Today in History - March 17
Return to home
Irish toast: "May the enemies of Ireland never eat
bread
nor drink whisky, but be tormented with itching without benefit of
scratching."
-- Traditional St. Patrick's Day toast.
(AP, 3/17/99)
180CE Mar 17,
Antonius Marcus Aurelius (58), [Marcus Verus], Emperor of Rome, died.
(MC, 3/17/02)
c389 Mar 17, St. Patrick (d.461),
the patron saint of Ireland, was born. Calpurnius, his father, was a
deacon and local official who lost his son to Irish raiders when
Patrick was 16. Patrick allegedly drove all the snakes (i.e. pagans)
out of Ireland.
(HN, 3/17/99)(HNQ, 3/17/01)(WSJ, 3/12/04, p.W13)
461 Mar 17, According to
tradition, St. Patrick (b.c389), the patron saint of Ireland, died in
Saul, County Down. Some sources say he died in 493AD. He was an English
missionary and bishop of Ireland. In 2004 Philip Freeman authored "St.
Patrick: A Biography."
(SFC, 3/15/97, p.A16)(WSJ, 3/12/04, p.W13)(AP,
3/17/08)
1190 Mar 17, Crusaders completed
the massacre of Jews of York, England.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1516 Mar 17, Giuliano de' Medici
(37), monarch of Florence, died.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1753 Mar 17, The 1st official St
Patrick's Day was celebrated.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1756 Mar 17, St. Patrick's Day was
1st celebrated in NYC at Crown & Thistle Tavern.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1762 Mar 17, 1st St Patrick's Day
parade was held in NYC.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1775 Mar 17, Richard Henderson, a
North Carolina judge, representing the Transylvania Company, met with
three Cherokee Chiefs (Oconistoto, chief warrior and first
representative of the Cherokee Nation or tribe of Indians, and
Attacuttuillah and Sewanooko) to purchase (for the equivalent of
$50,000) all the land lying between the Ohio, Kentucky and Cumberland
rivers; some 17 to 20 million acres. It was known as the Treaty of
Sycamore Shoals or The Henderson Purchase. The purchase was later
declared invalid but land cession was not reversed.
(www.tngenweb.org/cessions/17750317.html)
1776 Mar 17, British forces
evacuated Boston to Nova Scotia during the Revolutionary War. In some
of the bloodiest fighting of the Revolutionary War, American and French
troops failed to take Savannah.
(AP, 3/17/97)(HN, 3/17/98)
1780 Mar 17, Thomas Chalmers, 1st
moderator (Free Church of Scotland 1843-47), was born.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1799 Mar 17, Napoleon Bonaparte
and his army reached the Mediterranean seaport of St. Jean d'Acra, only
to find British warships ready to break his siege of the town.
(HN, 3/17/00)
1800 Mar 17, English warship Queen
Charlotte caught fire and 700 people died.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1828 Mar 17, Maj. Gen. Patrick R.
Cleburne, the "Stonewall" of the West, was born.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1832 Mar 17, Daniel Conway
Moncure, U.S. clergyman, author, abolitionist, was born.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1837 Mar 17, Stephen Grover
Cleveland was born in Caldwell, N.J. He was the 22nd (1885-1889) and
24th (1893-1897) president of the United States, the only President
elected for two nonconsecutive terms.
(AP, 3/17/04)
1845 Mar 17, The rubber band was
patented by Stephen Perry of London. [see May 17]
(MC, 3/17/02)
1846 Mar 17, Kate Greenway,
painter and illustrator (Mother Goose), was born.
(HN, 3/17/01)
1863 Mar 17, The Battle of Kelly's
Ford, Va., was fought.
(http://americancivilwar.com/statepic/va/va029.html)
1868 Mar 17, Postage stamp
canceling machine patent was issued.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1870 Mar 17, The Massachusetts
Legislature authorized the incorporation of Wellesley Female Seminary.
It later became Wellesley College.
