| 18 March 978 | England [political events] | King Edward of England is murdered by servants whilst visiting his stepbrother, Aethelred II the Unready, who succeeds him. Edward is subsequently regarded as a martyr and Aethelred, probably unfairly, is suspected of complicity in the murder. |
| 18 March–5 April 1123 | Holy Roman Empire, Italy, Poland [Catholicism] | Pope Calixtus II holds the first general council of the church in Western Europe (the first Lateran council), which condemns simony (the buying and selling of church benefits) and the marriage of priests. He also sends a legate to complete the organization of the Polish church. |
| 18 March 1229 | Holy Roman Empire, Kingdom of Jerusalem [political events] | The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II crowns himself as king of Jerusalem, in Jerusalem. |
| 18 March 1584 | Russia [political events] | When the Russian tsar Ivan IV (‘the Terrible’) dies and is succeeded by his feeble-minded son Fyodor I as ‘Tsar of All the Russias’, Russia is governed by a regency council dominated by his brother-in-law Boris Godunov. Fyodor is to be the last tsar of the Rurikid dynasty. |
| 18 March 1584 | Russia [births and deaths] | Ivan IV (‘the Terrible’), grand prince of Moscow (1533–84), tsar of Russia (1547–84), who waged war with Sweden and Livonia, and who is noted for executing at least 3,000 noblemen and boyars, dies in Moscow, Russia (53). |
| 18 March 1745 | Britain [political events] | Robert Walpole, first prime minister of Britain 1721–42, a Whig, dies in London, England (68). |
| 18 March 1768 | Ireland, England [births and deaths] | Laurence Sterne, Irish-born English novelist, dies in London, England (55). |
| 18 March 1793 | France, Austrian Netherlands, Belgium, Austria-HM [French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1801)] | French forces under General Charles-François Dumouriez are defeated at Neerwinden in the Netherlands by Austrian forces under Friedrich Josias, Prince of Saxe-Coburg, leading to the Austrian reconquest of the Austrian Netherlands. |
| 18 March 1834 | UK [unions and associations] | Labourers from Tolpuddle in Dorset, England (the ‘Tolpuddle Martyrs’), are sentenced to transportation to the colonies for forming a lodge (local branch) of the British socialist Robert Owen's Grand National Consolidated Trades Union. |
| 18 March 1865 | Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay [wars] | The dictator of Paraguay, President Francisco Solano López, seizes Argentine territory, provoking a war against Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. |
| 18 March 1871 | France [Franco–Prussian War (1870–71)] | A left-wing rising begins in Paris, France, when soldiers sent to requisition cannons stationed in the city side with the populace, who wish to establish their own radical government and continue the war with Prussia. |
| 18 March 1913 | Greece [political events] | King George I of Greece is assassinated in newly occupied Thessaloníki (English Salonika) by a drunken Greek called Alexandros Skinas. |
| 18 March 1931 | USA [consumer products] | Schick Dry Shaver Inc. in Stamford, Connecticut, markets the first electric shavers. |
| 18 March 1936 | South Africa [births and deaths] | F(rederik) W(illem) de Klerk, South African politician, president of South Africa 1989–94, who ended the apartheid system, born in Johannesburg, South Africa. |
| 18 March 1947 | UK [television] | British prime minister Clement Attlee makes the first party political broadcast on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), under a scheme to give major parties equal access to radio (Anthony Eden replies for the Conservatives). |
| 18 March 1962 | Algeria, France [diplomacy] | Following secret discussions (completed at Evian-les-Bains, France), the French government and the Provisional Government of Algeria make the ‘Evian agreements’, under which a provisional Muslim–French government is to be installed in Algeria and a referendum is to be held on self-determination. |
| 18 March 1965 | USSR [space exploration] | Soviet cosmonaut Alexsi Leonov leaves spacecraft Voskhod 2 and floats in space for 20 minutes – the first space walk. |
| 18 March 1967 | UK [transport disasters] | The Liberian-registered 120,000 tonne tanker Torrey Canyon strikes a submerged reef runs aground on the Seven Stones Isles of Scilly, off the southwest coast of Britain, and spills 860,000 barrels (around 119,000 tonnes) of crude oil into the sea. It is the biggest oil spill to date. |
| 18 March 1994 | Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia [Balkan conflicts (c. 1991–2000)] | Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia sign an accord on the creation of a federation of Bosnian Muslims and Croats. |
| 18 March 1998 | Europe [agriculture] | The European Commission embarks on a path of historic reform by announcing the phasing out of price supports for agricultural products, the bedrock of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) since its creation in 1962. |
| 18 March 1999 | France, Albania, Serbia [Balkan conflicts (c. 1991–2000)] | Ethnic Albanian representatives sign a peace agreement in Paris, France, designed to end the conflict with the Serbian government over the autonomy of Kosovo. Serbian delegates, however, refuse to sign the accord because of its inclusion of a planned NATO peacekeeping force in the region. |
