This day in history

On 18 May, 1974, in the Rajasthan Desert, India successfully explodes its first nuclear weapon, a fission bomb similar in power to the U.S. atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

The test fell on the traditional anniversary of the Buddha's enlightenment, and Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi received the message, Buddha has smiled, from the exuberant test-site scientists after the detonation. India, becoming the world's sixth nuclear power, broke the nuclear monopoly of the five members of the U.N. Security Council, the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, China and France. Defending itself against international criticism, India claimed it would use its new atomic power as a deterrent against future conflict with China and Pakistan.
 

Michael Jackson marries Lisa Marie Presley – they divorce two years later.
 

In the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, the U.S. Supreme court effectively rules in favour of separation of races within American society.