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“I am imperfect in many things, nevertheless I want my brethren and kinsfolk to know my nature so that they may be able to perceive my soul's desire.”
~ Saint Patrick
Wikiquote (Saint Patrick, died March 17, 1493; Saint Patrick's Day.)
March 17th, 45 BC
Roman Empire:
45 BC - Battle of Munda; In his last victory, Julius Caesar defeats the Pompeian forces of Titus Labienus and Pompey the Younger.
Wikipedia Image: ● Assassination of Julius Caesar ● Julius Caesar ● The senators encircle Caesar. A 19th century interpretation of the event by Carl Theodor von Piloty.
March 17th, 180
Roman Empire:
180 - Marcus Aurelius dies leaving Commodus the sole emperor of the Roman Empire.
455 - Petronius Maximus becomes, with support of the Roman Senate, emperor of the Western Roman Empire.
Wikipedia Image: Relief from a 3rd-century sarcophagus depicting a battle between Romans and Germanic warriors; the central figure is perhaps the emperor Hostilian / Depiction of the Menorah on the Arch of Titus in Rome.
March 17th, 624
Muhammad
624 - Battle of Badr; Led by Muhammad the Muslims of Medina defeat the Quraysh of Mecca.
Wikipedia Islamic Depictions of Muhammad: A depiction of Muhammad (with veiled face) advancing on Mecca from Siyer-i Nebi, a 16th-century Ottoman manuscript. The angels Gabriel, Michael, Israfil and Azrail, are also shown. ● Muhammed re-dedicating the Black Stone at the Kaaba. From Jami' al-Tavarikh ("The Universal History" or "Compendium of Chronicles") written by Rashid Al-Din and illustrated in Tabriz, Persia, c. 1315. (Library of the University of Edinburgh) ● An angel presenting Muhammad with a city (presumably Mecca). Illustration of the Miraj-name, Tabriz, c. 1360-70. (Topkapi Palace Library, Istanbul) ● Muhammad visits Paradise during his Night Journey. Illustration of the Miraj-Nama, Persian, 15th century. (Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris) ● Muhammad (faceless) at the Kaba in Mecca. Ottoman, 1595. (Topkapi Museum, Istanbul) ● During his Night Journey, Muhammad visits hell, where he views women being hung by their hair and tormented by a demon for the sin of showing their hair in public. Illustration of the Miraj-Nama, Persian, 15th century. (Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris) ● Arab illustration of Mohammed preaching from a minbar to the earliest converts. Al-Bîrûnî, al-âthâr al-bâqiya. (Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, Manuscrits Arabe 1489 fol. 5v), credit Religion Facts.
March 17th, 1337
Edward, the Black Prince is made Duke of Cornwall, the first Duchy in England.
Wikipedia Photo: Edward, the Black Prince; Edward, Prince of Wales as Knight of the Order of the Garter, 1453, illustration from the Bruges Garter Book.
March 17th, 1776
American Revolutionary War:
1776 - Siege of Boston; Evacuation of Boston - British forces evacuate Boston, Massachusetts, ending the Siege of Boston, after George Washington and Henry Knox place artillery in positions overlooking the city.
1780 - George Washington grants the Continental Army a holiday "as an act of solidarity with the Irish in their fight for independence".
Wikipedia Paintings: Washington Crossing the Delaware, by Emanuel Leutz; Battle of the Chesapeake, French (left) and British (right) lines; Battle of Bunker Hill, The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill by John Trumbull; The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, September 13, 1782, by John Singleton Copley; Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau at Yorktown, 1781; "The surrender at Saratoga" shows General Daniel Morgan in front of a French de Vallière 4-pounder; Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown by (John Trumbull, 1797).
Grand Union - Stars and Stripes Flag
March 17th, 1805
French Revolutionary Wars / Napoleonic Wars:
1805 - The Italian Republic with Napoleon as president, becomes the Kingdom of Italy, with Napoleon as King.
Wikipedia Painting: Battle of Trafalgar: The British HMS Sandwich fires to the French flagship Bucentaure (completely dismasted) in the battle of Trafalgar;
Napoleon in Berlin (Meynier). After defeating Prussian forces at Jena, the French Army entered Berlin on 27 October 1806;
Battle of the Bridge of Arcole Napoleon Bonaparte leading his troops over the bridge of Arcole, by Horace Vernet;
Napoleon as King of Italy (Appiani);
Napoleon Crossing the Alps (David). In 1800 Bonaparte took the French Army across the Alps, eventually defeating the Austrians at Marengo;
Charge of the Russian Imperial Guard cavalry against French cuirassiers at the Battle of Friedland, 14 June 1807;
Battle of Borodino as depicted by Louis Lejeune. The battle was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars;
Napoleon's withdrawal from Russia, a painting by Adolph Northen;
Wellington at Waterloo by Robert Alexander Hillingford;
Napoleon is often represented in his green colonel uniform of the Chasseur à Cheval, with a large bicorne and a hand-in-waistcoat gesture.
