Historical Events On March17

Today is Monday, March 17, the 76th day of 2014. There are 289 days left in the year. This is St. Patrick's Day. In 1762, New York's first St. Patrick's Day parade took place.


In 1861, Victor Emmanuel II was proclaimed the first king of a united Italy.
In 1776, British forces evacuated Boston during the Revolutionary War.

In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt first likened crusading journalists to a man with "the muckrake in his hand" in a speech to the Gridiron Club in Washington.
In 1912, the Camp Fire Girls organization was incorporated in Washington, D.C., two years to the day after it was founded in Thetford, Vt. (The group is now known as Camp Fire USA.).

In 1966, a U.S. midget submarine located a missing hydrogen bomb which had fallen from an American bomber into the Mediterranean off Spain.
In 1969, Golda Meir became prime minister of Israel.

In 1970, the United States cast its first veto in the U.N. Security Council. (The U.S. killed a resolution that would have condemned Britain for failure to use force to overthrow the white-ruled government of Rhodesia.)
In 1988, Avianca Flight 410, a Boeing 727, crashed after takeoff into a mountain in Colombia, killing all 143 people on board.

Ten years ago: A car bomb tore apart the five-story Mount Lebanon Hotel catering to foreigners in the heart of Baghdad, killing seven people. Charles A. McCoy Jr., suspected in a series of highway shootings in central Ohio, was arrested in Las Vegas. (McCoy later pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the death of Gail Knisley plus 10 other charges and was sentenced to 27 years in prison.) Former MTV personality John "J.J." Jackson died in Los Angeles at age 62.

Five years ago: U.S. journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee were detained by North Korea while reporting on North Korean refugees living across the border in China. (Both were convicted of entering North Korea illegally and were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor; both were freed in August 2009 after former President Bill Clinton met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.) The Seattle Post-Intelligencer published its final print edition.