TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Saturday, March 17, the 76th day of 2018. There are 289 days left in the year. This is St. Patrick’s Day.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On March 17, 1968, a peaceful anti-Vietnam War protest in London was followed by a riot outside the U.S. Embassy; more than 200 people were arrested and over 80 people were reported injured.
On this date:
In A.D. 180, Marcus Aurelius, the last of what were considered the “Five Good Emperors” of Rome, died at his military headquarters in present-day Vienna at age 58; he was succeeded by his adopted son and co-emperor, Commodus.
In 1762, New York held its first St. Patrick’s Day parade.
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 1943, the Taoiseach (TEE’-shuk) of Ireland, Eamon de Valera, delivered a radio speech about “The Ireland That We Dreamed of.”
In 1958, the U.S. Navy launched the Vanguard 1 satellite.
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 1993, Helen Hayes, the “First Lady of the American Theater,” died in Nyack, New York, at age 92.
Ten years ago: Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, recalling a goodwill trip she’d made to Bosnia as first lady in March 1996, said she remembered landing under “sniper fire”—a statement that conflicted with accounts of the time. David Paterson was sworn in as governor of New York, succeeding Eliot Spitzer, who resigned because of a prostitution scandal. Paul McCartney’s divorce from Heather Mills was settled for $48.6 million.
Five years ago: Two members of Steubenville, Ohio’s celebrated high school football team were found guilty of raping a drunken 16-year-old girl and sentenced to at least a year in juvenile prison in a case that rocked the Rust Belt city of 18,000. Former Oklahoma quarterback Steve Davis, 60, who led the Sooners to back-to-back national championships in the 1970s, was killed in a private plane crash in northern Indiana. Louisville earned the top overall seed in the NCAA tournament after a topsy-turvy season in college basketball.
One year ago: President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel (AHN’-geh-lah MEHR’-kuhl) tried to sidestep their differences in a meeting at the White House, but their first public appearance was punctuated by some awkward moments (during a photo op in the Oval Office, the two did not shake hands before reporters). U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited the world’s most heavily armed border, greeting U.S. soldiers on guard near the tense buffer zone between rivals North and South Korea.
Thought for Today: “When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive—to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”—Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 121-A.D. 180).