This Day in History

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March 17

45 BC – In his last victory, Julius Caesar defeats the Pompeian forces of Titus Labienus and Pompey the Younger in the Battle of Munda.

180 – Marcus Aurelius dies leaving Commodus the sole emperor of the Roman Empire.

1337 – Edward, the Black Prince is made Duke of Cornwall, the first Duchy in England.

1776 – American Revolution: British forces evacuate Boston, ending the Siege of Boston, after George Washington and Henry Knox place artillery in positions overlooking the city.

1780 – American Revolution: George Washington grants the Continental Army a holiday "as an act of solidarity with the Irish in their fight for independence".

1891 – SS Utopia collides with HMS Anson in the Bay of Gibraltar and sinks, killing 562 of the 880 passengers on board.

1941 – In Washington, D.C., the National Gallery of Art is officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1942 – Holocaust: The first Jews from the Lvov Ghetto are gassed at the Belzec death camp in what is today eastern Poland.

1947 – First flight of the B-45 Tornado strategic bomber.

1948 – Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom sign the Treaty of Brussels, a precursor to the North Atlantic Treaty establishing NATO.

1960 – U.S. 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.

1966 – Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the DSV Alvin submarine finds a missing American hydrogen bomb.

1968 – As a result of nerve gas testing in Skull Valley, Utah, over 6,000 sheep are found dead.

1973 – The Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph Burst of Joy is taken, depicting a former prisoner of war being reunited with his family, which came to symbolize the end of United States involvement in the Vietnam War.

1985 – Serial killer Richard Ramirez, aka the "Night Stalker", commits the first two murders in his Los Angeles murder spree.

2000 – Five hundred thirty members of the Ugandan cult Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God die in a fire, considered to be a mass murder or suicide orchestrated by leaders of the cult. Elsewhere another 248 members are later found dead.

Births

1804 – Jim Bridger, 1834 – Gottlieb Daimler, 1902 – Bobby Jones, 1919 – Nat King Cole, 1938 – Rudolf Nureyev, 1941 – Paul Kantner, 1944 – Pattie Boyd, 1944 – John Sebastian, 1949 – Patrick Duffy, 1951 – Kurt Russell, 1954 – Lesley-Anne Down, 1955 – Paul Overstreet, 1955 – Gary Sinise, 1959 – Danny Ainge, 1960 – Arye Gross, 1960 – Vicki Lewis, 1961 – Sam Bowie, 1961 – Casey Siemaszko, 1964 – Rob Lowe, 1967 – Billy Corgan, 1969 – Alexander McQueen, 1972 – Mia Hamm

Deaths

180 – Marcus Aurelius, 1853 – Christian Doppler, 1956 – Fred Allen, 1974 – Louis Kahn, 1990 – Capucine, 1993 – Helen Hayes, 1994 – Mai Zetterling, 1996 – Terry Stafford, 2006 – Oleg Cassini