Under Saturday, March 18, the book of history records, among other things:
1843: Karl Marx resigns from the editorial office of the “Rheinische Zeitung” because of the censorship and moves to Paris.
1848: The revolution against Austrian rule broke out in Milan, and Field Marshal Count Radetzky’s troops had to evacuate the Lombard metropolis.
1848: March revolution in Berlin: At a rally in front of the royal palace, Prussian troops fire into the crowd, and two days of barricade fighting ensue.
1913: King George I of Greece is shot by a mental patient in Thessaloniki. His son Constantine I ascends the throne.
1938: In a solemn declaration on the “Anschluss”, Cardinal Theodor Innitzer and the other Austrian bishops call on the Catholic faithful to “confess themselves as Germans to the German Reich” in the “referendum” ordered by the Nazi rulers on April 10. This is a “natural national obligation”.
1938: The former Heimwehr politician and ex-minister Odo Neustädter-Stürmer commits suicide.
1948: After the communist takeover in Czechoslovakia, proceedings were opened against around 200 people arrested because of “reasonable suspicion of crimes against the state”.
1948: A Pact of Friendship and Assistance between the Soviet Union and Bulgaria is signed in Moscow.
1953: The ÖVP politician Felix Hurdes is elected President of the National Council after the death of Leopold Kunschak.
1963: US President John F. Kennedy and the heads of state of seven Central American countries sign a treaty on political and economic cooperation in San José (Costa Rica).
1963: The Austrian cultural institute in New York is opened.
1978: The Pakistani head of government Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, overthrown by the army under General Zia ul-Haq, is sentenced to death in Lahore (execution April 4, 1979).
1988: Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev visits Yugoslavia.
1988: Klaus Sulzenbacher becomes overall World Cup winner in Nordic combined.
2003: US President George W. Bush gives Iraqi President Saddam Hussein an ultimatum of 48 hours to leave the country. Baghdad rejects the request. In a TV speech, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder condemned the American threat of war.
birthdays: Friedrich Hebbel, German poet (1813-1863); Josef Hackhofer, Austria Architect (1863-1917); Galeazzo Count Ciano, Italian politician (1903-1944); René Clément, French film director (1913-1996); Lotte Rysanek, Austria opera singer; Soprano; Kammersängerin (1923-2016); Fidel Ramos, Philipp. politician and general (1928-2022); Gustav Peichl, Austria Architect, caricaturist (“Ironimus”) (1928-2019); Andreas Wenzel, Liechtenstein. Ex-Skier (1958); Vanessa Williams, US singer/actress (1963); Charlotte Roche, German presenter and author (1978).
days of death: Roland Maurice Dorgelès (actually Lécavelé), French writer (1886-1973); Lauritz Melchior, Dan.-Amer. opera singers (1890-1973); Umberto II of Savoy, King of Italy (1904-1983); Samuel Stanley Epstein, British physician (1926-2018); Anthony Minghella, British film director (1954-2008).
name days: Eduard, Sibylle, Cyrill, Anselm, Otward, Salvator, Dietrich, Alexander, Felix, Narcissus.