Author: gil7

Today in History for 18th March 2026

Historical Events

1582 – Prince William I of Orange injured in attack at Antwerp
1933 – US Ladies’ Figure Skating championship won by Maribel Vinson
1961 – 6th Eurovision Song Contest: Jean-Claude Pascal for Luxembourg wins “Nous les amoureux” in Cannes
1963 – “Tovarich” opens at Broadway Theater NYC for 264 performances
1989 – Dino Ciccarelli sets Washington Capital record of 7 pts in a game

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Famous Birthdays

1877 – Clem Hill, Australian cricket batsman and captain (49 Tests, 7 x 100, HS 191; South Australia CA), born in Adelaide, Australia (d. 1945)
1886 – Marianne Philips, Dutch author (Between Heaven and Earth), born in Amsterdam (d. 1951)
1946 – Michael Reagan, American conservative talk show host and adopted son of Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman, born in Los Angeles, California (d. 2026)
1950 – Frank O’Keefe, American southern rock bassist (The Outlaws, 1968-76), born in Chicago, Illinois (d. 1995)
1986 – Abdennour Cherif El Ouazzani, Algerian footballer

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Famous Deaths

1907 – Marcellin Berthelot, French chemist (Thomsen–Berthelot principle of thermochemistry), dies at 79
1918 – Willem Coenen, Dutch pianist and composer, dies at 81
1982 – George Lampe, Dutch painter and director (Free Academy), dies at 60
1983 – Kenneth E. Boulding, English economist (b. 1910)
1999 – Elizabeth Huckaby, American educator, dies at 93

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Famous Deaths for 17th March 2026

1704 – Menno, Baron van Coehoorn, Dutch military engineer (Coevorden mortar), dies at 63
1793 – Leopold Hofmann, Austrian composer and kapellmeister (Cathedral of St. Stephan, 1772-93), dies at 55
1796 – Pieter Paulus, Dutch Patriot and President of the First National Assembly in The Hague, dies of a serious cold at 42
1962 – Frank Orth, American actor (Boston Blackie; Brothers), dies at 82
1992 – Jack Arnold, American actor and director (Sid Caesar Special, Emmy 1967, Creature From the Black Lagoon), dies at 75
1993 – Laadi Flici, Algerian politician and writer, assassinated at 55
2005 – Andre Norton, American writer (b. 1912)
2006 – Bob Papenbrook, American voice actor, dies at 50
2008 – Roland Arnall, American businessman and U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands, dies at 68
2022 – Peter Bowles, British actor (I, Claudius; Rumpole of the Bailey – “Featherstone”), dies of cancer at 85

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Historical Events for 17th March 2026

1757 – Prince Mas Saïd of Mataram surrenders to Mangkubumi in Java
1775 – Transylvania Land Company, headed by Richard Henderson, buys most of Kentucky through treaty signed with Cherokee chiefs at Sycamore Shoals on the Watauga River (later declared illegal)
1845 – Bristol man Henry Jones patents self-raising flour
1870 – Mass legislature authorizes incorporation of Wellesley Female Seminary
1953 – WWLP TV channel 22 in Springfield, MA (NBC) begins broadcasting
1982 – 4 Dutch TV crew members shot dead in El Salvador
1988 – Then highest scoring NCAA basketball game to date; Loyola-Marymont 119, Wyoming 115
1988 – Iran says Iraq uses poison gas

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Today in History for 17th March 2026

Historical Events

1929 – Spanish dictator Primo de Rivera closes university of Madrid
1973 – St. Patrick’s Day marchers carry 14 coffins commemorating Bloody Sunday
2008 – Governor Eliot Spitzer of New York resigns after scandal involving a high-end prostitute; David Paterson becomes acting governor
2013 – Toyo Ito wins the 2013 Pritzker Architecture Prize
2018 – China’s National People’s Congress appoints Wang Qishan as vice-president

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Famous Birthdays

1877 – Albert Hahn, Dutch political cartoonist (Het Volk), born in Groningen, Netherlands (d. 1918)
1880 – Guillermo Uribe Holguin, Colombian composer, born in Bogotá, Colombia (d. 1971)
1881 – Kristian Elster, Norwegian author (Less bror Harris), born in Trondheim, Norway (d. 1947)
1931 – Lorraine Ellison, American soul singer (“Stay with Me”; “Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)”), and songwriter, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (d. 1983)
1987 – Rob Kardashian, American television personality and only son of Robert Kardashian and Kris Jenner (Keeping Up with the Kardashians), born in Los Angeles, California

