March 17 - Events

Events

• 45 BC – In his last victory, Julius Caesar defeats the Pompeian forces of Titus Labienus and Pompey the Younger in the Battle of Munda.
• 180 – Marcus Aurelius dies leaving Commodus the sole emperor of theRoman Empire.
• 624 – Muslim history: Led by Muhammad, the Muslims of Medinadefeat the Quraysh of Mecca in the Battle of Badr.
• 1337 – Edward, the Black Prince is made Duke of Cornwall, the firstDuchy made in England.
• 1756 – Saint Patrick's Day is celebrated in New York City for the first time (at the Crown and Thistle Tavern).
• 1776 – American Revolution: British forces evacuate Boston,Massachusetts after George Washington and Henry Knox place artilleryin positions overlooking the city.
• 1780 – American Revolution: George Washington grants the Continental Army a holiday "as an act of solidarity with the Irish in their fight for independence".
• 1805 – The Italian Republic, with Napoleon as president, becomes the Kingdom of Italy, with Napoleon as King.
• 1845 – The rubber band is patented.
• 1860 – The First Taranaki War begins in Taranaki, New Zealand, a major phase of the New Zealand land wars.
• 1861 – The Kingdom of Italy (1861-1946) is proclaimed.
• 1901 – An exhibition of seventy-one Vincent van Gogh paintings in Paris, 11 years after his death, creates a sensation.
• 1906 – The Phi Kappa Tau fraternity is founded at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
• 1910 – Luther Gulick and his wife Charlotte found Camp Fire Girls (now Camp Fire USA) (formally announced in 1912).
• 1917 – Delta Phi Epsilon is founded at New York University Law School.
• 1921 – The Second Republic of Poland adopts the March Constitution.
• 1939 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Nanchang between the Kuomintang and Japan begins,
• 1941 – In Washington, D.C., the National Gallery of Art is officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
• 1942 – Holocaust: The first Jews from the Lviv Ghetto are gassed at the Belzec death camp in what is today eastern Poland.
• 1945 – The Ludendorff Bridge in Remagen, Germany collapses, ten days after its capture.
• 1947 – First flight of the B-45 Tornado strategic bomber.
• 1948 – Benelux, France, and the United Kingdom sign the Treaty of Brussels, a precursor to theNorth Atlantic Treaty establishing NATO.
• 1950 – Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley announce the creation of element 98, which they name "Californium".
• 1955 – The Richard Riot occurs in the streets of Montreal over the suspension of hockey legendMaurice Richard.
• 1957 – A plane crash in Cebu, Philippines kills Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay and 24 others.
• 1958 – The United States launches the Vanguard 1 satellite.
• 1959 – Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, flees Tibet for India.
• 1960 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the National Security Council directive on the anti-Cuban covert action program that will ultimately lead to the Bay of Pigs Invasion.
• 1966 – Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the DSV Alvin submarine finds a missing American hydrogen bomb.
• 1969 – Golda Meir becomes the first female Prime Minister of Israel.
• 1970 – My Lai Massacre: The United States Army charges 14 officers with suppressing information related to the incident.
• 1973 – The Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph Burst of Joy is taken, depicting a former prisoner of war being reunited with his family.
• 1975 – The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad enters its third and final bankruptcy, andWilliam M. Gibbons is selected as receiver and bankruptcy trustee.
• 1979 – The Penmanshiel Tunnel collapses during engineering works, killing two workers.
• 1985 – Serial killer Richard Ramirez, aka the "Night Stalker", commits the first two murders in hisLos Angeles, California murder spree.
• 1988 – A Colombian Boeing 727 jetliner, Avianca Flight 410, crashes into a mountainside near theVenezuelan border killing 143.
• 1988 – Eritrean War of Independence: The Nadew Command, an Ethiopian army corps in Eritrea, is attacked on three sides by military units of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front in the opening action of the Battle of Afabet.
• 1992 – Israeli Embassy attack in Buenos Aires: Suicide car bomb attack kills 29 and injures 242.
• 2000 – More than 800 members of the Ugandan cult Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God die in what is considered to be a mass murder and suicide orchestrated by leaders of the cult.
• 2003 – Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Robin Cook, resigns from theBritish Cabinet in disagreement with government plans for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
• 2004 – Unrest in Kosovo: More than 22 are killed and 200 wounded. 35 Serbian Orthodox shrines inKosovo and two mosques in Belgrade and Niš are destroyed.
• 2008 – Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer resigns after a scandal involving a high-end prostitute.Lieutenant Governor David Paterson becomes New York State governor.