March 18 (Reuters) – Following are some of the major events to have occurred on March 18:
1913 – King George I of Greece was assassinated at Salonika.
1940 – The German and Italian leaders Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini met at the Brenner Pass in the Alps and agreed that Italy should enter World War Two within months alongside Nazi Germany.
1965 – Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov made the first space walk.
1967 – The oil tanker Torrey Canyon was wrecked off England’s Cornish coast, spilling 919,000 barrels of oil.
1978 – Football legend Pele meets Pope John Paul II at Vatican.
2000 – Taiwan voters elected Chen Shui-bian, leader of a pro-independence party, as president, ending more than five decades of Nationalist Party rule.
2001 – John Phillips, songwriter and founder member of the Californian pop group The Mamas and the Papas, died.
2007 – Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer died after being found unconscious in his hotel room the morning after his side’s shock World Cup exit.
2008 – British film director Anthony Minghella, who won an Oscar for “The English Patient”, died.
2009 – Award-winning actress Natasha Richardson, a member of Britain’s Redgrave acting dynasty, died at age 45 after a suffering a severe brain injury in a skiing accident.
2011 – Bahrain tears down Pearl Square statue in Manama.
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