March 18
Events
Pre-1600
- 37 - Roman Senate annuls Tiberius' will and proclaims Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus emperor.
- 1068 - An earthquake in the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula leaves up to 20,000 dead.
- 1229 - Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, declares himself King of Jerusalem in the Sixth Crusade.
- 1241 - First Mongol invasion of Poland: Mongols overwhelm Polish armies in Kraków in the Battle of Chmielnik and plunder the city.
- 1314 - Jacques de Molay, the 23rd and final Grand Master of the Knights Templar, is burned at the stake.
- 1438 - Albert II of Habsburg becomes King of the Romans.
- 1571 - Valletta is made the capital city of Malta.
1601–1900
- 1608 - Susenyos is formally crowned Emperor of Ethiopia.
- 1644 - The Third Anglo-Powhatan War begins in the Colony of Virginia.
- 1673 - English lord John Berkeley sold his half of New Jersey to the Quakers
- 1741 - New York governor George Clarke's complex at Fort George is burned in an arson attack, starting the New York Conspiracy of 1741.
- 1766 - American Revolution: The British Parliament repeals the Stamp Act.
- 1793 - The first modern republic in Germany, the Republic of Mainz, is declared by Andreas Joseph Hofmann.
- 1793 - Flanders Campaign of the French Revolution, Battle of Neerwinden.
- 1834 - Six farm labourers from Tolpuddle, Dorset, England are sentenced to be transported to Australia for forming a trade union.
- 1848 - The premiere of Fry's Leonora in Philadelphia is the first known performance of a grand opera by an American composer.
- 1848 - Revolutions of 1848: A rebellion arose in Milan which in five days of street fighting drove Marshal Radetzky and his Austrian soldiers from the city.
- 1865 - American Civil War: The Congress of the Confederate States adjourns for the last time.
- 1871 - Declaration of the Paris Commune; President of the French Republic, Adolphe Thiers, orders the evacuation of Paris.
- 1874 - The Hawaiian Kingdom signs a treaty with the United States granting exclusive trade rights.
- 1899 - Phoebe, a satellite of Saturn, becomes the first to be discovered with photographs, taken in August 1898, by William Henry Pickering.
1901–present
- 1901 - The Kumasi Mutiny of 1901 begins.
- 1902 - Macario Sakay issues Presidential Order No. 1 of his Tagalog Republic.
- 1913 - King George I of Greece is assassinated in the recently liberated city of Thessaloniki.
- 1915 - World War I: During the Battle of Gallipoli, three battleships are sunk during a failed British and French naval attack on the Dardanelles.
- 1921 - The second Peace of Riga is signed between Poland and the Soviet Union.
- 1921 - The Kronstadt rebellion is suppressed by the Red Army.
- 1921 - Mongolian Revolution of 1921: The Mongolian People's Army defeated local Chinese forces at Altanbulag, Selenge. This battle was seen as the birthday of the People's Army and completed the expulsion of Chinese militants in Mongolia.
- 1922 - In India, Mohandas Gandhi is sentenced to six years in prison for civil disobedience, of which he serves only two.
- 1925 - The 1925 Tri-State tornado hits the Midwestern states of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, killing 695 people.
- 1937 - The New London School explosion in New London, Texas, kills 300 people, mostly children.
- 1937 - Spanish Civil War: Spanish Republican forces defeat the Italians at the Battle of Guadalajara.
- 1938 - Mexico creates Pemex by expropriating all foreign-owned oil reserves and facilities.
- 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.
- 1942 - The War Relocation Authority is established in the United States to take Japanese Americans into custody.
- 1944 - Mount Vesuvius in Italy erupts, killing 26 people, causing thousands to flee their homes, and destroying dozens of Allied bombers.
- 1945 - 40th Infantry Division, spearheaded by the 185th US Infantry Regiment, landed unopposed in Tigbauan forcing the Japanese forces to surrender and General Macario Peralta and Gen. Gen. Eichelberger to declare the Liberation of Panay, Romblon and Guimaras.
- 1948 - Soviet consultants leave Yugoslavia in the first sign of the Tito–Stalin split.
- 1953 - An earthquake hits western Turkey, killing at least 1,070 people.
- 1959 - The Hawaii Admission Act is signed into law.
- 1962 - The Évian Accords end the Algerian War of Independence, which had begun in 1954.
- 1965 - Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, leaving his spacecraft Voskhod 2 for 12 minutes, becomes the first person to walk in space.
- 1966 - United Arab Airlines Flight 749 crashes on approach to Cairo International Airport in Cairo, Egypt, killing 30 people.
- 1967 - The supertanker runs aground off the Cornish coast.
- 1968 - Gold standard: The U.S. Congress repeals the requirement for a gold reserve to back US currency.