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Famous Deaths

1801 – Juan de Sesé y Balaguer, Aragonese composer, dies at 64
1910 – Joaquin Valverde Durán, Spanish composer, dies at 64
1956 – Irene Joliot-Curie, French chemist and physicist (Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1935) and daughter of Marie Curie, dies of leukemia at 58
1992 – George Lovi, American columnist (Sky and Telescope’s “Ramblings”), dies
2025 – John A. Hemingway, Irish Royal Air Force pilot who fought in the Battle of Britain during World War Ⅱ, dies at 105

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Famous Deaths for 16th March 2026

1806 – Giuseppe Colla, Italian composer, dies at 74
1819 – Nicolas Séjan, French organist and composer, dies at 73
1909 – George Thorndike Angell, American lawyer and advocate for the humane treatment of animals (ASPCA), dies at 85
1937 – Austen Chamberlain, British statesman, (Foreign Secretary 1924-29, Nobel Peace Prize 1925 for anti-war Locano Pact), dies at 73
1993 – Giovanni Testori, Italian writer (Arialda), dies at 69
1993 – Don Randolph, actor (Harem Girl), dies of pneumonia at 87
1994 – (Charles) Russell Woolen, American classical keyboardist and composer (In Martyrum Memoriam), dies at 71
1998 – Esther Bubley, American photographer, dies at 77
2005 – Allan Hendrickse, South African politician (leader of South African Labour Party; House of Representatives, 1984-92), Congregationalist minister, and teacher, dies of a heart attack at 77
2008 – G. David Low, American astronaut (b. 1956)

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Historical Events for 16th March 2026

1731 – Treaty of Vienna signed by Prince Eugene of Savoy, Count Sinzendorf and Count Gundacker, Thomas Stahremberg and the British envoy to Vienna, Sir Thomas Robinson.
1941 – National Gallery of Art opens in Washington, D.C.
1946 – Bobby Clark’s stage farce “The Would-Be Gentleman”, adapted from Moliére’s “Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme”, closes at the Booth Theater, NYC. after 77 performances
1966 – Gemini 8 launched with Neil Armstrong and David R. Scott aboard, conducts the 1st docking of two spacecraft in orbit, flight aborted after critical system failure with the crew returned safely to Earth
1975 – Gene Curty, Nitra Scharfman and Chuck Strand’s musical rock opera “The Lieutenant” closes at the Lyceum Theater, NYC, after 9 performances
1988 – US sends 3,000 soldiers to Nicaragua’s neighbor Honduras
2020 – Global infections and deaths from COVID-19 overtake those in China for the 1st time, 86,000 vs 80,860 infections, 3,241 vs 3,208 deaths according to John Hopkins Uni
2022 – US Federal Reserve raises interest rates for the first time since 2018 by a quarter of a point to help ease rising price inflation

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Today in History for 16th March 2026

Historical Events

1322 – The Battle of Boroughbridge takes place in the First War of Scottish Independence
1802 – US Army Corps of Engineers established (2nd time)
1830 – London’s re-organised police force (Scotland Yard)
1865 – Battle of Averasboro North Carolina (1,500 casualties)
1958 – LPGA Titleholders Championship Women’s Golf, Augusta CC: Beverly Hanson wins by 5 strokes ahead of Betty Dodd

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Famous Birthdays

1581 – Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft, Dutch historian, poet and playwright (Grandida; Nederduytsche Historiën / History of the Netherlands), born in Amsterdam, Dutch Republic (d. 1647)
1776 – Johan Gijsbert Verstolk van Soelen, Dutch minister of Foreign Affairs, born in Rotterdam, Netherlands (d. 1845)
1929 – Nadja Tiller, Austrian actress (Ich suche Dich, Rosemary), and beauty queen (Miss Austria, 1949), born in Vienna, Austria (d. 2023)
1964 – Gore Verbinski, American movie director (Pirates of the Caribbean films; Rango), born in Oak Ridge, Tennessee
1991 – Wolfgang Van Halen, American rock bassist son of guitarist Eddie Van Halen and actress Valerie Bertinelli, born in Santa Monica, California

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Famous Deaths

1977 – Kamal Jumblatt, Lebanese politician and founder of the Progressive Socialist Party, assassinated by unknown gunmen at 59
2015 – Andy Fraser, English bass guitarist (Free), dies at 62
2021 – Erhan Önal, Turkish soccer central defender (12 caps; FC Bayern Munich, Standard Liège, Galatasaray), dies at 63
2022 – Bobby Weinstein, American songwriter (with Teddy Randazzo – “I’m on the Outside Looking In”, “Goin’ Out of My Head”, “It’s Gonna Take a Miracle”), and music executive, dies at 82
2025 – Doug Laughton, English rugby league lock (15 Tests GB; St. Helens, Wigan, Widnes) and coach (Widnes 504 games), dies at 80