(AP, 3/17/97)
1874 Mar 17, Kincsem, a horse that
never lost a race, was born.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1876 Mar 17, Gen. Crook destroyed
Cheyenne and Ogallala-Sioux Indian camps.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1884 Mar 17, John Joseph
Montgomery made the first glider flight in Otay, Calif.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1886 Mar 17, The Carrollton
Massacre in Mississippi occurred and 20 African Americans were killed.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1891 Mar 17, The British steamer
Utopia sank off the coast of Gibraltar.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1902 Mar 17, Bobby Jones was born.
He was the first American golfer to win the U.S. and British
championships in the same year in 1930.
(HN, 3/17/99)
1894 Mar 17, US and China signed a
treaty preventing Chinese laborers from entering US.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1895 Mar 17, Shemp Howard,
comedian (3 Stooges, Bank Dick), was born in Brooklyn.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1901 Mar 17, Eisaku Sato, premier
of Japan (Nobel 1974), was born.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1905 Mar 17, Anna Eleanor
Roosevelt, niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, married her fifth
cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt in New York and by 1916, they had
become the parents of six children.
(AP, 3/17/97)(HN, 3/17/98)(HNPD, 10/11/99)
1906 Mar 17, President Theodore
Roosevelt first likened crusading journalists to a man with "the
muckrake in his hand" in a speech to the Gridiron Club in Washington,
DC, as he criticized what he saw as the excesses of investigative
journalism.
(AP, 3/17/06)(AP, 3/17/08)
1910 Mar 17, The Camp Fire Girls
organization was formed in Lake Sebago, Maine. It was formally
presented to the public exactly two years later.
(AP, 3/17/97)(HN, 3/17/01)
1914 Mar 17, Russia increased the
number of active duty military from 460,000 to 1,700,000.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1917 Mar 17, Czar Michael
abdicated after one day in favor of a provisional government under
Prince George Evgenievich Lvov (55).
(PCh, 1992, p.722)
1919 Mar 17, Nat “King” Cole,
American jazz pianist and singer, was born. He is famous for
"Unforgettable" and "Mona Lisa."
(HN, 3/17/99)
1920 Mar 17, John La Montaine,
composer (Pulitzer 1959), was born in Oak Park, Ill.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1921 Mar 17, Dr Marie Stopes
opened Britain's 1st birth control clinic in London.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1924 Mar 17, Four Douglas army
aircraft left Los Angeles for an around the world flight.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1929 Mar 17, General Motors
purchased an 80% stake in Opel, a German car manufacturer, for $33.3
million. GM raised the stake to 100% in 1931.
(http://wiki.gmnext.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page)
1930 Mar 17, James Benson Irwin,
Col. USAF, astronaut (Apollo 15), was born in Pittsburgh, Penn.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1930 Mar 17, Mob boss Al Capone
was released from jail.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1931 Mar 17, Stalin threw
Krupskaja Lenin out of the Central Committee.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1932 Mar 17, German police raided
Hitler's Nazi headquarters.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1934 Mar 17, Thousands of blacks
battled the police in New York in protest of the Scottsboro trial.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1934 Mar 17, The Rome Protocols
allied Hungary with Italy, Austria and Germany.
(WUD, 1994, p.1682)
1935 Mar 17, Hitler reviewed the
military parade in Berlin.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1937 Mar 17, Amelia Earhart took
off from Oakland, Ca., in an attempt to become the first pilot to fly
around the globe at the equator.
(SFC, 3/1/97, p.A8)
1938 Mar 17, Rudolf Nureyev,
ballet dancer, choreographer (Kirov), was born in Russia.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1938 Mar 17, The Polish
government presented an ultimatum to Lithuania to establish diplomatic
ties. (LHC, 3/17/03)
1941 Mar 17, The National Gallery
of Art opened in Washington, DC.
(AP, 3/17/98)(HN, 3/17/98)
1942 Mar 17, John Wayne Gacy,
serial killer (32 boys), was born in Chicago, Ill.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1942 Mar 17, Gen. Douglas
MacArthur arrived in Australia to become supreme commander of Allied
forces in the southwest Pacific theater during World War II.
