This Day in History for March 18

1959 - President Eisenhower signed the Hawaii statehood bill.

1766 - Britain repealed the Stamp Act.

1837 - the 22nd and 24th president of the United States, Grover Cleveland, was born in Caldwell, New Jersey.

1909 - Einar Dessau of Denmark used a shortwave transmitter to converse with a government radio post about six miles away in what's believed to have been the first broadcast by a "ham" operator.

1931 - Schick Incorporated marketed the first electric razor.

1937 - more than 400 people, mostly children, were killed in a gas explosion at a school in New London, Texas.

1940 - Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini met at the Brenner Pass, where the Italian dictator agreed to join Germany's war against France and Britain.

1962 - France and Algerian rebels agreed to a truce.

1965 - the first spacewalk took place as Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov left his Voskhod Two capsule, secured by a tether.

1974 - most of the Arab oil-producing nations ended their embargo against the United States.

1979 - Iranian authorities detained American feminist Kate Millett, a day before deporting her and a companion for what were termed "provocations."