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 Today's
highlight in history:
On March 18, 1858, German mechanical engineer Rudolf Diesel, the inventor of the diesel engine, was born in Paris.
On this date:
In 1766, Britain repealed the Stamp Act of 1765.
In 1837, Grover Cleveland, the 22nd and 24th president of the United States, was born in Caldwell, N.J.
In 1922, Mohandas K. Gandhi was sentenced in India to six years' imprisonment for civil disobedience. (He was released after serving two years.)
In 1937, some 300 people, mostly children, were killed in a gas explosion at a school in New London, Texas.
In 1938, Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas nationalized his country's petroleum reserves and took control of foreign-owned oil facilities.
In 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.
In 1959, President Eisenhower signed the Hawaii statehood bill. (Hawaii became a state on Aug. 21, 1959.)
In 1962, France and Algerian rebels signed a cease-fire agreement, which took effect the next day.
In 1965, the first spacewalk took place as Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov went outside his Voskhod 2 capsule, secured by a tether.
In 1974, most of the Arab oil-producing nations ended their embargo against the United States.
Ten years ago: Julie Hiatt Steele, a former friend of Kathleen Willey's, released a sworn affidavit undercutting Willey's claim that President Clinton had made an unwanted sexual advance toward her in 1993. (According to Steele, Willey instructed her to tell Newsweek that Willey had confided the alleged episode to her immediately after it supposedly happened; Steele said she first heard about the accusation in 1997.)
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Five years ago: A jury in Corpus Christi, Texas, cleared Bayer Corp. of liability in a $560 million lawsuit that accused the pharmaceutical giant of ignoring research linking the cholesterol-lowering drug Baycol to dozens of deaths. In Salt Lake City, Brian Mitchell and Wanda Barzee were charged with aggravated kidnapping, sexual assault and burglary in the abduction of Elizabeth Smart, who was found with them six days earlier. (Mitchell and Barzee have been found incompetent to stand trial.) Olympic gold medal figure skater Sarah Hughes won the Sullivan Award as the nation's top amateur athlete.
One year ago: Pakistan's national cricket team coach, Bob Woolmer, 58, was found dead in his hotel room in Kingston, Jamaica, during cricket's World Cup tournament. (An inquest into Woolmer's death ended with the Jamaican jury unable to reach a ruling.)
Today's birthdays: Actor Peter Graves is 82. Composer John Kander ("Chicago") is 81. Author John Updike is 76. Nobel peace laureate and former South African president F.W. de Klerk is 72. Country singer Charley Pride is 70. Actor Kevin Dobson is 65. Actor Brad Dourif is 58. Jazz musician Bill Frisell is 57. Singer Irene Cara is 49. Actor Thomas Ian Griffith is 46. Singer James McMurtry is 46. Singer-actress Vanessa Williams is 45. Olympic gold medal speedskater Bonnie Blair is 44. Country musician Scott Saunders (Sons of the Desert) is 44. Rock musician Jerry Cantrell (Alice in Chains) is 42. Rock singer-musician Miki Berenyi is 41. Rapper-actress-talk show host Queen Latifah is 38. Actor-comedian Dane Cook is 36. Rock musician Stuart Zender is 34. Singer Devin Lima (LFO) is 31. Rock singer Adam Levine (Maroon 5) is 29.
Thought for today: "No man has a right in America to treat any other man tolerantly, for tolerance is the assumption of superiority."
-- Wendell Willkie, American politician (1892-1944)
[Associated Press]
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