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Famous Deaths for 15th March 2026

1888 – Squire Whipple, American engineer who invented the iron truss bridge, dies at 83
1891 – Théodore de Banville, French writer, dies at 67
1906 – Alfred Gilpin Jones, 8th Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia (1900-06), dies at 81
1942 – Alexander von Zemlinsky, Austrian composer, conductor, and arranger (The Mermaid; Lyric Symphony), dies from a stroke at 70
1983 – Rebecca West [Cicely Isabel Fairfield], English author (Meaning of Treason), dies at 90
1987 – W. Sterling Cole, American politician (Rep-R-NY, Director International Atomic Energy Agency), dies at 82
1998 – (Robert) “Jheri” Redding, American hairdresser, businessman, and National Cosmetology Foundation’s Hall of Fame member (created the Jheri curl and hair conditioner), dies at 91
2005 – Bob Bellear, Australian judge (b. 1944)
2009 – Ron Silver, American actor (Reversal of Fortune, Timecop), dies of cancer at 62
2019 – Tom Tripplehorn, American jazz and rock session and touring guitarist (Gary Lewis and Playboys – “This Diamond Ring”; Leon Russell; Wrecking Crew), dies of cancer at 75

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Historical Events for 15th March 2026

1672 – King Charles II of England enacts the Declaration of Indulgence in an unsuccessful attempt to extend religious liberty to Protestant nonconformists and Roman Catholics in his realms
1964 – USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
1981 – Suriname failed coup under sgt-mjr Wilfred Hawker
1985 – US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1997 – France beats Scotland, 47-20 at Parc des Princes, Paris to claim an 11th outright Five Nations Rugby Championship and 5th Triple Crown; fly-half Christophe Lamaison lands 6 penalties and 3 conversions
2013 – Li Keqiang assumes office as the 7th Premier of the People’s Republic of China
2017 – French fashion house Givenchy appoints it first female designer, Englishwoman Clare Waight Keller
2024 – Former US VP Mike Pence says “he cannot in good conscience” endorse Donald Trump for President in an interview on Fox News

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Today in History for 15th March 2026

Historical Events

221 – Liu Bei, a Chinese warlord and member of the Han royal house, declares himself Emperor of Shu-Han, claiming legitimate succession to the Han Dynasty
1906 – Britons Henry Rolls, Charles Royce and Claude Johnson formalize their existing partnership as Rolls Royce Ltd
1913 – 1st US presidential press conference, held by Woodrow Wilson
1954 – “CBS Morning Show” premieres with Walter Cronkite and Jack Paar
2023 – Another atmospheric river creates a storm across California, bringing widespread flooding and power outages, with Monterey County issuing a 25 mile evacuation order

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Famous Birthdays

1831 – Edward Aylesworth Perry, American soldier and politician (General under Lee for Confederate Army, 14th Governor of Florida 1885-89), born in Richmond, Massachusetts (d. 1889)
1831 – Daniele Comboni, Italian Catholic missionary and Vicar Apostolic of Central Africa (1877-81), born in Limone sul Garda, Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia (d. 1881)
1838 – Alice Cunningham Fletcher, American ethnologist and anthropologist who studied native American culture (advocated for Dawes Act), born in Havana, Cuba (d. 1923)
1969 – Yutaka Take, Japanese jockey (Japan Cup x 5; JRA Grand Prize Jockey 1997-2000, 02-06; Japanese Triple Crown 2005), born in Kyoto, Japan
1974 – Vaughan Gething, Welsh first minister (2024-) Labour and Co-operative politician, born in Usaka, Zambia

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Famous Deaths

1842 – Luigi Cherubini, Italian musical prodigy, composer (Médée; Requiem in D minor), and educator (Conservatoire de Paris, 1822-42), dies at 81
1987 – W. Sterling Cole, American politician (Rep-R-NY, Director International Atomic Energy Agency), dies at 82
2015 – Mike Porcaro, American rock bassist (Toto, 1982-2007 “Stranger In Town”), dies from Lou Gehrig’s disease at 59
2018 – Robert Grossman, American illustrator, dies of heart failure at 78
2020 – Suzy Delair, French singer and actress (The Murderer Lives at Number 21; Utopia; White Paws), dies at 102

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