(AP, 3/17/97) (HN, 3/17/98)
1942 Mar 17, Belzec Concentration
Camp opened. 30,000 Lublin Polish Jews were transported.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1942 Mar 17, The Nazis began
deporting Jews to the Belsen camp.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1943 Mar 17, The German
occupation authority closed Lithuanian schools of higher education and
the Academy of Education.
(LHC, 3/17/03)
1944 Mar 17, Danny DeVito, actor
(Louie-Taxi, Twins), was born in Neptune, NJ. [see Nov 17]
(MC, 3/17/02)
1944 Mar 17, The US Eighth Air
Force bombed Vienna.
(HN, 3/17/00)
1945 Mar 17, Allied ships bombed
North Sumatra.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1950 Mar 17, Scientists at the
University of California at Berkeley announced they had created a new
radioactive element, which they named "californium."
(AP, 3/17/97)
1952 Mar 17, A US ban on the word
“tornado” was lifted. The ban had started in 1886 when the US Army,
which handled weather forecasting, determined that the harm done by
predicting a tornado would be greater than that done by the tornado
itself.
(SFC, 3/17/09, p.D6)
1956 Mar 17, Fred Allen (b.1894),
American comedian (Fred Allen Radio Show), died.
(TOH, 1982, p.1956)(AP, 3/17/06)
1958 Mar 17, The U.S. Navy
launched the Vanguard 1 satellite.
(AP, 3/17/02)
1959 Mar 17, The USS Skate became
the 1st submarine to surface at the North Pole. The ships crew held a
funeral service and scattered the ashes of explorer Hubert Wilkins
(d.1958), who had attempted the feat in 1931.
(ON, 1/02, p.9)
1959 Mar 17, The Dalai Lama fled
Tibet and went to India, triggering a flood of refugees escaping
Chinese rule.
(HN 3/17/98)(WSJ, 8/30/08, p.A8)
1960 Mar 17, Eisenhower formed
anti-Castro-exile army under the CIA.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1961 Mar 17, The U.S. increased
military aid and technicians to Laos.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1962 Mar 17, The Soviet Union
asked the U.S. to pull out of South Vietnam.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1963 Mar 17, Eruptions of Mount
Agung volcano on Bali killed 1,900 Balinese. The Agung eruption killed
1,184 people.
(SFC, 1/19/02, p.A14)(MC, 3/17/02)
1966 Mar 17, A U.S. midget
submarine located a missing hydrogen bomb which had fallen from an
American bomber into the Mediterranean off Spain.
(AP, 3/17/97)(HN, 3/17/98)
1968 Mar 17, A peaceful
anti-Vietnam War protest in London was followed by a riot outside the
US Embassy; more than 80 people were reported injured.
(AP, 3/17/08)
1968 Mar 17, In Vietnam during the
siege of Khe Sanh, the longest and bloodiest battle of the Vietnam War,
Manny Babbit was wounded. Babbit in 1980 killed a 78-year-old woman in
Sacramento and was convicted and sentenced to death. He was awarded his
Purple Heart while on death row in 1998.
(SFC, 3/20/98, p.A1)
1969 Mar 17, Golda Meir (d.1978)
became the 4th prime minister of Israel. She held the office to 1974.
(AP, 3/17/97)(AP, 12/8/97)
1970 Mar 17, The US Army charged
14 officers with suppression of facts in the My Lai massacre case.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1970 Mar 17, The United States
cast its first veto in the UN Security Council. The US killed a
resolution that would have condemned Britain for failure to use force
to overthrow the white-ruled government of Rhodesia.
(AP, 3/17/00)
1972 Mar 17, Nixon asked Congress
to halt busing in order to achieve desegregation.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1973 Mar 17, Queen Elizabeth II
opened the new London Bridge.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Bridge)
1973 Mar 17, Twenty people were
killed in Cambodia when a bomb went off that was meant for the
Cambodian President Lon Nol.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1973 Mar 17, First POWs were
released from the "Hanoi Hilton" in Hanoi, North Vietnam.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1974 Mar 17 Arab oil ministers,
with the exception of Libya, announced the end the oil embargo on the
US.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis)
1974 Mar 17, Louis Kahn (1901),
Estonia-born architect, died. His designs included the capital building
of Bangladesh, completed in 1983. In 2004 his son Nathaniel Kahn
directed the documentary film "My Architect: A Son's Journey."
