Fire in Manila disco kills 150
1996 - At least 150 people were killed and dozens others injured in a deadly fire that swept through a packed disco in suburban Manila shortly after midnight. Most of the dead were graduating students celebrating the end of their school year in the Ozone Disco in the northern suburb, Quezon City. Senior Police Officer Eduardo Javier said up to 80 corpses were piled up inside. Firemen started taking them out using white body bags about two hours after the blaze was brought under control. Charred bodies were scattered all over the disco, he added. Witnesses said most of the bodies were burnt beyond recognition. Senior Police Officer Allan de Jesus said the blaze, the worst in the Philippines this year, could have been caused by an overheated light bulb.
March 18
1913 - Greece’s King George I is assassinated in Salonika.
1931 - Schick Inc. markets the first electric razor in the United States.
1949 - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is formed.
1959 - US President Dwight Eisenhower signs the Hawaii statehood bill.
1962 - The Evian Accords put an end to the Algerian War of Independence.
1965 - Cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov becomes the first person to walk in space.
1969 - US President Richard Nixon orders secret bombing of Cambodia.
1970 - Cambodia’s Prince Norodom Sihanouk is deposed as chief of state while he is on a visit to Moscow.
1993 - Former Pakistan prime minister Mohammad Khan Junejo dies from a heart attack in the US.
1994 - Bosnia and Croatia sign a federation accord.
1998 - A Boeing 727 jet operated by Afghanistan’s national airline Ariana crashes near the capital Kabul, killing all 22 people on board.
1999 - The Kosovo peace talks collapse after ethnic Albanian delegates unilaterally sign a peace accord that defiant Serbs reject.
2003 - The US invades Iraq after Saddam Hussain rejects an ultimatum to quit.
2007 - Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer dies in Jamaica during the cricket World Cup.
2008 - Emirates becomes the first airline to launch an inflight mobile telephone service.
2010 - Sudan’s government and a Darfur rebel group, the Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM), sign a framework peace deal.
2014 - Russian President Vladimir Putin signs a treaty claiming the Black Sea region of Crimea as Russian territory.