Battle of the Nile (Battle of Aboukir Bay).
March 17th, 1860
New Zealand land wars: First Taranaki War; begins in the Taranaki Region of New Zealand.
Wikipedia Image: Rewi Manga Maniapoto (died 1894) was a Waikato chief who led Maori forces during the British Invasion of Waikato during the New Zealand Wars; Satellite image of New Zealand, NASA's Visible Earth; Bay of Islands.
March 17th, 1861
The Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946) is proclaimed.
Wikipedia Image: Territories and colonies of the Kingdom of Italy in 1941. ● Kingdom of Italy (green) ● Italian colonies and possessions (light green) ● Italian occupied territory and protectorates (dark grey). ● Western Europe in a Satellite Image, NASA.
March 17th, 1939
World War II:
1939 - Second Sino-Japanese War; Battle of Nanchang - battle between Kuomintang and Japan begins.
1945 - The Ludendorff Bridge in Remagen, Germany, collapses, ten days after its capture.
Post World War II:
1947 - First flight of the B-45 Tornado strategic bomber
1948 - The Benelux, France and the United Kingdom sign the Treaty of Brussels, a precursor to the North Atlantic Treaty establishing NATO.
Wikipedia Photo: Bombing of Dresden in World War II; August Schreitmüller's sculpture 'Goodness' surveys Dresden after a firestorm started by Allied bombers in 1945.
USS Bunker Hill was hit by kamikazes piloted by Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa and another airman on 11 May 1945. 389 personnel were killed or missing from a crew of 2,600; Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, who flew his aircraft into the USS Bunker Hill during a Kamikaze mission on 11 May 1945; Kamikaze Missions - Lt Yoshinori Yamaguchi's Yokosuka D4Y3 (Type 33 Suisei) "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the non-self-sealing port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and/or smoke 25 November 1944.
German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944), credit German History in Documents and Images GHDI.
Eastern Front (World War II); Germans race towards Stalingrad. August 1942; Soviet children during a German air raid in the first days of the war, June 1941, by RIA Novosti archive; Soviet sniper Roza Shanina in 1944. About 400,000 Soviet women served in front-line duty units Caucasus Mountains, winter 1942/43; Finnish ski patrol: the invisible enemy of the Soviet Army with an unlimited supply of skis; Men of the German Engineers Corps cross a river which is swollen after the first autumn rains, to strengthen bridges linking the German positions on the central front in Russia. by Keystone / Getty Images. October 1942; Russian snipers fighting on the Leningrad front during a blizzard. Photo by Hulton Archive / Getty Images, 1943; German soldiers surrendering to the Russians in Stalingrad, the soldier holding the white flag of surrender is dressed in white so that there could be no doubt of his intentions, a Russian soldier is on the right of the photograph. by Keystone / Getty Images, January 1943.
March 17th, 1942
World War II: Holocaust;
1942 - The first Jews from the Lvov Ghetto are gassed at the Belzec death camp in what is today eastern Poland.
Wikipedia Photo: World War II, The Holocaust. Sources: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum USHMM, History 1900s, Internet Masters of Education Technology IMET, Techno Friends, Veterans Today, Concern.
March 17th, 1950
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley announce the creation of element 98, which they name Californium.
Wikipedia Image: Periodic table is a tabular display of the chemical elements, organized on the basis of their atomic numbers, electron configurations, and recurring chemical properties (Elements are presented in order of increasing atomic number)
March 17th, 1957
Aviation accidents and incidents:
1957 - Cebu Douglas C-47 crash; A plane crash in Cebu, Philippines kills Philippines President Ramon Magsaysay and 24 others.
1988 - Colombian Boeing 727 jetliner Avianca Flight 410, crashes into a mountainside near the Venezuelan border killing 143.
Wikipedia Photo: ● Pan AM 747 ● U.S. Airways flight 1549 also known as the "Miracle on the Hudson" navigates an exit ramp near Burlington, New Jersey, June 5, 2011 ● Passengers stand on the wings of a U.S. Airways plane as a ferry pulls up to it after it landed in the Hudson River in New York, Reuters ● US Airways plane crashes into New York Hudson River, Photo: AP
March 17th, 1958
Project Vanguard: The United States launches the Vanguard 1 satellite.
Wikipedia Image: Vanguard rocket on Pad LC-18A; Vanguard Satellite in Orbit, credit © Allen B. Ury.
March 17th, 1959
Tibet:
1959 - Tibetan uprising: Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama flees Tibet for India.