(PBS, Internet)(SFC, 2/6/04, p.D5)
1978 Mar 17, In Zaire 13 opponents
of Pres. Mobutu were executed.
(WUD, 1994, p.1691)
1879 Mar 17, The US Supreme Court
in Wilkerson v. Utah ruled that Utah could use a firing squad for
capital punishment.
(http://supreme.justia.com/us/99/130/case.html)
1985 Mar 17, President Reagan
agreed to a joint study with Canada on acid rain.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1987 Mar 17, A US federal appeals
court cleared the way for the perjury indictment of former White House
aide Michael Deaver (b.1938). He was later convicted of three of five
perjury counts and fined $100,000.
(AP,
3/17/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Deaver)
1988 Mar 17, Planeloads of U.S.
soldiers arrived at Palmerola Air Base in Honduras in a show of
strength ordered by President Reagan.
(AP, 3/17/98)
1988 Mar 17, Apple filed suit
against Microsoft, alleging copyright infringement in the Windows GUI.
(Wired, 12/98, p.196)
1989 Mar 17, The Senate
unanimously confirmed Wyoming Congressman Dick Cheney to be secretary
of defense, following the failed nomination of former Sen. John Tower.
(AP, 3/17/99)
1990 Mar 17, The president of
Lithuania, Vytautas Landsbergis, rejected a deadline set by Moscow for
renouncing the republic's independence.
(AP, 3/17/00)
1991 Mar 17, Allied commanders
from the Gulf War held a second round of cease-fire talks with Iraqi
officers; the Iraqis were told they could not move their warplanes
inside Iraq for any reason.
(AP, 3/17/01)
1991 Mar 17, Millions of people
voted in a landmark referendum on whether to preserve the splintering
Soviet Union.
(AP, 3/17/01)
1992 Mar 17, Democrat Bill Clinton
scored big primary victories in Illinois and Michigan. In Illinois,
Sen. Alan Dixon was defeated in his primary re-election bid by Carol
Moseley-Braun, who went on to become the first black woman in the U.S.
Senate.
(AP, 3/17/97)
1992 Mar 17, Three of President
George Bush's cabinet secretaries disclosed that they had overdrawn
their accounts at the scandal-ridden House of Representatives bank when
they were in Congress.
(www.iht.com/articles/1992/03/18/hous_3.php)
1992 Mar 17, Grace Stafford Lantz
(87), cartoon voice (Woody Woodpecker), died.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0821282/)
1992 Mar 17, A truck bombing
at the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killed 29 people.
Iran denied any role. Hezbollah leader Imad Mughniyeh was suspected of
involvement. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
(AP, 3/17/97)(WSJ, 11/24/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/19/01,
p.A14)(NYT, 10/8/04, p.A12)
1992 Mar 17, White South Africans
approved constitutional reforms giving legal equality to blacks.
(HN, 3/17/99)
1993 Mar 17, Helen Hayes (92), the
"First Lady of the American Theater," died in Nyack, N.Y. Hayes quit
the theater in 1971 due to severe asthma.
(AP, 3/17/98)(SSFC, 12/2/07, Par p.4)
1993 Mar 17, A bomb attack in
Calcutta, India, killed 60 people.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombay_bombings_(1993))
1994 Mar 17, Secretary of State
Warren Christopher, just back from China, told a House subcommittee
that reports the trip was a failure were "rather misleading," and said
Beijing had made "solid improvements" in areas of prison labor and
immigration.
(AP, 3/17/99)
1994 Mar 17, Mae Zetterling
(b.1925), Swedish director and actress (Night Games), died.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0955195/)
1995 Mar 17, The White House
hosted a St. Patrick's Day reception for Irish Prime Minister John
Bruton which was attended by Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams.
(AP, 3/17/00)
1995 Mar 17, The federal
government approved the nation's first chicken pox vaccine, Varivax by
Merck & Co.
(AP, 3/17/00)
1995 Mar 17, Flor Contemplacion, a
Filipino maid, was hanged in Singapore for murder, despite
international pleas to spare her.
