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Updated March 17, 2012, 2:28 pm
On March 18, 1965, the first spacewalk took place as Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov left his Voskhod 2 capsule and remained outside the spacecraft for 20 minutes, secured by a tether.
On March 18, 1837, Grover Cleveland, the only U.S. president who served two non-consecutive terms, was born. Following his death on June 24, 1908, his obituary appeared in The Times.
Go to obituary » | Other birthdays »
On This Date
By The Associated Press
1766 Britain repealed the Stamp Act. 1922 Mohandas K. Gandhi was sentenced to prison in India for civil disobedience. 1931 Schick Inc. marketed the first electric razor. 1940 Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini held a meeting at the Brenner Pass during which the Italian dictator agreed to join in Germany’s war against France and Britain. 1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order authorizing the War Relocation Authority, which was put in charge of interning Japanese-Americans. 1962 France and Algerian rebels agreed to a truce after more than seven years of war. 1965 Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov went on the first spacewalk. 1974 Most of the Arab oil-producing nations ended their embargo against the United States. 2000 Taiwan ended more than a half century of Nationalist Party rule by electing opposition leader Chen Shui-bian president. 2005 Doctors in Florida, acting on orders of a state judge, removed Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube. (The brain-damaged woman died 13 days later.) 2008 Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama confronted America’s racial divide with a speech in Philadelphia. It was prompted by incindiary racial remarks made by Obama’s African-American pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. 2010 President Barack Obama signed into law a $38 billion jobs bill containing a modest mix of tax breaks and spending designed to encourage the private sector to start hiring again. 2011 President Barack Obama demanded that Moammar Gadhafi halt all military attacks on civilians and said that if the Libyan leader did not stand down, the United States would join other nations in launching military action against him. Current Birthdays
By The Associated Press
Rapper-actress Queen Latifah turns 42 years old today.
AP Photo/Matt Sayles
Rock singer Adam Levine (Maroon 5) turns 33 years old today.
AP Photo/Matt Sayles
1927 John Kander, Composer (“Chicago”), turns 85 1936 F.W. de Klerk, Former South African president, turns 76 1938 Charley Pride, Country singer, turns 74 1943 Kevin Dobson, Actor (“Knot’s Landing”), turns 69 1950 Brad Dourif, Actor (“Deadwood”), turns 62 1959 Irene Cara, Singer, turns 53 1962 James McMurtry, Rock singer, songwriter, turns 50 1963 Vanessa L. Williams, Singer, actress, turns 49 1964 Bonnie Blair, Olympic gold medal speed skater, turns 48 1972 Dane Cook, Actor, comedian, turns 40
Historic Birthdays
Grover Cleveland 3/18/1837 – 6/24/1908 22nd and 24th president of the United States.Go to obituary »
77 Friedrich Nicolai 3/18/1733 – 1/8/1811
German writer; a leader of the German Enlightenment68 John C. Calhoun 3/18/1782 – 3/31/1850
American statesman74 Francis Lieber 3/18/1798 – 10/2/1872
German-born American political philosopher and jurist73 Antonio Salviati 3/18/1816 – 1/25/1890
Italian glass manufacturer90 Nathanael Herreshoff 3/18/1848 – 6/2/1938
American naval architect and yacht designer55 Rudolf Diesel 3/18/1858 – 9/29/1913
German thermal engineer; invented the internal-combustion engine78 William Sulzer 3/18/1863 – 11/6/1941
New York governor (1913); impeached and removed from office71 Neville Chamberlain 3/18/1869 – 11/9/1940
English prime minister77 Chiang Ching-kuo 3/18/1910 – 1/13/1988
Chinese son of Chiang Kai-shek and his successor as leader of China
MORNING
“Strong in faith.”
Romans 4:20Christian, take good care of thy faith; for recollect faith is the only way whereby thou canst obtain blessings. If we want blessings from God, nothing can fetch them down but faith. Prayer cannot draw down answers from God’s throne except it be the earnest prayer of the man who believes. Faith is the angelic messenger between the soul and the Lord Jesus in glory. Let that angel be withdrawn, we can neither send up prayer, nor receive the answers. Faith is the telegraphic wire which links earth and heaven–on which God’s messages of love fly so fast, that before we call he answers, and while we are yet speaking he hears us. But if that telegraphic wire of faith be snapped, how can we receive the promise? Am I in trouble?–I can obtain help for trouble by faith. Am I beaten about by the enemy?–my soul on her dear Refuge leans by faith. But take faith away–in vain I call to God. There is no road betwixt my soul and heaven. In the deepest wintertime faith is a road on which the horses of prayer may travel–aye, and all the better for the biting frost; but blockade the road, and how can we communicate with the Great King? Faith links me with divinity. Faith clothes me with the power of God. Faith engages on my side the omnipotence of Jehovah. Faith ensures every attribute of God in my defence. It helps me to defy the hosts of hell. It makes me march triumphant over the necks of my enemies. But without faith how can I receive anything of the Lord? Let not him that wavereth–who is like a wave of the Sea–expect that he will receive anything of God! O, then, Christian, watch well thy faith; for with it thou canst win all things, however poor thou art, but without it thou canst obtain nothing. “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.”
EVENING
“And she did eat, and was sufficed, and left.”
Ruth 2:14Whenever we are privileged to eat of the bread which Jesus gives, we are, like Ruth, satisfied with the full and sweet repast. When Jesus is the host, no guest goes empty from the table. Our head is satisfied with the precious truth which Christ reveals; our heart is content with Jesus, as the altogether lovely object of affection; our hope is satisfied, for whom have we in heaven but Jesus? and our desire is satiated, for what can we wish for more than “to know Christ and to be found in him?” Jesus fills our conscience till it is at perfect peace; our judgment with persuasion of the certainty of his teachings; our memory with recollections of what he has done, and our imagination with the prospects of what he is yet to do. As Ruth was “sufficed, and left,” so is it with us. We have had deep draughts; we have thought that we could take in all of Christ; but when we have done our best we have had to leave a vast remainder. We have sat at the table of the Lord’s love, and said, “Nothing but the infinite can ever satisfy me; I am such a great sinner that I must have infinite merit to wash my sin away;” but we have had our sin removed, and found that there was merit to spare; we have had our hunger relieved at the feast of sacred love, and found that there was a redundance of spiritual meat remaining. There are certain sweet things in the Word of God which we have not enjoyed yet, and which we are obliged to leave for awhile; for we are like the disciples to whom Jesus said, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.” Yes, there are graces to which we have not attained; places of fellowship nearer to Christ which we have not reached; and heights of communion which our feet have not climbed. At every banquet of love there are many baskets of fragments left. Let us magnify the liberality of our glorious Boaz.
