NOW & THEN
MARCH 18
1689: The Earl of Leven was commissioned to raise regiment of 800 in Border country to hold Edinburgh against Jacobites. It became The King’s Own Scottish Borderers.
1834: Tolpuddle Martyrs, who set up society to fight falling farm wages, were sentenced to seven years’ transportation to Tasmania. Public outcry had them released after two years.
1891: The opening of the London-paris telephone system with communication between the Prince of Wales and President Carnot.
1902: Enrico Caruso shouted ten operatic arias into a horn in a room in Hotel de Milano to make the first successful song recording. He was the only person able to produce enough volume to disguise the crackles.
1922: Mahatma Gandhi was sentenced to six years in prison in India for civil disobedience.
1925: Madame Tussaud’s London wax museum burned down.
1930: Dwarf planet Pluto was discovered by the astronomer Clyde Tombaugh.
1931: World’s first electric razor was manufactured by American firm Schick Inc.
1958: The last debutantes were presented to the Queen at Buckingham Palace.
1965: Aleksei Leonov left Soviet spacecraft to make first space walk, lasting ten minutes.
1967: The oil tanker Torrey Canyon was wrecked on Pollard Rock between Isles of Scilly and Land’s End, spilling 120,000 gallons of crude into the sea.
1984: Oxford and Cambridge Boat race took place on a Sunday for the first time, having been postponed for a day because the Cambridge boat had been damaged in a collision.
1992: South Africa’s referendum on power-sharing with black people resulted in a landslide Yes vote.
1992: Pat Clinton became the sixth Scot to hold a world boxing title when he dethroned the Mexican Isidro Perez for the World Boxing Organisation flyweight crown.
1994: Bosnia’s Muslim and Croat leaders signed accord to create a federation.
1995: England beat Scotland 24-12 at Twickenham to win rugby’s grand slam, Five Nations Championship and Calcutta Cup.
2002: MPS voted 386-175 to ban hunting with dogs in England and Wales.
2003: 139 Labour MPS rebelled in a Commons vote on war with Iraq and voted against the Labour government, the biggest act of defiance in British political history.
2003: Sign language was recognised as official UK language.
2009: Unemployment in the UK rose above two million for the first time since 1997.
2009: Josef Fritzl, the Austrian accused of imprisoning his daughter and fathering seven children with her, changed his plea to guilty on all charges. Fritzl admitted a string of offences, including rape, incest, murder and enslavement. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.
2009: Actress Natasha Richardson died at the age of 45 following a skiing accident.
1994: Bosnia’s Muslim and Croat leaders signed accord to create a federation.
BIRTHDAYS
Ron Atkinson, football manager and television analyst, 82; Patrick Barlow, British actor, writer and director, 74; Luc Besson, French film director, 62; Irene Cara, American singer and actress (Fame; Sister, Sister), 62; Brad Dourif, American actor (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), 71; Timo Glock, German Formula 1 driver, 39; Queen Latifah, American actress and rap singer, 51; Courtney Pine CBE, British jazz saxophonist, 57; Ingemar Stenmark, Swedish skier, 65; Vanessa Williams, American actress and singer, 58; Stuart Zender, rock musician (Jamiroquai), 47.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1869 Neville Chamberlain, Conservative prime minister; 1893 Wilfred Owen, war poet; 1905 Robert Donat, film actor; 1924 Pat Eddery, champion jockey; 1926 Peter Graves, British actor; 1932 John Updike, US novelist; 1937 Kenny Lynch OBE, British singer/actor; 1949 Alex Higgins, snooker player.
Deaths: 2017 Chuck Berry, US singer; 2009 Natasha Richardson, British actress; 2001 John Phillips, US guitarist; 1978 Peggy Wood US actress; 2010 Fess Parker, US actor (Daniel Boone)