Soviet cosmonaut Lt. Col. Alexei Leonov, figure at left , leaves spaceship Voskhod 2 to become the first man to step into outer space March 18, 1965. Projection on right holds movie camera.

Highlight in History

On March 18, 1974, most of the Arab oil-producing nations ended their 5-month-old embargo against the United States that had been sparked by American support for Israel in the Yom Kippur War.

On this date

In 1766, Britain repealed the Stamp Act of 1765.

In 1837, the 22nd and 24th president of the United States, Grover Cleveland, was born in Caldwell, N.J.

In 1913, King George I of Greece was assassinated in Thessaloniki.

In 1937, some 300 people, mostly children, were killed in a gas explosion at a school in New London, Texas.

In 1938, Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas nationalized his country’s petroleum reserves and took control of foreign-owned oil facilities.

In 1940, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini met at the Brenner Pass, where the Italian dictator agreed to join Germany’s war against France and Britain.

In 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Hawaii statehood bill. (Hawaii became a state on Aug. 21, 1959.)

In 1962, France and Algerian rebels signed the Evian Accords, a cease-fire agreement which took effect the next day, ending the Algerian War.

In 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Gideon v. Wainwright, ruled unanimously that state courts were required to provide legal counsel to criminal defendants who could not afford to hire an attorney on their own.

In 1965, the first spacewalk took place as Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov went outside his Voskhod 2 capsule, secured by a tether.

In 1980, Frank Gotti, the 12-year-old youngest son of mobster John Gotti, was struck and killed by a car driven by John Favara, a neighbor in Queens, N.Y. (The following July, Favara vanished, the apparent victim of a gang hit.)

In 1990, thieves made off with 13 works of art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston (the crime remains unsolved).

Ten years ago

Addressing thousands of soldiers at Fort Campbell, Ky., President George W. Bush warned that terrorists could never be appeased and said there was no safety for any nation that “lives at the mercy of gangsters and mass murderers.” Overruling its staff, the Federal Communications Commission declared that an expletive (the “F-word”) uttered by rock star Bono (BAH’-noh) on NBC the previous year was both indecent and profane. (The commissioners did not propose a fine for Bono’s expletive during the 2003 Golden Globe Awards.)

Five years ago

Under intense pressure from the Obama administration and Congress, the head of bailed-out insurance giant AIG, Edward Liddy, told Congress that some of the firm’s executives had begun returning all or part of bonuses totaling $165 million. Tony-winning actress Natasha Richardson, 45, died at a New York hospital two days after suffering a head injury while skiing in Canada.

One year ago

A plan to seize up to 10 percent of savings accounts in Cyprus to help pay for a massive financial bailout was met with fury. (That proposal was rejected by the Cypriot parliament; authorities ended up seizing large portions of uninsured savings in the country’s two largest banks and imposing capital controls.) A mortar shell explosion killed seven Marines from Camp Lejeune and injured eight other people during mountain warfare training at Hawthorne Army Depot in Nevada.