NOW & THEN
18 FEBRUARY
1678: John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress was published.
1884: General Charles Gordon reached Khartoum in Sudan, but the Mahdi rejected his offer to negotiate.
1911: First airmail flight, with 6,000 letters and cards flown from Allahabad to Naini, India.
1915: German blockade of Britain by submarine began.
1921: Etienne Oehmichen made first helicopter flight.
1930: Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto at Lowell Observatory in the US.
1942: King George VI had “Plimsoll line” of five inches painted on baths at Buckingham Palace, as fuel shortage hit Britain. Shared baths were encouraged.
1945: Battle for Iwo Jima, in Pacific, began.
1949: Mrs Durand-deacon became the eighth victim of ‘Acid Bath Murderer’ John George Haigh. Haigh was hanged on 6 August.
1956: The first ITV station outside London began broadcasting.
1965: African nation of Gambia became independent within the Commonwealth.
1972: Wilberforce Committee recommended pay rises of between £4.50 and £6 for miners.
1980: Pierre Trudeau returned to power in Canadian general election after nine months out of office.
1988: Boris Yeltsin was ousted from ruling Communist Party Politburo in Moscow.
1989: Afghan government declared state of emergency “to ensure peace and security” in war-ravaged country.
1991: IRA bomb exploded in Victoria Station, London, at rush hour, killing one person and injuring 43.
1992: Private Eye founder Richard Ingrams launched The Oldie magazine.
1993: Unemployment hit 3,062,065 – only the third time since the First World War that the three million total had been passed.
1995: Scotland caused a major upset in the Five Nations Championship, beating France by 23-21 at Parc des Princes.
1996: An IRA bomber died when the bomb he was carrying blew up a bus in London’s Aldwych.
2001: FBI agent Robert Hanssen was arrested for spying for the Soviet Union. He was ultimately convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
2003: Nearly 200 people died in a subway fire in Daegu, South Korea.
2004: Nearly 300 people, including 200 rescue workers, died near Neyshabur in Iran when a runaway freight train carrying sulphur, petrol and fertiliser caught fire and exploded.
2005: Hunting with dogs was banned in England and Wales.
2007: Terrorist bombs exploded on the Samjhauta Express in Panipat, Haryana, India, killing 68 people.
2009: Eighteen people were rescued after a Super Puma helicopter ditched 125 miles east of Aberdeen.
2010: Nigerian rebels attacked the presidential palace and replaced president Mamadou Tandja with a ruling junta.