March 18:
Events
- 1207 - The Buddhist monk Hōnen is exiled to Tosa and Shinran is exiled to Echigo
- 1860 - A delegation sent to the United States by the Shogunate arrives in San Francisco aboard the Kanrinmaru
- 1904 - Horse drawn trains disappear with the completion of an electric train line between Ueno and Asakusa, completing a line that already extended from Shinagawa to Shinbashi and from Shinbashi to Ueno
- 1931 - Japan's first domestically produced aircraft is completed at the Nakajima Aircraft Factory
- 1946 - Sixty-three women become Japan's first female police officers
- 1964 - The first electronic calculators go on sale in Japan, manufactured by Sharp and Sony and costing ¥500,000 each
- 1984 - The president of Glico is kidnapped and held for ¥1 billion ransom by a man who referred to himself as the "man of 20 faces." The perpetrator was never caught and the statute of limitations expired in 1994.
- 1989 - Midori Itō wins the World Figure Skating Championships in Paris
Births
- 1932 - Frank Nagai (d. 2008), singer
- 1938 - Machiko Soga (d. 2006), actress
- 1943 - Nobuko Imai, viola player and educator
- 1945 - Hiroh Kikai, photographer
- 1950 - Eiji Okuda, actor and director
- 1953 - Takashi Yoshimatsu, composer
- 1954 - Ryosuke Otani, actor and voice actor
- 1962 - Etsushi Toyokawa, actor and director
- 1964 - Mika Kanai, voice actress and singer
- 1965 - Yoriko Douguchi, actress
- 1968 - Shin-ichiro Miki, voice actor
- 1976 - Tomo Ohka, baseball player
- 1978 - Yoshie Takeshita, volleyball player
- 1982 - Rei Yoshii, actress
- 1989 - Kana Nishino, singer-songwriter
- 1993 - Mana Iwabuchi, football player
Holidays, observances, and anniversaries