Template:On this day - March 18

Pedro Santana

• 1526 – Francis I of France returns to Paris after the captivity he suffered in Madrid following his capture at the Battle of Pavia.
• 1567 – Death of Salvador of Horta, Spanish Franciscan friar (b. 1520).
• 1582 – In Antwerp (Spanish Netherlands), an assassination attempt is made on William the Silent, Prince of Orange, who is seriously wounded.
• 1861 – Pedro Santana, first constitutional president of the Dominican Republic, asks Queen Isabella II for Spain to take control of the island again after a 17-year period of independence, a proposal that was accepted, a Captaincy General being created once more.
• 1809 – Birth of Plácido (Gabriel de la Concepción Valdés), Afro-Cuban poet (d. 1844).
• 1817 – Birth of Juan Martínez Villergas, Spanish writer, satirical poet, journalist and politician (d. 1894).
• 1870 – Death of Joaquín Gaztambide, Spanish composer (b. 1822).
• 1885 – In Valencia, the last scaffold is raised to execute a condemned man in public.
• 1886 – Death of José María Montoto López Vigil, Spanish writer and jurist (b. 1818).
• 1891 – At the entrance to the port of Gibraltar, more than 500 people die in the sinking of the British steamer Utopia.
• 1910 – In Madrid (Spain), the Center for Historical Studies is created, one of whose most illustrious directors was Ramón Menéndez Pidal.
• 1911 – Birth of Gabriel Celaya, Spanish poet, National Prize for Spanish Literature in 1986.
• 1937 – At Guadalajara (Spain), in another attempt to isolate Madrid during the Spanish Civil War, the Spanish Republicans defeat the Italians at the Battle of Guadalajara.
• 1938 – In Mexico, President Lázaro Cárdenas del Río decrees the expropriation of the oil industry in that country.
• 1962 – In Argentina, after seven years of dictatorship, the ban on the Peronist Party is lifted.
• 1999 – Juan Antonio Samaranch is ratified and acclaimed as president by the International Olympic Committee until the year 2001.
• 2004 – Death of Luis Felipe Angell, better known by his pen name, Sofocleto, Peruvian writer (b. 1926).
• 2006 – In Mexico, the newspaper Excélsior, originally founded in 1917, is published again.
• 2009 – Bolivia changes its name and is officially called the Plurinational State of Bolivia.