survival in the nuclear age.Other novels are A New Life (1961) and Dubin's Lives (about a biographer in midlife). Story collections are The Magic Barrel, Idiots First (1963), Pictures of Fidelman, Rembrandt's Hat, The Sories of Bernard Malamud (1983), Story Story Story.
1983 Humberto II de Saboya, último rey de Italia.
1980 Erich Fromm, German-born US psychoanalyst and social philosopher (Sane Society). He was born on 23 March 1900.
1965 Faruk I, rey de Egipto.
1965:: 14 soldados colombianos en un convoy militar en Inzá asaltado por guerrilleros de las FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia), al mando de Manuel Marulanda “Tirofijo”.
1964 Norbert Wiener, mathematician.

1947 William C. Durant, 85, founder of General Motors, in New York City. ^top^
Economic historian Dana Thomas described Durant as a man "drunk with the gamble of America. He was obsessed with its highest article of faith—that the man who played for the steepest stakes deserved the biggest winnings." General Motors reflected Durant’s ambitious attitude toward risk-taking in its breathtaking expansionist policies, becoming in its founder’s words "an empire of cars for every purse and purpose." But Durant’s gambling attitude had its downside. Over a span of three years Durant purchased Oldsmobile, Oakland (later Cadillac and Pontiac), and attempted to purchase Ford. By 1910 GM was out of cash, and Durant lost his controlling interest in the company. Durant would get back into the game by starting Chevrolet, and he would eventually regain control of GM--only to lose it a second time. Later in life, Durant attempted to start a bowling center and a supermarket; however, these ventures met with little success.

1940 Rederick O'Conor, Irish US artist born on 17 October 1860.
1937 More than 400 persons, mostly children, in a gas explosion at a school in New London, Texas.
1934 Juan José Mingolla “Pasos Largos”, célebre bandido español, es muerto por la Guardia Civil, tras un vivo tiroteo en la serranía de Ronda (Málaga)

1925: 695 victims of the Tri-State tornado ^top^
     The worst tornado in US history passes through eastern Missouri, southern Illinois, and southern Indiana, killing 695 people, injuring some 13'000 people, and causing seventeen million dollars in property damage.
      Known as the "Tri-State Tornado," the deadly twister began its northeast track in Ellington, Missouri, but southern Illinois was the hardest hit. Over 500 of the total 695 people who perished were killed in southern Illinois, including 234 in Murphrysboro and 127 in West Frankfort.
      A tornado is a dark, funnel-shaped cloud containing violently rotating air that develops in climate conditions that, in the United States, are generally unique to the central and southern plains and the Gulf states. The rotating winds of tornadoes can attain velocities of 500 km/h and its diameter can vary from a few meters to 2 km. A tornado generally travels in a northeasterly distance at speeds of 30 to 60 km/h, and covers anywhere between 1 and over 150 km. The Tri-State Tornado of 1925, which traveled 352 km, spent over three hours on the ground, devastated 425 square kilometers, had a diameter of nearly 2 km, and traveled at speeds in excess of 110 km/h, is unsurpassed in US history

