Today in History
Today is Friday, March 17, the 76th day of 2017. There are 289 days
left in the year. This is St. Patrick's Day. Today's Highlight in
History: On March 17, 1942, six days after departing the Philippines
during World War II, Gen. Douglas MacArthur arrived in Australia to
become supreme commander of Allied forces in the southwest Pacific
theater. On this date: In 1776, the Revolutionary War Siege of Boston
ended as British forces evacuated the city. In 1861, Victor Emmanuel II
was proclaimed the first king of a united Italy. 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, Vermont. (The group is now known as Camp Fire.) In 1936,
Pittsburgh's Great St. Patrick's Day Flood began as the Monongahela and
Allegheny rivers and their tributaries, swollen by rain and melted
snow, started exceeding flood stage; the high water was blamed for more
than 60 deaths. In 1941, the National Gallery of Art opened in
Washington, D.C. In 1956, comedian Fred Allen, 61, died in New York. In
1966, a U.S. Navy midget submarine located a missing hydrogen bomb
which had fallen from a U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber into the
Mediterranean off Spain. (It took several more weeks to actually
recover the bomb.) In 1969, Golda Meir became prime minister of Israel.
In 1970, the United States cast its first veto in the U.N. Security
Council, killing a resolution that would have condemned Britain for
failing 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.
In 1992, 29 people were killed in the truck bombing of the Israeli
embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Whites in South Africa voted by a
greater than 2-1 majority to forge ahead with talks to end white rule
and give blacks voting rights for the first time in the country's
history. In Illinois, Sen. Alan Dixon was defeated in his Democratic
primary re-election bid by Carol Moseley-Braun, who went on to become
the first black woman in the U.S. Senate. Ten years ago: Denouncing a
conflict entering its fifth year, protesters across the country raised
their voices against U.S. policy in Iraq and marched by the thousands
to the Pentagon. John Backus, the developer of Fortran, a programming
language that changed how people interacted with computers, died in
Ashland, Oregon, at age 82. Five years ago: Twin suicide car bombings
killed at least 27 people near intelligence and security buildings in
the Syrian capital of Damascus. John Demjanjuk (dem-YAHN'-yuk), 91,
convicted of being a low-ranking guard at the Sobibor death camp, but
who maintained his innocence, died in Bad Feilnbach (bahd FYLN'-bahk),
Germany. One year ago: The Obama administration formally concluded the
Islamic State group was committing genocide against Christians and
other minorities in Iraq and Syria. An Arizona man was convicted of a
terror charge tied to an attack on a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest
in Texas, marking the second conviction in the U.S. related to the
Islamic State group; Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem, an American-born Muslim
convert, was later sentenced to 30 years in prison. Finally bowing to
years of public pressure, SeaWorld Entertainment said it would no
longer breed killer whales or make them perform crowd-pleasing tricks.
Today's Birthdays: The former national chairwoman of the NAACP, Myrlie
Evers-Williams, is 84. Former NASA astronaut Ken Mattingly is 81.
Singer-songwriter Jim Weatherly is 74. Singer-songwriter John Sebastian
(The Lovin' Spoonful) is 73. Former NSA Director and former CIA
Director Michael Hayden is 72. Rock musician Harold Brown (War;
Lowrider Band) is 71. Actor Patrick Duffy is 68. Actor Kurt Russell is
66. Country singer Susie Allanson is 65. Actress Lesley-Anne Down is
63. Actor Mark Boone Jr. is 62. Country singer Paul Overstreet is 62.
Actor Gary Sinise is 62. Actor Christian Clemenson is 59. Former
basketball and baseball player Danny Ainge is 58. Actor Arye Gross is
57. Actress Vicki Lewis is 57. Actor Casey Siemaszko (sheh-MA'-zshko)
is 56. Writer-director Rob Sitch is 55. Actor Rob Lowe is 53. Rock
singer Billy Corgan is 50. Rock musician Van Conner (Screaming Trees)
is 50. Actor Mathew St. Patrick is 49. Actor Yanic (YAH'-neek)
Truesdale is 48. Rock musician Melissa Auf der Maur is 45. Olympic gold
medal soccer player Mia Hamm is 45. Rock musician Caroline Corr (The
Corrs) is 44. Actress Amelia Heinle is 44. Country singer Keifer
Thompson (Thompson Square) is 44. Actress Marisa Coughlan is 43. Rapper
Swifty (D12) is 42. Actress Natalie Zea (zee) is 42. Actress Brittany
Daniel is 41. Country musician Geoff Sprung (Old Dominion) is 39.
Reggaeton singer Nicky Jam is 36. Pop/rock singer/songwriter Hozier is
27. Actress Eliza Hope Bennett is 25. Actor John Boyega is 25. Olympic
gold medal swimmer Katie Ledecky is 20. Actor Flynn Morrison is 12.
Thought for Today: "History is not life. But since only life makes
history, the union of the two is obvious. Louis D. Brandeis, U.S.
Supreme Court Justice (1856-1941).
