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St. Patrick dies

Born on This Day

Bayard Rustin

1912 - 1987

Political activist and advocate for civil rights, nonviolence and gay rights. Main organizer of the 1963 March on Washington.

Nat King Cole

1919 - 1965

Pianist, singer and civil-rights advocate who dominated the pop charts for decades with standards like "Unforgettable."

Mia Hamm

1972 -

American soccer phenom who earned two Olympic gold medals and two FIFA Women's World Cup championships.

Bayard RustinGetty Images

Nat King ColeNBCUniversal via Getty Images

Mia HammGetty Images

1958

MAR17

The US Naval Research Laboratory launches Vanguard I, an aluminum sphere about the size of a cantaloupe, into orbit. The first satellite to use solar cell power, it has become the longest remaining human-made object in space.

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on March 17th

First St. Patrick’s Day parade

The first recorded parade on the Catholic feast day of St. Patrick is held in what is now St. Augustine, Florida—at the time a Spanish colonial outpost—on March 17, 1601.

British evacuate Boston

On March 17, 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, Major General John Thomas, under orders from Washington, secretly led a force of 800 soldiers and 1,200 workers […]

Jim Bridger, mountain man and explorer, is born

Two months before Lewis and Clark begin their 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 surveyor and an innkeeper, Bridger moved with his family to […]

Franklin Roosevelt marries Eleanor Roosevelt

Future president Franklin Delano Roosevelt weds his fifth cousin once removed, Eleanor Roosevelt, in New York on March 17, 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 Theodore Roosevelt, died as a result of alcoholism when […]

Golda Meir elected as Israel’s first female prime minster

On March 17, 1969, 70-year-old Golda Meir makes history when she is elected as Israel’s first female prime minister. She was the country’s fourth prime minister and is still the only woman to have held this post. Meir, who was born in Kiev, Ukraine and raised in Wisconsin, began her career as a Zionist labor […]

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Pulitzer Prize-winning photo “Burst of Joy” is taken

On March 17, 1973, Associated Press photographer Slava “Sal” Veder captures a heartwarming scene on the tarmac of California’s Travis Air Force Base as a recently freed American prisoner of war runs toward his family. The jubilation of the moment is encapsulated in the central image of his teenaged daughter, whose wide smile and outstretched […]

Lithuania rejects Soviet demand to renounce its independence

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 Lithuania in 1939. Lithuanians complained long and loud about this absorption into […]

Apartheid comes to an end in South Africa

On March 17, 1992, white South Africans vote overwhelmingly in a referendum to end minority rule, by a margin of 68.7 percent to 31.2 percent. Thus ends the turbulent period called apartheid, a racial segregation policy that separated the minority white population by designating areas and activities prohibited to Black people. “Today we have closed […]

Julia Roberts collects $20 million for “Erin Brockovich”

With Erin Brockovich, released on March 17, 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 girl-band drama Satisfaction (1988) and making waves with her next film, Mystic Pizza, which […]

Man pleads guilty in Yale grad student slaying

On March 17, 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 decomposed body was found stuffed behind a wall in the university research building […]

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