1924 John Hays, Black, lynched in Crisp County, Georgia, accused of attempted rape of a White woman.
1922 Edward Arthur Walton, British painter born on 15 April 1860. — Berwickshire Field-workers
1913 King George I of Greece assassinated by Schinas, un desequilibrado, en Salónica.
1912: 26 persons by a locomotive which explodes in the Southern Pacific Railroad yards in San Antonio, Texas, as stem pressure is increased during repairs. Some of those killed are in a house 600 meters away, into which a 400-kg piece of the locomotive crashes. 32 persons are seriously injured.
1907 Pierre Eugène Marcellin Berthelot, químico francés.
1900 John Bailey, Black, lynched in Cobb County, Georgia, accused of attempted rape of a White woman.
1871 Augustus De Morgan, 64, mathematician.
1870 Joaquín Gaztambide y Garbavo, Spanish composer, born on 07 February 1822, who wrote 44 zarzuelas, including La Mensajera (1849), En las Astas del Toro, Catalina, El Juramento, Las Hijas de Eva, Los Magyares.
1844 Sebastien Pether, British artist born in 1790
1584 (Julian date: go to 28 March Gregorian) Ivan IV Vasilyevich “Grozniy” (”The Terrible”).
1455 Giovanni da Fiesole, Fra Angelico, Italian painter born in 1387 — MORE ON FRA ANGELICO AT ART “4” MARCH — LINKS — The Meeting of St. Francis and St. Dominic — Altarpiece of the Annunciation — The Coronation of the Virgin — San Marco Altarpiece — Christ in Glory Surrounded by Saints and Angels — Coronation of the Virgin — The Deposition — Madonna of the Linen Weavers's border 12 music-making angels. (1433) —
— convent of San Marco in Florence entrances to cells — Noli Me Tangere — The Crucifixion — Transfiguration — altarpiece for San Marco — chapel of Pope Nicholas
1314 39 French Knights Templars, including Jacques De Molay, 70, their last grand master, are burned at the stake. Most church history experts agree that these and other hostilities shown against the Knights Templars were caused by the greed and cunning of Philip the Fair, who sought the great wealth this medieval military religious order had amassed in the enturies following the Crusades.
1216 Inocencio III, papa.
0978 St Edward the Martyr king of Anglo-Saxons (975-78), assassinated

Births which occurred on a March 18:

1992 Windows 3.1 computer operating system is shipped. ^top^
Windows 3.1 became the most popular version of Windows used before the release of Windows 95. Windows 3.1 came nearly seven years after the introduction of Windows 1.0, an unimpressive attempt on Microsoft's part to stay in the race to develop a graphical user interface. During the mid-1980s, a number of companies, spurred by the introduction of the revolutionary Macintosh interface in 1984, competed to create a multitasking, graphical user interface for IBM-PCs. Despite many competitors, it took years for the graphic environment for PCs to catch on. Although Microsoft announced Windows in 1983, the product didn't ship until 1985, and even then, it failed to make a splash. Meanwhile, Visicorp, the once dominant software company associated with VisiCalc (the first spreadsheet), was developing VisiOn, a graphic environment that debuted in 1983 to a resounding flop. Digital Research, which had led the operating systems niche until DOS took over, devised GEM, a graphic environment for the PC that also failed to catch on. It wasn't until Windows 3.0 was introduced in May 1990 that Windows took off, selling more than three million copies its first year.

1979 El Partido Conservador Demócrata (PCD) de Nicaragua, de tendencia socialdemócrata, se funda.
1949 Rodrigo Rato y Figaredo, político español, vicepresidente segundo y ministro de Economía.
1936 F.W. de Klerk, 1993 Nobel peace laureate and former South African president.
1932 John Updike poet/novelist (Rabbit Run)

1932 John Updike, poet, novelist, in Shillington, Pennsylvania. ^top^
The only child of a math teacher father and aspiring writer mother, Updike developed an early love for reading and drawing and won a scholarship to Harvard. He became editor of the famous Harvard Lampoon and married as an undergraduate. After graduating in 1953, Updike went to England for a year to study art. In England, he met New Yorker writers and editors E.B. and Katherine White, who offered him a job. Updike worked on staff for the illustrious magazine until 1957, when he quit and moved to Ipswich, Massachusetts, to concentrate on fiction and poetry. He supported his wife and children with contributions to the New Yorker and in 1958 published his first novel, The Poorhouse Fair, to favorable reviews. Two years later, he published Rabbit, Run, considered one of his best novels, about a former high school basketball star named Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom. He wrote a sequel, Rabbit Redux, in 1971 and won Pulitzer Prizes for Rabbit Is Rich (1981) and Rabbit at Rest (1990). Updike's 1968 novel, Couples, detailing the sexual high-jinx of married couples in a small town, topped the bestseller chart for several weeks. Updike divorced in 1976 and remarried the following year. The prolific writer has published 50 books, including novels, children's books, poetry, and journalism collections. He also writes frequently for magazines.

