Sunday, March 18, 2012

18th of March

Today is the 77th day of the year, with only 288 days remaining until the new year.

1314 - Jacques de Molay, the 23rd and last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, is burned at the stake.

1766 - British Parliament repeals the Stamp Act.

1850 - American Express is founded by Henry Wells and William Fargo.

1865 - The Congress of the Confederate States adjourns for the last time.

1893 - Former Governor General Lord Stanley pledges to donate a silver challenge cup, later named after him, as an award for the best hockey team in Canada, originally presented to amateur champions.  The aptly named Stanley Cup, ha been awarded to the top pro team since 1910, and since 1926, only to National Hockey League teams.

1922 - In India, Mohandas Gandhi is sentenced to six years in prison for civil disobedience.  He would serve only two years.

1937 - The human-powered aircraft, Pedaliante, flies .62 miles outside of Milan, Italy.

1940 - Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini meets at the Brenner Pass in the Alps and agree to form an alliance against France and the United Kingdom.

1945 - A total of 1,250 American bombers attack Berlin.

1965 - Cosmonaut Aleksi Leonov, leaving his spacecraft Voskhod 2 for 12 minutes, becomes the first person to walk in space.

1989 - In Egypt, a 4,400-year-old mummy is found nearby the Pyramid of Cheops.

1990 - In the largest art heist in U.S. history, 12 paintings worth around $300 million, are stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts.

2002 - During the War in Afghanistan, Operation Anaconda ends, after two weeks, killing 500 Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters with only 11 allied troop fatalities.

2003 - FBI agents raid the corporate headquarters of HealthSouth Corporation in Birmingham, Alabama on suspicion of massive corporate fraud led by the company's top executives.

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