DAILY ALMANAC
Today is Friday, March 17, the 76th day of 2023. There are 289 days left in the year. This is St. Patrick’s Day. On this date in:
1762: New York held its first St. Patrick’s Day parade.
1776: The Revolutionary War Siege of Boston ended as British forces evacuated the city.
1905: Anna Eleanor Roosevelt married Franklin Delano Roosevelt in New York.
1941: The National Gallery of Art opened in Washington, D.C.
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.
1950: Scientists at the University of California at Berkeley announced they had created a new radioactive element, “californium.”
1966: A U.S. Navy midget submarine located a missing hydrogen bomb that 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.)
1969: Golda Meir became prime minister of Israel.
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.
2003: Edging to the brink of war, President George W. Bush gave Saddam Hussein 48 hours to leave his country. Iraq rejected Bush’s ultimatum, saying that a U.S. attack to force Saddam from power would be “a grave mistake.”
2010: Michael Jordan became the first ex-player to become a majority owner in the NBA as the league’s Board of Governors unanimously approved Jordan’s $275 million bid to buy the Charlotte Bobcats from Bob Johnson.
2016: Finally bowing to years of public pressure, Seaworld Entertainment said it would no longer breed killer whales or make them perform crowdpleasing tricks.
2020: The Kentucky Derby and the French Open were each postponed from May to September because of the coronavirus.
2022: U.S. Olympic figure skater Alysa Liu and her father Arthur Liu – a former political refugee – were among those targeted in a spying operation that the Justice Department alleged was ordered by the Chinese government.
Singer-songwriter John Sebastian of the Lovin’ Spoonful is 79. Percussionist Harold Brown of War is 77. Actor Patrick Duffy is 74. Actor Kurt Russell is 72. Country singer Susie Allanson is 71. Actor Lesley-anne Down is 69. Actor Mark Boone Junior (“Sons of Anarchy”) is 68. Country singer Paul Overstreet is 68. Actor Gary Sinise is 68. Actor Christian Clemenson (“CSI: Miami”) is 65. Actor Arye Gross (“Castle”) is 63. Actor Vicki Lewis (“Newsradio”) is 63. Actor Casey Siemaszko (“NYPD Blue”) is 62. Actor Rob Lowe is 59. Singer Billy Cor5gan of Smashing Pumpkins is 56. Actor Mathew St. Patrick (“Six Feet Under”) is 55. Actor Yanic Truesdale (“Gilmore Girls”) is 54.