Historical timeline for March 18

Israel launches widespread aerial bombardments and attacks on the Gaza Strip, killing at least 591 people, including children.

The Bardo National Museum in Tunisia is attacked by gunmen. Twenty-four people, almost all tourists, are killed, and at least 50 other people are wounded.

The parliaments of Russia and Crimea sign an accession treaty.

The tail of a Russian Antonov An-24 charter plane breaks off while en route to Turkey, causing the plane to crash and killing all 50 people on board.

A nightclub fire in Quezon City, Philippines kills 162 people.

Bosnia's Bosniaks and Croats sign the Washington Agreement, ending war between the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia and the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and establishing the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Germans in the German Democratic Republic vote in the first democratic elections in the former communist dictatorship.

In the largest art theft in US history, 12 paintings, collectively worth around $500 million, are stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.

A Vostok-2M rocket at Plesetsk Cosmodrome Site 43 explodes during a fueling operation, killing 48 people.

Güzel İstanbul, a nude sculpture by Gürdal Duyar in Istanbul, is torn down in the middle of the night.

Peru: A landslide crashes into Yanawayin Lake, killing 200 people at the mining camp of Chungar.

Lon Nol ousts Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia.

The United States begins secretly bombing the Sihanouk Trail in Cambodia, used by communist forces to infiltrate South Vietnam.

Gold standard: The U.S. Congress repeals the requirement for a gold reserve to back US currency.

The supertanker Torrey Canyon runs aground off the Cornish coast.

United Arab Airlines Flight 749 crashes on approach to Cairo International Airport in Cairo, Egypt, killing 30 people.

Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, leaving his spacecraft Voskhod 2 for 12 minutes, becomes the first person to walk in space.

The Évian Accords end the Algerian War of Independence, which had begun in 1954.

The Hawaii Admission Act is signed into law.

An earthquake hits western Turkey, killing at least 1,070 people.