March 18 in History

978 — Edward (Saint Edward the Martyr), 15, king of England (975-978), is murdered in Corfe.

1455 — Fra Angelico, Italian monk and Renaissance painter born around 1387 as Guido di Pietro, dies in Rome.

1858 — Rudolf Diesel, German mechanical engineer famous for inventing the diesel engine, is born in Paris.

1899 — Phoebe, a moon of Saturn, is discovered by American astronomer William Henry Pickering. 1909 — Einar Dessau of Denmark uses a shortwave transmitter to converse with a government radio post about 10km away in what is believed to have been the first broadcast by a “ham” operator. 1913 — Greek King George I of Greece (from 1863) is assassinated while on an afternoon walk near the White Tower in Thessaloniki.

1921 — The steamer Hong Koh runs aground off Swatow, China, killing 1 000.

1922 — Mahatma Gandhi, 52, is sentenced to six years in prison in India for civil disobedience after a Gandhi-authored pamphlet titled “Young India” incited riots and bloodshed. He is released in 1924. 1931 — The first practical electric shavers go on sale, the brainchild of retired US Army colonel Jacob Schick. Despite the Great Depression, they sell for $25 each (about $360 in today’s money). About 3 000 move in the first year. By 1937,

1.5 million are in users’ hands.

1965 — The first spacewalk takes place when Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov, 30, leaves his Voskhod 2 capsule and remains outside for 20 minutes, secured by a tether.

1977 — Marien Ngouabi, the military president of the Republic of the Congo (from 1969), is assassinated in Brazzaville.

1990 — An alliance of conservative East German parties wins a surprising victory over the Communists in the first truly free elections in that part of Germany since 1932.

1995 — Spain’s Princess Elena marries financier Jaime de Marichalar in Seville, the first royal wedding in Spain — whose monarchs have spent much of this century in exile — in 89 years.

2007 — Bob Woolmer, 58, Pakistan (and former South Africa) cricket coach, is found dead in his Kingston, Jamaica, hotel room, hours after Pakistan were eliminated from the World Cup by Ireland, and three days before their final match of the tournament.

2009 — Natasha Richardson, 45, British actress, dies in NYC from a severe brain injury suffered in a skiing accident in Canada on the 16th.