Sunday 18th of March 1314

23rd and last Grand Master of the Knights Templar Jacques de Molay is executed by burning at the stake at the age of 71 in Paris, IVe, Île-de-France, France.

Wednesday 18th of March 1789

Counterfeiter Catherine Murphy is executed by burning at the stake in Newgate Prison, London, Greater London, United Kingdom.

Murphy was the last woman to be officially burned at the stake. Murphy and her husband Hugh Murphy were executed along with seven other men who had been convicted of various offences. The eight men were executed by hanging. But as a woman the law provided that Murphy should be burnt at the stake. She was made to stand on a foot high 10-inch-square platform in front of the stake and secured to the stake with ropes and an iron ring. Murphy was reportedly tied with one rope around her neck after which the platform was removed from under her feet and 30 minutes passed before the fire was lit.

Saturday 18th of March 1837

22nd and 24th President of the United States Grover Stephen Cleveland is born in Caldwell Presbyterian Church Manse, 207 Bloomfield Avenue, Caldwell, New Jersey, United States.

Friday 18th of March 1842

Symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé is born as Étienne Mallarmé in Paris, Île-de-France, France.

Monday 18th of March 1844

Composer Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov is born in Tikhvin, Leningradskaya Oblast, Russia.

Thursday 18th of March 1858

Inventor and mechanical engineer Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel is born in Paris, Île-de-France, France.

Saturday 18th of March 1865

38-year-old Mary Pritchard is poisoned by doctor and murderer Edward William Pritchard in Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom.

Wednesday 18th of March 1868

Physician and psychologist Wilhelm Stekel is born in Boiany, Chernivtsi Oblast, Ukraine.

Sunday 18th of March 1906

Victim of Fritz Haarmann aka Der Hannover Werwolf Robert Witzel is born in Hannover, Niedersachsen, Germany.

Friday 18th of March 1910

Cardiologist Herman Tarnower aka The Scarsdale Diëtist is born in New York, Brooklyn, New York, United States.

Sunday 18th of March 1928

Poet and writer Paul Leopold Andreas Van Ostaijen aka Mister 1830 dies of tuberculosis at the age of 32 in Le Vallon, Miavoye-Anthée, Namur, Belgium.

Friday 18th of March 1932

Writer John Hoyer Updike is born in Reading, Pennsylvania, United States.

Friday 18th of March 1932

Serial killer Harry Powers aka Cornelius O. Pierson aka A. R. Weaver is executed by hanging at the age of 40 in Moundsville State Penitentiary, 818 Jefferson Avenue, Moundsville, West Virginia, United States.

Thursday 18th of March 1937

295 die in New London Junior-Senior High School explosion in New London Junior-Senior High School, New London, Texas, United States.

In 1961, 41-year-old William Estel Benson is arrested for theft and confesses he unscrewed some gaspipes at the time.

Tuesday 18th of March 1941

Singer-songwriter Wilson Pickett aka The Wicked Pickett is born in Prattville, Alabama, United States.

Monday 18th of March 1946

Start of the trial against 49-year-old Doctor and serial killer Marcel André Henri Félix Petiot aka The Triangular Chamber of Death Murderer in Cour d'Assises, 34 Quai des Orfèvres, Paris, Ier, Île-de-France, France.

Tuesday 18th of March 1947

Murderer Harold Hagger aka Sidney Sinclair is executed by hanging by Albert Pierrepoint at the age of 46 in Wandsworth Prison, London, Wandsworth, Greater London, United Kingdom.

Friday 18th of March 1949

Snooker player Alex Alexander Gordon Higgins aka Hurricane is born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.

Sunday 18th of March 1951

22-year-old Serial killer Charles Ray Hatcher aka Evil Incarnate escapes from the State Penitentiary in Missouri State Penitentiary aka The Walls, 115 Lafayette Street, Jefferson City, Missouri, United States.

Monday 18th of March 1957

Start of the trial against 58-year-old General practitioner and suspected serial killer John Bodkin Adams in Old Bailey Criminal Court, London, Greater London, United Kingdom.

Thursday 18th of March 1965

31-year-old Cosmonaut Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov known for the first spacewalk makes the first Space Walk from Voskhod 2 for 12 minutes and nine seconds, connected to the craft by a 4.8-metre tether in Space.

Friday 18th of March 1966

39-year-old Cop killer Palle Mogens Fogde Sørensen is sentenced to life imprisonment in Copenhagen, Hovedstaden, Denmark.

Tuesday 18th of March 1980

Social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist and humanistic philosopher Erich Seligmann Fromm dies of natural causes at the age of 80 in Muralto, Ticino, Switzerland.

Thursday 18th of March 1982

53-year-old Serial killer Charles Ray Hatcher aka Evil Incarnate is committed to the Iowa Lunatic Asylum in Mental Health Institute, Mount Pleasant, Iowa, United States.

Posing as Richard Clark, Hatcher attempted to abduct Todd Peers.

Friday 18th of March 1983

47-year-old Serial killer Arnfinn Nesset is sentenced to 21 years in prison for poisoning at east 22 elderly people with the muscle relaxing suxamethonium chloride drug Curacit in Trondheim, Sør-Trøndelag, Norway.

Nesset was released after serving 12 years of this sentence for good behaviour.

Sunday 18th of March 1984

22-year-old Terry Theresa Anne Wait Ferguson is abducted and killed by serial killer Christopher Wilder aka The Beauty Queen Killer in Merritt Square Mall, 777 E Merritt Island Causeway, Merritt Island, Florida, United States.

Wednesday 18th of March 1987

23-year-old Deborah Dudley is electrocuted by serial killer Gary Heidnik aka The Cellar of Horror Murderer in 3520 North Marshall Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.

Heidnik disposed of Dudley's body in the New Jersey Pine Barrens.

Wednesday 18th of March 1987

26-year-old Dorothy 'Dotsie' Blackburn is abducted and strangled by serial killer Arthur Shawcross aka The Genesee River Killer in Rochester, New York, United States.

Monday 18th of March 1996

162 die in Ozone Disco Club fire in Ozone Disco Club, Timog Avenue corner Tomas Morato Avenue, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines.

At the time of the fire, it was estimated that there were around 350 patrons and 40 club employees inside Ozone Disco, though it had been approved for occupancy for only 35 persons.

Friday 18th of March 2005

Noise music band Club Moral play their 110th concert in Kunsthalle Bern, Helvetiaplatz 1, Bern, Mittelland, Switzerland.

Saturday 18th of March 2017

Singer-songwriter and musician Chuck Charles Edward Anderson Berry dies of unknown causes at the age of 91 in St. Charles, Missouri, United States.

Tuesday 18th of March 2025

Rapist and murderer Jessie Dean Hoffman is executed by nitrogen hypoxia at the age of 47 in Louisiana State Penitentiary, Angola, Louisiana, United States.

Hoffman chose to not eat a special last meal.