(AP, 3/17/00)
1996 Mar 17, The $16 mil Museum of
Television and Radio was christened in Beverly Hills.
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.B4)
1996 Mar 17, In Dunblane,
Scotland, Queen Elizabeth II came with flowers and sympathy as
residents paused in silence to mourn 16 murdered children and their
teacher.
(AP, 3/17/97)
1997 Mar 17, Anthony Lake asked
President Clinton to withdraw his nomination to be CIA director, saying
the partisan confirmation process had "gone haywire."
(AP, 3/17/98)
1997 Mar 17, It was reported that
China was upgrading the city of Chongqing in Sichuan to the status of
province. It would be directly controlled by the central government but
operate as a province.
(WSJ, 3/17/97, p.B9D)
1997 Mar 17, In Germany ten drunk
soldiers beat up 2 Turks and an Italian during a rampage in Detmold.
(SFC, 3/19/97, p.A12,14)
1997 Mar 17, In Mexico army
Brigadier Gen’l. Alfredo Navarro Lara was arrested for trying to buy
off authorities in Baha. He offered payments of $1 million a month to
Gen’l. Jose Luis Chavez Garcia to allow cocaine to pass into the US.
(SFC, 3/18/97, p.A10)
1997 Mar 17, In Papua New Guinea
the government fired army commander Brigadier Gen’l. Jerry Singirok. He
refused to accept the hiring of the British mercenary firm Sandline
Int’l.
(SFC, 3/18/97, p.A12)
1997 Mar 17, In southern Russia a
Stavropol Airlines AN-24 airplane crashed and all 50 aboard were
presumed dead.
(SFC, 3/19/97, p.A14)
1998 Mar 17, In Alaska Jeff King
battled through blowing snow and poor visibility to earn his third
victory in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.
(AP, 3/17/08)
1998 Mar 17, In Mississippi after
a 21-year court fight the state unsealed over 124,000 pages of secret
files of the State Sovereignty Commission that revealed numerous
illegal methods to thwart the civil rights workers of the ‘50s, ‘60s
and ‘70s.
(SFC, 3/18/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 17, Washington Mutual
announced it had agreed to buy H.F. Ahmanson and Co. for $9.9 billion
dollars, creating the nation's seventh-largest banking company.
(AP, 3/17/99)
1998 Mar 17, From Brazil it was
reported that a 3-month-old fire was raging out of control in the state
of Roraima, home of the Yanomani Indians.
(SFC, 3/17/98, p.B2)
1998 Mar 17, More than 10,000
Catholics marched in the first-ever St. Patrick’s Day parade in Belfast.
(SFC, 3/18/98, p.A11)
1998 Mar 17, In Zambia the state
of emergency imposed last Oct. was lifted.
(WSJ, 3/18/98, p.A1)
1999 Mar 17, Instant replay was
voted back in the NFL for the 1999 season.
(AP, 3/17/00)
1999 Mar 17, A US science panel
commissioned by the Clinton administration called for clinical trials
of medical marijuana. Medical experts concluded that marijuana has
medical benefits for people suffering from cancer and AIDS.
(SFC, 3/17/99, p.A1)(AP, 3/17/00)
1999 Mar 17, In Nebraska a large
prairie fire around Thedford burned tens of thousands of acres and
killed one volunteer firefighter.
(SFC, 3/18/99, p.A2)
1999 Mar 17, The Int'l. Olympic
Committee expelled 6 members in the wake of a bribery scandal, but gave
a vote of confidence to IOC pres. Juan Antonio Samaranch.
(SFC, 3/18/99, p.A1)(AP, 3/17/00)
1999 Mar 17, Eritrea said it
repulsed Ethiopian troops after a 3-day battle. 300 Ethiopian soldiers
were reported dead and 57 tanks destroyed. Ethiopia said the results of
the battle were staged.
(SFC, 3/18/99, p.C3)
1999 Mar 17, Iraqi pilgrims flew
to Saudi Arabia for the Hajj. It was the 2nd day of flights violating
UN prohibitions.