1931 First electric razor is marketed, by Schick
1929 Fidel Ramos, político y militar filipino, presidente del país.
1928 Hans Kung, teólogo suizo.
1928 José María Setién, obispo de San Sebastián
1927 George Plimpton, author.
1927 Muhammad ben Ahmed Abdelghani, político argelino.
1911 Gabriel Celaya, poeta español.
1911 Walter Ledermann, mathematician.
1910 Chiang Ching-kuo, son of Chinese generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, and his successor as leader of China. He died on 13 January 1988.
1899 Lavrenti Beria chief of Soviet secret police under Stalin.
1892 Adolf Richard Fleischmann, German artist who died in 1968 or 1969.
1891 Shewhart, mathematician.
1881 Barnum and Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth opens.
1875 Beppe Ciardi, Italian artist who died in 1932.
1869 Neville Chamberlain (C) British PM (1937-40). He proclaimed “peace in our times” obtained at the cost of betraying Czechoslovakia to appease Hitler at Munich in 1938. His “our times” only lasted a few months, until Hitler decided to gobble up Poland too. Chamberlain died on 09 November 1940, having outlived his “our times” by only a couple of months.
1863 William Sulzer, New York governor (1913); impeached and removed from office. He died on 06 November 1941.
1862 Eugene Fredrik Jansson, Swedish painter who died on 15 June 1915. — Ring Gymnast No. 2
1860 Arthur Neville Chamberlain, estadista británico.
1858 Rudolph Diesel, German thermal engineer; he invented the internal-combustion engine. He died on 29 September 1913. inventor del motor de combustión interna que lleva su nombre.

1852 Wells Fargo and Company is founded. ^top^
      Businessmen in New York establish Wells, Fargo and Company, destined to go far as the leading freight and banking company of the West. The California economy boomed after the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in 1849, spurring a huge demand for shipping. Henry Wells and William Fargo joined with several other New York investors to create Wells, Fargo and Company to serve and profit from this demand.
      In July 1852, the company began transporting its first loads of freight between the East Coast and the isolated mining camps of California. From the beginning, Wells, Fargo and Company also engaged in banking, making good profits in the traffic of gold dust and providing loans that helped sustain the growth of the California economy. The company usually used stagecoaches to move gold dust, critical business papers, and other express freight quickly. The stages could carry nine paying passengers, and if the interior seats were full, a few more hardy travelers could ride on top with the driver. The traveling conditions were far from luxurious, and passengers had to tolerate crowding, dust, cold, heat, and the occasional holdup or Indian attack. Nonetheless, the relatively fast pace of travel ensured a steady supply of customers.
      Wells, Fargo and Company never hesitated to dispatch a rider on horseback to deliver or pick up an important message or package-provided the sender was willing to pay a premium price. The company operated several small "pony express" routes around California, and these were particularly valuable to the business community during winter, when snow often blocked stage and rail routes in the Sierra Nevada. In 1866, the company merged with several other major express and stagecoach lines, including Ben Holladay's Overland Mail Company.
      For the next three years, the expanded Wells, Fargo and Company was the unquestionable leader in Western transportation, providing speedy and reliable service at reasonable prices. With the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, the company's dominant position was undermined, especially in the transcontinental mail and freight business. However, Wells, Fargo and Company continued to provide essential local transportation for decades, and the company still exists today as a major banking institution.

1850 American Express is founded ^top^
The brainchild of Henry Wells and William G. Fargo, American Express was a union of three express transport concerns: Livingston, Fargo & Company, Wells & Co., and Butterfield & Wasson. The newly formed, and initially unincorporated, transportation company was a fast hit with the public; by the close of the Civil War, American Express had set up 900 offices in 10 states. Success, however, bred competition, and the upstart Merchants Union Express Company, founded in 1866, gave American Express a good run of it for a few years. After two years of furious competition, the companies decided that it would be more profitable to merge than to fight; in late 1868, the American Express and Merchants Union joined together as American Merchants Union Express Company. Fargo took the reigns of the new concern, which, in 1873, adopted its more familiar moniker as the American Express Company. American Express, of course, has since mutated into a giant in the fields of finance and travel, with offices spread across the globe.

