Today is Thursday, March 17, the 77th day of 2016. There are 289 days left in the year.
Highlights in history on this date:
1229 – Holy Roman Emperor Fredrick II, at the head of the Sixth Crusade, enters Jerusalem after gaining the city from the Muslims by treaty.
1328 – Scotland wins its independence from England.
1526 – France’s King Francis I is released from Spanish captivity.
1649 – England’s Parliament abolishes House of Lords.
1813 – Prussia’s Frederick William III declares war on France.
1848 – Revolution under Daniele Manin begins in Venice, Italy.
1860 – Second Maori War breaks out in New Zealand.
1861 – The Kingdom of Italy is proclaimed by a parliament assembled in Turin, but Venice and Rome remain outside the power of King Victor Emmanuel.
1888 – Britain establishes protectorate over Sarawak on Borneo.
1921 – Poland’s Constitution is established.
1942 – Gen. Douglas MacArthur arrives in Australia to become supreme commander of Allied forces in the southwest Pacific theater during World War II.
1948 – Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg sign Brussels Treaty for 50-year alliance against armed attack in Europe, and economic, social and military cooperation.
1962 – Soviet Union accuses United States of fighting “undeclared war” in Vietnam and demands removal of American military forces there.
1969 – Golda Meir becomes prime minister of Israel.
1977 – Angolan troops invading Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) take important copper mining center of Kolwezi.
1990 – Lithuania rejects a Soviet deadline to renounce its independence and calls on the Western powers to support it.
1991 – Majority of Soviet voters favor preserving the union, according to referendum.
1992 – White voters in referendum overwhelmingly support reforms toward ending apartheid in South Africa.
1993 – Hundreds of police in Assiut, Egypt, storm two buildings where bomb-throwing extremists are holed up. At least 11 people are killed.
1994 – Serbs and Muslims sign an agreement to ease the stranglehold on Bosnian capital of Sarajevo.
1997 – The Italian coast guard rescues 900 Albanians from a sinking gunboat off Brindisi, Italy.
1998 – Catholics hold the first St. Patrick’s Day in the religiously-divided city of Belfast.
2000 – Some 500 members of a doomsday cult die in a church fire in a remote part of southwestern Uganda. After the inferno, mass graves containing 400 more corpses are discovered around cult leaders’ homes.
2001 – Explosions at four workers’ dormitories kill 108 in Shijiazhuang, China. The bomber plus three others charged with supplying explosives and detonators are sentenced to death.
2004 – A car bomb shatters a five-story hotel housing foreigners in central Baghdad, killing 27 people just days before the anniversary of the start of the Iraq war.
2009 – Pope Benedict XVI says condoms are not the answer to the AIDS epidemic in Africa and can make the problem worse, setting off criticism as he begins a week-long trip to the continent where some 22 million people are living with HIV.
2010 – A Pakistani court charges five young Americans with planning terrorist attacks in the South Asian country and conspiring to wage war against nations allied with Pakistan. They plead not guilty.
2011 — The U.N. Security Council approves a resolution to impose a no-fly zone over Libya and authorize “all necessary measures” to protect civilians from attacks by Moammar Gadhafi’s forces.
2012 — Two suicide bombers detonate cars packed with explosives in near-simultaneous attacks on heavily guarded intelligence and security buildings in the Syrian capital, Damascus, killing at least 27 people.
2014 — Russian President Vladimir Putin, ignoring tough sanctions, recognizes Crimean Peninsula as an “independent and sovereign country.”
2015 — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud Party wins the country’s election after a tight race that had put his lengthy rule in jeopardy.
Today’s Birthdays:
Madame Roland, French author-revolutionary politician (1754-1793); Edmund Kean, British actor (1787-1833); Kate Greenaway, English illustrator (1846-1901); Rudolf Nureyev, Russian dancer (1938-1993); Bakili Muluzi, former president of Malawi (1943–); Kurt Russell, U.S. actor (1951–); Gary Sinise, U.S. actor (1955–); Billy Corgan, U.S. musician (1967–).
Thought For Today:
It is my rule never to lose me temper till it would be detrimental to keep it — Sean O’Casey, Irish playwright (1880-1964).
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
