Today is Tuesday, March 18, the 78th day of 2008. There are 288 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On March 18, 1858, German mechanical engineer Rudolf Diesel, the inventor of the diesel engine, was born in Paris.

On this date:

• In 1766, Britain repealed the Stamp Act of 1765.

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

• In 1937, some 300 people, mostly children, were killed in a gas explosion at a school in New London, Texas.

• In 1938, Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas nationalized his country’s petroleum reserves and took control of foreign-owned oil facilities.

• In 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.

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

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

Today’s Birthdays: Actor Peter Graves is 82. Composer John Kander (“Chicago”) is 81. Author John Updike is 76. Nobel peace laureate and former South African president F.W. de Klerk is 72. Country singer Charley Pride is 70. Actor Kevin Dobson is 65. Actor Brad Dourif is 58. Jazz musician Bill Frisell is 57. Singer Irene Cara is 49. Actor Thomas Ian Griffith is 46. Singer James McMurtry is 46. Singer-actress Vanessa Williams is 45. Olympic gold medal speedskater Bonnie Blair is 44. Country musician Scott Saunders (Sons of the Desert) is 44. Rock musician Jerry Cantrell (Alice in Chains) is 42. Rock singer-musician Miki Berenyi is 41. Rapper-actress-talk show host Queen Latifah is 38. Actor-comedian Dane Cook is 36.

Thought for Today: “No man has a right in America to treat any other man tolerantly, for tolerance is the assumption of superiority.” — Wendell Willkie, American politician (1892-1944).