1844 Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Tikhvin Russia, composer (Scheherazade, Song of India, The Flight of the Bumblebee)
1842 Stéphane Mallarmé‚ French poet. — MALLARME ONLINE: MALLARMÉ ONLINE: (French original, page images): L'après-midi d'un faune : églogue -- L'après-midi d'un faune : églogue -- Préface à Vathek -- Album de vers et de prose -- Pages...
1839 Barbier, mathematician.
1838 Sir Randal Cremer Britain, trade unionist, pacifist (Nobel 1903)
1837 Grover Cleveland (22nd [1885-1889] and 24th [1893-1897] US President, only one to serve 2 nonconsecutive terms; only president to be married in White House; the first to have a child born there. He died on 24 June 1908.
1834 First railroad tunnel in US is completed, in Penn (275 m long)
1824 Mar 18-1880 Feb 15 Johannes Hendrik Weissenbruch, German painter who died on 15 February 1880. — LINKS — Forest View near Barbizon — The Shipping Canal at Rijswijk (The View at Geestbrug)
1813 Coal gas making apparatus, patented by David Melville, Newport, RI.
1798 Francis Lieber, German-born US political philosopher and jurist who died on 02 October 1872. — LIEBER ONLINE: Manual of Political Ethics (page images).
1796 Jakob Steiner, mathematician.

1782 John Caldwell Calhoun ^top^
He would be US Vice President under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson [1825-1832], the first VP to resign office: became a US Senator
John C. Calhoun was born near Abbeville, South Carolina. Calhoun became a congressman, senator, secretary of war, secretary of state, and vice president of the United States. A formidable theorist, Calhoun was also known for his irascible temperament. Even his protégé James Hammond allowed that Calhoun was "wanting in judgement in the managing of men." Calhoun is remembered for his determined defense of the institution of slavery. During the course of his career, he reversed his stand as a nationalist and advocated states' rights as a means of preserving slavery in the South. As a South Carolina senator, Calhoun used the argument of states' rights to protect slavery in what is known as the Nullification Crisis of 1832-1833. Calhoun died on 31 March 1850.

1733 Friedrich Nicolai, German writer; a leader of the German Enlightenment. He died on 08 January 1811.
1690 Goldbach, mathematician.
1640 La Hire, mathematician.
1609 Frederick III king of Denmark and Norway (1648-70); absolutist
1602 Billy, mathematician.
1548 Cornelis Ketel, Flemish painter who died on 08 August 1616. — LINKS — Company of Captain Dirck Jacobsz. Rosecrans and Lieutenant Pauw — Adam Wachendorff
1452 Amerigo Vespucci (navigator: said to be the first to discover America: it was actually the coast of South America including Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina [1497])

Holidays Aruba, Haiti : Flag Day/National Holiday Haiti : University Day Ireland : Sheelah's Day Wilmington, NC : Peanut Festival Masons : De Molay Day (1314)

Religious Observances Christian : St Anselm RC, Ang : St Cyril of Jerusalem, bishop and doctor (opt) / Santos Cirilo de Jerusalén, Anselmo, Alejandro, Frigidiano, Salvador de Horta y Fra Angélico. / Saint Cyrille:: Évêque de Jérusalem vers l'an 348, Cyrille participe à des querelles théologiques sur la nature du Christ. Est-il vraiment Dieu fait homme? Ou seulement un homme comme le croient les hérétiques ariens (partisans d'un certain Arius). Ses prises de position vaudront à Cyrille d'être proclamé Docteur de l'Église catholique en 1893.

Thoughts for the day: “Even a hawk is an eagle among crows.”
"Even a hawk is an eagle among cows."
“Even a hawk is a crow among eagles.”
“Even an eagle is a hawk among cows.”
“Even a beagle is a cow among hawks.”

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