Anniversaries and commemorations come and go daily. Most of us, even the best historians, miss most occasions. If we think of history as events then we are faced with a continually showering in the grains of sand. Nevertheless, we do pick out certain patterns in the remembrance of historical dates. The blog here reminds us of some dates where the local, state, national, and global perspectives entwine.
What Time is It? It is flow of a sandstorm that will on each day compress somewhere into a structure – sandstone, selected and only remembered in the longue durée.
On 18 March 1895, The first worldwide gasoline bus route is started in Germany, between Siegen and Netphen.
On Thursday, 18 March 1920, Greece begins using the Gregorian calendar.
On Sunday, 18 March 1945, WWII: 1,250 American bombers attack Berlin.
On Wednesday, 18 March 1970, General Lon Nol ousts Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia and holds Queen Sisowath Kossamak under house arrest.
On Wednesday, 18 March 1970, United States Postal Service workers in New York City go on strike; the strike spreads to the state of California and the cities of Akron, Ohio, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, and Denver; 210,000 out of 750,000 U.S. postal employees walk out. President Nixon assigns military units to New York City post offices. The strike lasts two weeks.
On Tuesday, 18 March 1980, Fifty people are killed at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia, when a Vostok-2M rocket explodes on its launch pad during a fueling operation.
On Sunday, 18 March 1990, Twelve paintings and a Shang dynasty vase, collectively worth $100 to $300 million, are stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts by two thieves posing as police officers. This is the largest art theft in US history, and the paintings (as of 2018) have not been recovered.
On Sunday, 18 March 1990, Cold War: East Germany holds its first free elections.
On Saturday, 18 March 1995, The campaign to save the Tarkine wilderness achieves success a week after the arrest of Trish Caswell, Australian Conservation Foundation Executive Director, for trespass, when Australian Heritage Commission Chair, Wendy McCarthy, announces its interim listing for May.
On Saturday, 18 March 2000, Herron offers a $250,000 reward to try to find out who tampered with its paracetamol products. A 32–year–old Brisbane man is subsequently arrested.
Images Citations in Composite: ID 17208541 © Anhong | Dreamstime.com; ID 35001957 © DiversityStudio1 | Dreamstime.com; ID 156394527 © Gerd Zahn | Dreamstime.com
Neville Buch
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