On this day: MPs vote to ban hunting with dogs
Events, birthdays and anniversaries on 18 March.
1291: Pope Gregory X issued a bull awarding clerical tithes of Scotland to Edward I of England for crusade.
1689: The Earl of Leven was commissioned to raise regiment of 800 in Border country to hold Edinburgh against Jacobites. It became The King’s Own Scottish Borderers.
1834: The Tolpuddle Martyrs, who set up society to stop decline of agricultural wages, were sentenced to seven years’ transportation to Tasmania. Public outcry had them released after two years.
1891: The opening of the London-Paris telephone system with communication between the Prince of Wales and President Carnot. The service did not become public until 1 April.
1922: Mahatma Gandhi was sentenced to six years in prison in India for civil disobedience.
1925: Madame Tussaud’s London wax museum burned down.
1930: The planet Pluto was discovered by the astronomer Clyde Tombaugh.
1931: World’s first electric razor was manufactured by American firm Schick Inc.
1958: The last debutantes were presented to the Queen at Buckingham Palace.
1961: First episode of fantasy detective series The Avengers was shown on television.
1962: Ceasefire in Algerian War was signed by French and Algerian delegations in Evian-les-Bains, France.
1965: Aleksei Leonov left Soviet spacecraft to make first space walk, lasting ten minutes.
1967: The oil tanker Torrey Canyon was wrecked on Pollard Rock between Isles of Scilly and Land’s End, spilling 120,000 gallons of crude into the sea.
1970: Cambodia’s Prince Norodom Sihanouk was deposed as chief of state while on visit to Moscow.
1989: Israeli soldiers shot and killed three Palestinians in clashes with protesters in occupied Gaza Strip.
1992: Pat Clinton became the sixth Scot to hold a world boxing title when he dethroned the Mexican Isidro Perez for the World Boxing Organisation flyweight crown.
1994: Bosnia’s Muslim and Croat leaders signed accord to create a federation.
1995: England beat Scotland 24-12 at Twickenham to win rugby’s grand slam, Five Nations Championship and Calcutta Cup.
2002: MPs voted 386-175 to ban hunting with dogs in England and Wales. Alternative proposals to maintain the status quo and a licensing system were defeated.
2003: 139 Labour MPs rebelled in a Commons vote on war with Iraq and voted against the Labour government, the biggest act of defiance in British political history.
2003: Sign language was recognised as an official British language.
2009: Josef Fritzl, the Austrian accused of imprisoning his daughter and fathering seven children with her, changed his plea to guilty on all charges. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Births: 1858 Rudolf Diesel, inventor of engine that bears his name; 1860 Andrew Kirkaldy, golfer; 1869 Neville Chamberlain, Conservative prime minister 1937-1940; 1893 Wilfred Owen, war poet; 1924 Pat Eddery, champion jockey 11 times; .
Deaths: AD978 King Edward the Martyr (murdered); 1455 Fra Angelico, artist; 1584 Ivan the Terrible, first to assume title of Tsar; 1745 Sir Robert Walpole, Whig statesman; 2008 Sir Arthur C Clarke, science fiction writer; 2008 Anthony Minghella, scriptwriter and film director; 2009 Natasha Richardson, actress.