Today is Friday, March 17, 2017 the 76th day of the year with 289 days remaining.
- Sunrise: 7:17am
- Sunset: 7:19pm
...giving us 12 hours and 1 minute of daylight. 83% of the waning moon will be visible, setting at 10:19am
Tides at the Golden Gate
- High: 3:09am/4:12pm
- Low: 9:33am/9:28pm
Special international celebrations today…
- Birthday of Bangabnadhu - Bangladesh
- Camp Fire Boys & Girls Founders Day - USA
- Evacuation Day (Boston only) - USA
- St. Patrick's Day
It’s also…
- National Day of Action Against Bullying and Violence
- National Irish Coffee Day
- Corned Beef & Cabbage Day
- St. Gertrude of Nivelles' Day, patron of gardeners and travelers.
- World Sleep Day
On this day in…
0461 - Bishop Patrick, St. Patrick, died in Saul.
1756 - St. Patrick's Day was celebrated in New York City for the first time. The event took place at the Crown and Thistle Tavern.
1766 - Britain repealed the Stamp Act that had caused resentment in the North American colonies.
1776 - British forces evacuated Boston to Nova Scotia during the Revolutionary War.
1868 - Postage stamp canceling machine patent was issued.
1870 - Wellesley College was incorporated by the Massachusetts legislature under its first name, Wellesley Female Seminary.
1884 - In Otay, California, John Joseph Montgomery made the first manned, controlled, heavier-than-air glider flight in theUnited States.
1886 - 20 Blacks were killed in the Carrollton Massacre in Mississippi.
1891 - The British steamer Utopia sank off the coast of Gibraltar.
1901 - In Paris, Vincent Van Gogh's paintings were shown at the Bernheim Gallery.
1909 - In France, the communications industry was paralyzed by strikes.
1910 - The Camp Fire Girls organization was founded by Luther and Charlotte Gulick. It was formally presented to the public exactly 2 years later.
1914 - Russia increased the number of active duty military from 460,000 to 1,700,000.
1917 - America’s first bowling tournament for ladies began in St. Louis,MO. Almost 100 women participated in the event.
1930 - Al Capone was released from jail.
1930 - In New York, construction began on the Empire State Building. Excavation at the site began on January 22.
1941 - The National Gallery of Art was officially opened byU.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Washington, DC.
1942 - Douglas MacArthur became the Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in the Southwestern Pacific.
1944 - During World War II, theU.S. bombed Vienna.
1950 - Scientists at the University of California at Berkeley announced that they had created a new radioactive element. They named it "californium". It is also known as element 98.
1958 - The Vanguard 1 satellite was launched by the U.S.
1959 - The Dalai Lama (Lhama Dhondrub, Tenzin Gyatso) fled Tibet and went to India.
1961 - The U.S. increased military aid and technicians to Laos.
1962 - Moscow asked theU.S. to pull out of South Vietnam.
1966 - AU.S. submarine found a missing H-bomb in the Mediterranean off of Spain.
1967 - Snoopy and Charlie Brown of"Peanuts" were on the cover of "LIFE" magazine.
1969 - Golda Meir was sworn in as the fourth premier of Israel.
1970 - TheU.S. Army charged 14 officers with suppression of facts in the My Lai massacre case.
1972 -U.S. President Nixon asked Congress to halt busing in order to achieve desegregation.
1973 - Twenty were killed in Cambodia when a bomb went off that was meant for the Cambodian President Lon Nol.
1973 - The first American prisoners of war (POWs) were released from the "Hanoi Hilton" in Hanoi, North Vietnam.
1982 - In El Salvador, four Dutch television crewmembers were killed by government troops.
1985 - U.S. President Reagan agreed to a joint study with Canada on acid rain.
1989 - A series of solar flares caused a violent magnetic storm that brought power outages over large regions of Canada.
1992 - In Buenos Aires, 10 people were killed in a suicide car-bomb attack against the Israeli embassy.
1992 - White South Africans approved constitutional reforms to give legal equality to blacks.
