TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

March 18, 1965

The first spacewalk took place as Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov went outside his Voskhod 2 capsule, secured by a tether. ALSO ON THIS DATE

1766

Britain repealed the Stamp Act of 1765.

1925

The Tri-State Tornado struck southeastern Missouri, southern Illinois and southwestern Indiana, resulting in some 700 deaths.

1937

In America’s worst school disaster, nearly 300 people, most of them children, were killed in a natural gas explosion at the New London Consolidated School in Rusk County, Texas.

1938

Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas nationalized his country’s petroleum reserves and took control of foreignowned oil facilities.

1940

Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini met at the Brenner Pass, where the Italian dictator agreed to join Germany’s war against France and Britain.

1942

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order authorizing the War Relocation Authority, which was put in charge of interning Japanese-Americans, with Milton S. Eisenhower as its director.

1959

President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Hawaii statehood bill.

1963

The U.S. Supreme Court, in Gideon v. Wainwright, ruled unanimously that state courts were required to provide legal counsel to criminal defendants who could not afford to hire an attorney on their own.

1980

Frank Gotti, the 12-year-old youngest son of mobster John Gotti, was struck and killed by a car driven by John Favara, a neighbor in Queens, New York.