This Day in History: March 18, 2024
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1584
Russian czar Ivan IV, or Ivan “The Terrible,” died at age 53.
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1766
After months of American protests, Britain repealed the Stamp Act.
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1925
The most violent single tornado in U.S. history, the “Tri-State Tornado,” hit Missouri, Indiana, and Illinois, killing 689 people and injuring 13,000 others.
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1963
The Supreme Court held in Gideon v. Wainwright that public defenders must be provided for indigent defendants in felony cases.
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1965
Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov made the first spacewalk.
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1967
The oil tanker Torrey Canyon was wrecked off the Cornish coast of England, spilling 919,000 barrels of oil into the sea.
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1990
The biggest art theft in U.S. history occurs at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. The works, including pieces by Vermeer and Rembrandt, were never recovered.
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2004
A small asteroid made the closest approach to Earth ever recorded, only about 26,500 miles away.
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2005
After a long legal battle, Terry Schiavo's feeding tube was removed. She died 13 days later.
