Today in History - February 18 | Gang pulls off 'perfect crime' in $80 million diamond heist
February 18
Armed robbers stole US$50 ($80 million) million of diamonds from Brussels Airport on February 18, 2013, in a heist planned with military precision.
The huge haul of gems were being loaded from the hold of a plane onto an armoured security van when robbers, dressed in dark police clothing and hoods, drove through a hole they had cut in the airport fence in two black cars with blue police lights flashing.
They approached the plane, brandished machine guns, off-loaded the diamonds and then left, all in barely five minutes.
Three months later, authorities detained several dozen people in a three-nation sweep and recovered some of the diamonds.
But in 2018 a Belgian court acquitted 18 suspects in the case, shown here, citing a lack of evidence.
The following year French citizen Marc Bertoldi, believed to be a mastermind behind the heist, was sentenced to five years in prison.
On February 18, 1996, an explosive device being carried by a terrorist on a London bus detonated prematurely killing him and seriously injuring eight innocent people.
IRA bomber Edward O'Brien was blown up and killed by his home-made bomb when it accidentally exploded in the heart of the British capital's West End.
Dashing Australian cricketer Doug Walters followed up his brilliant 242 runs with a second-innings 103 against the touring West Indies on February 18, 1969, in Sydney.
The popular batter became the first player to make a double-hundred and a hundred in a Test.
After he became the focus of a hunt for a Russian mole, Hanssen was caught taping a garbage bag full of secrets to the underside of a footbridge in a park near his Washington DC home in a "dead drop" for Russian handlers.
Hanssen died in prison from natural causes in June 2023.
The UK began a trial of year-round daylight saving time on February 18, 1968, known as British Standard Time (BST).
The experiment of having more daytime hours lasted for three years, but ended when government data suggested more people were killed on the nation's roads during the darker mornings compared with lighter evenings.
Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels delivered a thunderous speech on February 18, 1943, at a Berlin sports stadium, urging Germans to wage "total war" against their enemies.
Goebbels speech came just weeks after 250,000 German soldiers surrendered at the Battle of Stalingrad in Russia, considered a turning point of World War II.
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