On this day: Gandhi sentenced to six years in prison

Events, birthdays and anniversaries for 18 March

On this day in 1967, the Torrey Canyon hit Pollard Rock and spilled 120,000 gallons of crude oil into the sea off Cornwall. Picture: Getty

1291: Pope Gregory X issued a bull awarding clerical tithes of Scotland to Edward I of England for crusade.

1689: The Earl of Leven was commissioned to raise a regiment in Border country to hold Edinburgh against Jacobites. It became The King’s Own Scottish Borderers.

1834: The Tolpuddle Martyrs, set up to stop decline of agricultural wages, were sentenced to seven years’ transportation to Tasmania. 1913: Greece’s King George I was assassinated in Salonika.

1922: Mahatma Gandhi was sentenced to six years in prison in India for civil disobedience.

1925: Madame Tussaud’s London wax museum burned down.

1930: The planet Pluto was discovered by the astronomer Clyde Tombaugh.

1931: World’s first electric razor was manufactured by American firm Schick Inc.

1950: Roger Bannister ran the mile in a record 4 minutes 1.48 seconds.

1965: Aleksei Leonov left Soviet spacecraft to make first space walk, lasting ten minutes.

1967: The oil tanker Torrey Canyon was wrecked on Pollard Rock between Isles of Scilly and Land’s End, spilling 120,000 gallons of crude into the sea.

1969: United States and Soviet Union proposed international treaty to ban nuclear weapons from ocean floor.

1984: Oxford and Cambridge Boat race took place on a Sunday for the first time, having been postponed for a day because the Cambridge boat had been damaged in a collision.

1992: South Africa’s referendum on power-sharing with black people resulted in a landslide Yes vote.

1992: Pat Clinton became the sixth Scot to hold a world boxing title when he dethroned the Mexican Isidro Perez for the WBO flyweight crown.

2002: MPs voted 386-175 to ban hunting with dogs in England and Wales.

2003: 139 Labour MPs rebelled in a Commons vote on war with Iraq and voted against the Labour government, the biggest act of defiance in British political history.

2003: Sign language is recognised as an official British language.

2009: Josef Fritzl, the Austrian accused of imprisoning his daughter and fathering seven children with her, changed his plea to guilty on all charges.

BIRTHDAYS

Vanessa Williams, actress and singer, 51; Ron Atkinson, football manager and television commentator, 75; Patrick Barlow, actor, writer and director, 67; Luc Besson, film director, 55; Irene Cara, singer and actress, 55; Brad Dourif, actor, 64; Pat Eddery, jockey 62; Timo Glock, Formula 1 driver, 32; Queen Latifah, actress and singer, 44; Kenny Lynch OBE, singer/actor, 75; Sophia Myles, actress, 34; Courtney Pine CBE, jazz saxophonist, 50.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1844 Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, composer; 1858 Rudolf Diesel, inventor of engine; 1860 Andrew Kirkaldy, golfer; 1869 Neville Chamberlain, Conservative prime minister 1937-1940; 1893 Wilfred Owen, war poet; 1932 John Updike, Pulitzer prize-winning novelist; 1949 Alex Higgins, snooker player.

Deaths: 1584 Tsar Ivan the Terrible; 1988 Percy Thrower, horticulturist and broadcaster; 2007 Bob Woolmer, cricketer and coach; 2008 Sir Arthur C Clarke, science fiction writer; 2008 Anthony Minghella, scriptwriter and film director; 2009 Natasha Richardson, actress.