- 1969 - The United States begins secretly bombing the Sihanouk Trail in Cambodia, used by communist forces to infiltrate South Vietnam.
- 1970 - Lon Nol ousts Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia.
- 1971 - Peru: A landslide crashes into Yanawayin Lake, killing 200 people at the mining camp of Chungar.
- 1974 - Güzel İstanbul, a nude sculpture by Gürdal Duyar in Istanbul is torn down in the middle of the night.
- 1980 - A Vostok-2M rocket at Plesetsk Cosmodrome Site 43 explodes during a fueling operation, killing 48 people.
- 1990 - Germans in the German Democratic Republic vote in the first democratic elections in the former communist dictatorship.
- 1990 - In the largest art theft in US history, 12 paintings, collectively worth around $500 million, are stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.
- 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.
- 1996 - A nightclub fire in Quezon City, Philippines kills 162 people.
- 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.
- 2014 - The parliaments of Russia and Crimea sign an accession treaty.
- 2015 - The Bardo National Museum in Tunisia is attacked by gunmen. Twenty-four people, almost all tourists, are killed, and at least 50 other people are wounded.
- 2025 - Israel launches widespread aerial bombardments and attacks on the Gaza Strip, killing at least 591 people, including children.
Births
Pre-1600
- 1075 - Al-Zamakhshari, Persian scholar and theologian
- 1495 - Mary Tudor, Queen of France
- 1548 - Cornelis Ketel, Dutch painter
- 1552 - Polykarp Leyser the Elder, German theologian
- 1554 - Josias I, Count of Waldeck-Eisenberg, Count of Waldeck-Eisenberg
- 1555 - Francis, Duke of Anjou
- 1578 - Adam Elsheimer, German painter
- 1590 - Manuel de Faria e Sousa, Portuguese historian and poet
- 1597 - Jérôme le Royer de la Dauversière, French religious leader, founded the Société Notre-Dame de Montréal
1601–1900
- 1603 - Simon Bradstreet, English colonial magistrate
- 1609 - Frederick III of Denmark
- 1634 - Madame de La Fayette, French author
- 1640 - Philippe de La Hire, French mathematician and astronomer
- 1657 - Giuseppe Ottavio Pitoni, Italian organist and composer
- 1690 - Christian Goldbach, Prussian-German mathematician and academic
- 1701 - Niclas Sahlgren, Swedish businessman and philanthropist, co-founded the Swedish East India Company
- 1733 - Christoph Friedrich Nicolai, German author and bookseller
- 1780 - Miloš Obrenović, Serbian prince
- 1782 - John C. Calhoun, American lawyer and politician, 7th Vice President of the United States
- 1789 - Charlotte Elliott, English poet, hymn writer, editor
- 1798 - Francis Lieber, German-American jurist and philosopher
- 1800 - Harriet Smithson, Irish actress, the first wife and muse of Hector Berlioz
- 1813 - Christian Friedrich Hebbel, German poet and playwright
- 1814 - Jacob Bunn, American businessman
- 1819 - James McCulloch, Scottish-Australian politician, 5th Premier of Victoria
- 1820 - John Plankinton, American businessman, industrialist, and philanthropist
- 1823 - Antoine Chanzy, French general
- 1828 - Randal Cremer, English activist and politician, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1837 - Grover Cleveland, American lawyer and politician, 22nd and 24th President of the United States
- 1840 - William Cosmo Monkhouse, English poet and critic
- 1842 - Stéphane Mallarmé, French poet and critic
- 1844 - Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Russian composer and academic
- 1845 - Kicking Bear, Native American tribal leader
- 1848 - Nathanael Greene Herreshoff, American architect and engineer
- 1857 - Harriet Converse Moody, American businesswoman and arts patron
- 1858 - Rudolf Diesel, German engineer, invented the Diesel engine
- 1862 - Eugène Jansson, Swedish painter
- 1863 - William Sulzer, American lawyer and politician, 39th Governor of New York
- 1869 - Neville Chamberlain, English businessman and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
- 1870 - Agnes Sime Baxter, Canadian mathematician
- 1874 - Nikolai Berdyaev, Russian-French philosopher and theologian
- 1877 - Edgar Cayce, American mystic and psychic
- 1877 - Clem Hill, Australian cricketer and engineer
- 1878 - Percival Perry, 1st Baron Perry, English businessman
- 1880 - Kalle Hakala, Finnish politician
- 1882 - Gian Francesco Malipiero, Italian composer and educator
- 1884 - Bernard Cronin, English-Australian journalist and author
- 1886 - Edward Everett Horton, American actor, singer, and dancer
- 1890 - Henri Decoin, French director and screenwriter
- 1893 - Costante Girardengo, Italian cyclist
- 1893 - Wilfred Owen, English soldier and poet
- 1899 - Marjorie Abbatt, English toy-maker and businesswoman