Today is Sunday, March 17, the 76th day of 2019. There are 289 days left in the year. This is St. Patrick’s Day.
Today’s highlight: On March 17, 1762, New York held its first St. Patrick’s Day parade.
On this date:
In 1776, the Revolutionary War Siege of Boston ended as British forces evacuated the city.
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 1958, the U.S. Navy launched the Vanguard 1 satellite.
In 1959, the Dalai Lama fled Tibet for India in the wake of a failed uprising by Tibetans against Chinese rule.
In 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.
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 1973, U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Robert L. Stirm, a freed prisoner of the Vietnam War, was joyously greeted by his family at Travis Air Force Base in California in a scene captured in a Pulitzer Prize-winning AP photograph.
In 1988, Avianca Flight 410, a Boeing 727, crashed after takeoff into a mountain in Colombia, killing all 143 people on board.
In 2006, Federal regulators reported the deaths of two women in addition to four others who had taken the abortion pill RU-486; Planned Parenthood said it would immediately stop disregarding the approved instructions for the drug’s use. Fashion designer Oleg Cassini died on Long Island, New York, at age 92.
Today’s birthdays: The former national chairwoman of the NAACP, Myrlie Evers-Williams, is 86. Former astronaut Ken Mattingly is 83. Singer-songwriter Jim Weatherly is 76. Singer-songwriter John Sebastian (The Lovin’ Spoonful) is 75. Former NSA Director and former CIA Director Michael Hayden is 74. Rock musician Harold Brown (War; Lowrider Band) is 73. Actor Patrick Duffy is 70. Actor Kurt Russell is 68. Country singer Susie Allanson is 67. Actress Lesley-Anne Down is 65. Actor Mark Boone Jr. is 64. Country singer Paul Overstreet is 64. Actor Gary Sinise is 64. Actor Christian Clemenson is 61. Former basketball and baseball player Danny Ainge is 60. Actor Arye Gross is 59. Actress Vicki Lewis is 59. Olympic gold medal soccer player Mia Hamm is 47. Rock musician Singer and TV personality Tamar Braxton is 42.
Thought for today: “Beagan agus a ra go maith.” (Say little, but say it well.) — Irish saying.
— Associated Press
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