Today is Thursday, March 18, the 77th day of 2010. There are 288 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

On March 18, 1970, U.S. postal workers began a two-week strike.

ON THIS DATE

In 1922, Mohandas Gandhi was sentenced in India to six years’ imprisonment for civil disobedience. (He was released after two years.)

In 1940, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini agreed to join Germany’s war against France and Britain.

In 1965, the first spacewalk took place as Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov went outside his Voskhod 2 capsule.

In 1974, most Arab oil-producing nations ended an embargo against the U.S.

In 2005, doctors in Florida, acting on orders of a state judge, removed Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube. (The brain-damaged woman died March 31, 2005, at age 41.)

In 2009, The head of bailed-out insurance giant AIG, Edward Liddy, told Congress that some of the firm’s executives had begun returning all or part of bonuses totaling $165 million. Tony-winning Actress Natasha Richardson, 45, died at a New York hospital two days after suffering a head injury while skiing in Canada.

Associated Press