On this day in 2011, 26-year-old Raymond Clark III, a former animal research assistant at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, pleads guilty to the murder and attempted sexual assault of 24-year-old Yale graduate student Annie Le. On September 13, 2009, Le’s partially ...read more

With Erin Brockovich, released on this day in 2000, Julia Roberts becomes the first actress ever to command $20 million per movie. Born in Smyrna, Georgia, on October 28, 1967, Roberts followed her brother Eric into acting, making her film debut in 1988’s girl-band drama ...read more

In New York City, the first parade honoring the Catholic feast day of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, is held by Irish soldiers serving in the British army. Saint Patrick, who was born in the late 4th century, was one of the most successful Christian missionaries in ...read more

Written on the spot and recorded as an afterthought near the end of a session at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles, the song—”Tequila” —hit #1 on the Billboard pop chart on March 17, 1958. It was the Champs’ one, and only, pop hit. Half a century later, this accidental, one-word ...read more

On March 17, 1901, paintings by the late Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh are shown at the Bernheim-Jeune gallery in Paris. The 71 paintings, which captured their subjects in bold brushstrokes and expressive colors, caused a sensation across the art world. Eleven years before, ...read more

During the American War for Independence, British forces are forced to evacuate Boston following Patriot General George Washington’s successful placement of fortifications and cannons on Dorchester Heights, which overlooks the city from the south. During the evening of March 4, ...read more

On this day in 461 A.D., Saint Patrick, Christian missionary, bishop and apostle of Ireland, dies at Saul, Downpatrick, Ireland. Much of what is known about Patrick’s legendary life comes from the Confessio, a book he wrote during his last years. Born in Great Britain, probably ...read more

After an investigation, the U.S. Army accuses 14 officers of suppressing information related to an incident at My Lai in March 1968. Soldiers from a company had massacred Vietnamese civilians, including women and children, at My Lai 4, a cluster of hamlets in Quang Ngai Province, ...read more

President Lyndon B. Johnson presides over a session of the National Security Council during which Secretary of Defense McNamara and Gen. Maxwell Taylor present a full review of the situation in Vietnam. During the meeting, various secret decisions were made, including the ...read more

On March 17, 1902, Robert Tyre Jones, Jr. is born in Atlanta, Georgia. Jones, the first great American golfer, was a hero of the so-called “Golden Age of Sports” in America along with baseball player Babe Ruth, boxer Jack Dempsey, tennis player Bill Tilden and football player Red ...read more

Future president Franklin Delano Roosevelt weds his fifth cousin once removed, Eleanor Roosevelt, in New York on this day in 1905. Eleanor, born Anna Eleanor Roosevelt in New York in 1884, lost her mother Anna to diphtheria when she was eight. Her father, Elliot, a brother of ...read more

Two months before Lewis and Clark begin their epic western expedition, Jim Bridger is born in Richmond, Virginia. Twenty years later, Bridger, heading West along the routes Lewis and Clark pioneered, became one of the greatest mountain men of the 19th century. The son of a ...read more

Paul Green, future winner of the 1927 Pulitzer Prize for his play In Abraham’s Bosom, is born. Although Green was white, his work examined the problems of blacks in the South, based on his observations of his native state, North Carolina. Born in 1894, Green studied at the ...read more

A powerful earthquake and a full day of aftershocks rock Taiwan on this day in 1906, killing over 1,200 people. This terrifying day of tremors destroyed several towns and caused millions of dollars in damages. It was early on a Saturday morning when the first earthquake struck, ...read more

The former Soviet Socialist Republic of Lithuania steadfastly rejects a demand from the Soviet Union that it renounce its declaration of independence. The situation in Lithuania quickly became a sore spot in U.S.-Soviet relations. The Soviet Union had seized the Baltic state of ...read more

On this day in 1863, Union cavalry attack Confederate cavalry at Kelly’s Ford, Virginia. Although the Yankees were pushed back and failed to take any ground, the engagement proved that the Federal troopers could hold their own against their Rebel counterparts. In the war’s first ...read more

On this day in 1776, British forces are forced to evacuate Boston following General George Washington’s successful placement of fortifications and cannons on Dorchester Heights, which overlooks the city from the south. During the evening of March 4, American Brigadier General ...read more

In the midst of Allied plans for a major spring offensive on the Western Front, the French government suffers a series of crises in its leadership, including the forced resignation, on March 17, 1917, of Prime Minister Aristide Briand. Horrified by the brutal events at Verdun and ...read more