1995 - Gerry Adams became the first leader of Sinn Fein to be received at the White House.
1998 - Washington Mutual announced it had agreed to buy H.F. Ahmanson and Co. for $9.9 billion dollars. The deal created the nation's seventh-largest banking company.
1999 - A panel of medical experts concluded that marijuana had medical benefits for people suffering from cancer and AIDS.
1999 - The International Olympic Committee expelled six of its members in the wake of a bribery scandal.
2000 - In Norway, Jens Stotenberg and the Labour Party took office as Prime Minister. The coalition government of Kjell Magne Bondevik resigned on March 9 as a result of an environmental dispute.
2000 - In Kanungu, Uganda, a fire at a church linked to the cult known as the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments killed more than 530. On March 31, officials set the number of deaths linked to the cult at more than 900 after authorities subsequently found mass graves at various sites linked to the cult.
2004 - NASA's Messenger became the first spacecraft to enter into orbit around Mercury. The probe took more than 270,000 pictures before it crashed into the surface of Mercury on April 30, 2015.
2007 - Mike Modano (Dallas Stars) scored his 502nd and 503rd career goals making him the all-time U.S. leader in goal-scoring.
2009 - TheiTunes Music Store reached 800 million applications downloaded.
Today’s birthday celebrants include (or included)...
- Roger Brooke Taney 1777 - Fifth Chief Justice of the United States
- Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler 1834 - Engineer, industrialist, invented the high-speed petrol engine
- Jim Bridger (James Felix Bridger) 1881 - Mountain man, trapper, guide
- Paul Eliot Green 1894 - Playwright
- Bobby Jones (Robert Tyre "Bobby" Jones Jr.) 1902 - Golfer
- Marquis Childs 1903 - Journalist
- John Pastore 1907 - Lawyer, politician
- Mercedes McCambridge 1918 - Actress
- Nat "King" Cole (Nathaniel Adams Coles) 1919 - Singer, musician
- Paul Horn 1930 - Jazz flautist
- Dick Curless 1932 - Singer, known as the "Baron of Country Music"
- Adam Wade 1937 - Singer, drummer, actor
- Rudolf Nureyev 1938 - Ballet dancer
- Paul Kantner 1941 - Musician (Jefferson Airplane/Starship)
- Jim Weatherly 1943 - Singer, songwriter
- Patrick McCauley (Them) 1944
- John Sebastian 1944 - Singer, songwriter (Lovin' Spoonful)
- Harold Brown 1946 - Musician (War)
- Patrick Duffy 1949 - Actor (TV: "Dallas")
- Kurt Russell 1951 - Actor
- Scott Gorham 1951 - Guitar player (Thin Lizzy)
- Susie Allanson 1952 - Singer
- Lesley-Anne Down 1954 - Actress
- Gary Sinise 1955 - Actor ("C.S.I: NY")
- Paul Overstreet 1955 - Country singer
- Mike Lindup 1959 - Musician (Level 42)
- Vicki Lewis 1960 - Actress
- Casey Sirmaszko 1961 - Actor
- Claire Grogan (Altered Images) 1962
- Rob Stich 1962 - Writer, director
- Rob Lowe 1964 - Actor
- Van Connor 1967 - Musician (Screaming Trees)
- Billy Corgan 1967 - Musician (Smashing Pumpkins)
- Mathew St. Patrick 1968 - Actor ("Six Feet Under")
- Yanic Truesdale 1969 - Actor ("Gilmore Girls")
- Will Mueller 1971 - Baseball player
- Mia Hamm 1972 - Soccer player
- Melissa Auf der Maur 1972 - Musician (Hole, Smashing Pumpkins)
- Caroline Corr 1973 - Musician (The Corrs)
- Marisa Coughlan 1974 - Actress
- Stephen Gately 1976 - Singer (Boyzone)
- Swifty 1977 - Rapper (D12)
- Bobby Ryan 1987 - Hockey player
- Katie Ledecky 1997 - Swimmer
