On this Day - Thursday, 18 March 2010

Feast Days

FEAST DAY of St Cyril of Jerusalem, St Alexander of Jerusalem, St Christian, St Edward the Martyr, St Finan of Aberdeen, St Anselm of Lucca, St Frigidian, and St Salvator of Horta.

On This Day Over The Years

978 Edward the Martyr, King of England from 975, was murdered at Corfe Castle, Dorset, apparently at the instigation of half-brother Ethelred, who wanted the crown for himself.
1662 The first public bus service began operating, in Paris.
1834 Six farm labourers from Tolpuddle, Dorset, England, were sentenced to transportation to Australia for forming a labour union.
1858 Rudolf Diesel, German engineer who invented the diesel engine, was born in Paris.
1889 Lavrenti Beria, Soviet chief of secret police, born.
1899 The first issue of An Claidheamh Soluis, The Sword of Life, was published.
The newspaper of the Gaelic League, it continued in existence until 1916.
1922 Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi was jailed for six years for sedition.
1931 The first electric razors were made in the US.
1949 The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was set up.
1965 The first space-walk was made by cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, from the spaceship Voskhod 2.
1967 The oil tanker Torrey Cannon ran on to rocks near Land's End, spilling 120,000 gallons of crude oil into the sea.
1984 INLA leader Dominic McGinchey was extradited to Northern Ireland on murder charges.
1990 East Germany's first election since the Nazi takeover of 1933 ended in overwhelming victory for the three-party conservative alliance.