On This Day: March 18th

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.