Today is Saturday, March 17, the 77th day of 2012. There are 289 days left in the year. This is St. Patrick’s Day.
Today’s highlight:
On March 17, 1912, the Camp Fire Girls organization was incorporated in Washington, D.C., two years to the day after it was founded in Thetford, Vt. (The group is now known as Camp Fire USA.)
On this date:
In A.D. 461 (or A.D. 493, depending on sources), St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, died in Saul.
In 1762, New York’s first St. Patrick’s Day parade took place.
In 1776, British forces evacuated Boston during the Revolutionary War.
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 1910, the U.S. National Museum, a precursor to the National Museum of Natural History, opened in Washington, D.C.
In 1941, the National Gallery of Art opened in Washington, D.C.
In 1942, six days after departing the Philippines during World War II, Gen. Douglas MacArthur declared, “I came through and I shall return” as he arrived in Australia to become supreme commander of Allied forces in the southwest Pacific theater.
In 1950, scientists at the University of California at Berkeley announced they had created a new radioactive element, “californium.”
In 1966, a U.S. midget submarine located a missing hydrogen bomb which had fallen from an American bomber into the Mediterranean off Spain.
In 1970, the United States cast its first veto in the U.N. Security Council. (The U.S. killed a resolution that would have condemned Britain for failure to use force to overthrow the white-ruled government of Rhodesia.)
In 1992, 29 people were killed in the truck bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In Illinois, Sen. Alan Dixon was defeated in his primary re-election bid by Carol Moseley-Braun, who went on to become the first black woman in the U.S. Senate.
Associated Press
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