Wikipedia Photo: Simonos Petras Monastery, credit Travis Dove, National Geographic ● Tibet - Heinrich Harrer, National Geographic ● Tibet - Two yaks, wispy clouds and the grand vista of the Tibetan Plateau, credit Felix Torkar. © 2011 National Geographic ● Tibetan People.
March 17th, 1960
Cuban Revolution:
1960 - United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the National Security Council directive on the anti-Cuban covert action program that will ultimately lead to the Bay of Pigs Invasion.
Wikipedia Photo / Map: The leadership of the Cuban revolution; Fidel Castro played the leading role in the Cuban revolution against Fulgencio Batista (1957) AFP; Fidel Castro leads men in a cheer, Cuba, 1957, Bettmann/ Corbis; Cuban Airlift to the United States (1959 and 1962); Resiste Cuba, homenaje a la revolución cubana y sus héroes música: Protesta-Por Cuba; Che Guevara and Fidel Castro ; Official caption: "Off loading Cuban refugees at the Miami sea buoy", photo dated 4 May 1964; Photo No. 7CGD-050464 #12; Guerrillero Heroico - Alberto Korda's famous photograph of Che Guevara; The popularized cropped version.
March 17th, 1963
Earthquake:
1963 - Mount Agung erupted on Bali killing 11,000.
Wikipedia Image: Preliminary Determination of Epicenters / Aleppo Syria; Anchorage, Alaska - March 28, 1964 Prince William Sound USA earthquake and tsunami; 8.9 Mega Earthquake Strikes Japan; Tsunami Swirls Japan's Ibaraki Prefecture March 12 2011. credit NOAA / NGDC, NOAA National Geophysical Data Center, USGS, National Geographics.
March 17th, 1969
Golda Meir becomes the first female Prime Minister of Israel.
Wikipedia Image: Golda Meir Time Cover by TIME Magazine.
March 17th, 1970
Vietnam War:
1970 - My Lai massacre; The United States Army charges 14 officers with suppressing information related to the incident.
Wikipedia Photo: Vietnam_War; Side view of an HH-53 helicopter of the 40th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron as seen from the gunner's position on an A-1 of the 21st Specialist Operations Squadron. (USAF Photo by Ken Hackman), Boston Globe;
Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, credit Free Republic;
Vietnam War: The Big Picture / Boston Globe.
March 17th, 1973
The Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph Burst of Joy is taken, depicting a former prisoner of war being reunited with his family.
Wikipedia Photo: Burst of Joy; The photograph Burst of Joy. From left to right, Lt. Col. Robert L. Stirm, Lorrie Stirm, Bo Stirm, Cindy Stirm, Loretta Stirm, and Roger Stirm. (© Slava Veder / Associated Press).
March 17th, 1992
Modern conflicts in the Middle East:
1992 - Israeli Embassy attack in Buenos Aires: Suicide car bomb attack kills 29 and injures 242.
Wikipedia Photo: Middle East satellite image, NASA. ● Camels are seen early morning on a beach in the Marina area of Dubai October 16, 2008. (Steve Crisp, Reuters) ● A portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad burns during clashes between rebels and Syrian troops in Selehattin, near Aleppo, on July 23, 2012. (Bulent Kilic, AFP / GettyImages) ● Egyptians gather in their thousands in Tahrir Square to mark the one year anniversary of the revolution on Jan. 25, 2012 in Cairo Egypt. Tens of thousands have gathered in the square on the first anniversary of the Arab uprising which toppled President Hosni Mubarak. (Jeff J Mitchell, Getty Images) ● Black smoke rises above the Tehran skyline as supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi burn tires and other material in the streets as they fight running battles with police to protest the declared results of the Iranian presidential election in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 13, 2009. (Ben Curtis, AP) ● The Iron Dome defense system fires to interecpt incoming missiles from Gaza in the port town of Ashdod, Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012. (Tsafrir Abayov, AP)
March 17th, 2004
Unrest in Kosovo: More than 22 are killed and 200 wounded. 35 Serbian Orthodox shrines in Kosovo and two mosques in Belgrade and Niš are destroyed.
Wikipedia Photo: The Cathedral of Saint Sava is an Orthodox church in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, the largest in the world ● Saint Nicholas Serbian Orthodox Church
March 17th, 2011
Arab Spring: Syrian civil war;
2011 - The United Nations Security Council adopts United Nations Security Council Resolution 1972 relating to Somalia is adopted..
2011 - The United Nations Security Council adopts United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, authorizing a military intervention by member states to protect civilians in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.
Wikipedia Photo: Arab Spring; Syrian civil war - Syrian uprising, an armed conflict in Syria between forces loyal to the Ba'ath Party government and those seeking to oust it.
March 17th, 2013
The largest meteorite (since NASA started observing the moon in 2005) hit the moon.
Wikipedia / NASA Image: Bright Explosion on the Moon