On This Day, 18 March

18 March AD 2023

1st Indiction

a.d. xv Kal. Apr. MMDCCLXXVI AUC

Cathedral of Our Lady of Loretto

• 978 – St Edward the Martyr, King of the English died.  
• 1086 – St Anselm, Bishop of Lucca died
• 1229 – Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, declares himself King of Jerusalem in the Sixth Crusade.
• 1241 – First Mongol invasion of Poland: Mongols overwhelm Polish armies in Kraków in the Battle of Chmielnik and plunder the city.
• 1314 – Jacques de Molay, the 23rd and final Grand Master of the Knights Templar, is burned at the stake.
• 1438 – Albert II of Habsburg becomes King of the Romans.
• 1571 – Valletta is made the capital city of Malta. 
• 1871 – Declaration of the Paris Commune; President of the French Republic, Adolphe Thiers, orders the evacuation of Paris.
• 1874 – The Kingdom of Hawai'i signs a treaty with the United States granting exclusive trade rights.  
• 1913 – King George I of Greece is assassinated in the recently liberated city of Thessaloniki.
• 1915 – World War I: During the Battle of Gallipoli, three battleships are sunk during a failed British and French naval attack on the Dardanelles.
• 1921 – The second Peace of Riga is signed between Poland and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.
• 1921 – The Kronstadt rebellion is suppressed by the Red Army.  
• 1922 – In India, Mohandas Gandhi is sentenced to six years in prison for civil disobedience, of which he serves only two.
• 1937 – Spanish Civil War: Spanish Republican forces defeat the Italians at the Battle of Guadalajara.
• 1938 – The Red Government of Mexico creates Pemex by expropriating all foreign-owned oil reserves and facilities.
• 1940 – World War II: Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini meet at the Brenner Pass in the Alps and agree to form an alliance against France and the United Kingdom.
• 1948 – Soviet consultants leave Yugoslavia in the first sign of the Tito–Stalin Split.