(SFC, 3/18/99, p.C2)
1999 Mar 17, In Belfast gunmen
killed Frankie Curry, a Protestant extremist recently paroled from
prison.
(SFC, 3/18/99, p.A12)
1999 Mar 17, In Israel Rabbi Aryeh
Deri, head of the Shas party of religious Sephardim, was convicted on
bribery charges.
(SFC, 3/18/99, p.A12)
1999 Mar 17, In Russia the Federal
Council, the upper house of parliament, defied Pres. Yeltsin's attempt
to oust Yuri Skuratov, the prosecutor general. Skuratove exposed the
Central Bank's secret transfer of hard currency reserves to the FIMAKO
company in the Channel Islands.
(SFC, 3/18/99, p.C3)
1999 Mar 17, Allan Boesak (53), a
leading anti-apartheid activist, was convicted of stealing money from
foreign donors intended for the Foundation for Peace and Justice. He
was later sentenced to 6 years in prison for theft and fraud.
(SFC, 3/18/99, p.A13)(SFC, 3/25/99, p.A10)
1999 Mar 17, The Vatican and Sony
announced the release of the first music video, "Abba Pater," by Pope
John Paul II.
(SFC, 3/17/99, p.C3)
2000 Mar 17, The United States
lifted a ban on imports of Iranian luxury goods.
(AP, 3/17/01)
2000 Mar 17, Smith and Wesson
signed an unprecedented agreement with the Clinton administration to,
among other things, include safety locks with all of its handguns to
make them more childproof; in return, the agreement called for federal,
state and city lawsuits against the gun maker to be dropped.
(AP, 3/17/01)
2000 Mar 17, Boeing Co. agreed to
settle a 38-day strike by its engineers. It was the largest
white-collar walkout in US history.
(SFC, 3/18/00, p.A2)
2000 Mar 17, Ford Motor Co.
acquired Land Rover from BMW.
(WSJ, 3/17/00, p.A1)
2000 Mar 17, A bankruptcy plan for
Iridium Corp. was approved. Its satellites would be allowed to burn up
in the atmosphere.
(WSJ, 3/17/00, p.B8)
2000 Mar 17, Denmark informed the
18 Faeroe Islands that they would have to give up subsidies in 4 years
if they wanted independence.
(SFC, 3/18/00, p.C1)
2000 Mar 17, In Dominica it was
reported that Elizabeth Israel, the daughter of a freed slave, was
living at age 125.
(SFC, 3/17/00, p.A14)
2000 Mar 17, Old East German Stasi
files revealed that radioactive material was used to mark opponents,
their papers and money. East German dissident writer Rudolf Bahro, who
died of Leukemia, may have been a victim.
(SFC, 3/18/00, p.C16)
2000 Mar 17, Lebanon granted
asylum to Kozo Okamoto, one of the terrorists in the May 30, 1972
massacre at an Israeli airport. 4 other Japanese Red Army members were
deported to Japan.
(SFC, 3/18/00, p.A3)
2000 Mar 17, In Uganda 330
followers of the Movement for the Restoration of Ten Commandments of
God, led by Joseph Kibweteree, burned to death in a mass suicide in
Kanungu. Children were involved and it was not clear if Kibweteree was
killed. More bodies were found at the house of Kibweteree. Foul play
was later suspected instead of suicide. 448 other victims were later
found.
(SFEC, 3/19/00, p.A19)(SFC, 3/20/00, p.A13)(SFC,
3/24/00, p.A18)(SFC, 7/15/00, p.A13)
2001 Mar 17, Ray Rice, one of the
founders of the Art and Architecture movement, died at age 85 in
Mendocino. His work include 40 short films.
(SFC, 4/9/01, p.A17)(http://tinyurl.com/23geum)
2001 Mar 17, In Angola a small
plane crashed into a mountain near Lubango and all but one of 17 people
on board were killed.
(SSFC, 3/18/01, p.S2)
2001 Mar 17, Colombia suspended
meat and livestock imports from Argentina for 60 days due to fears of
foot-and-mouth disease. Only Israel and Russia still imported Argentine
meat.
(SFC, 3/19/01, p.A9)
2001 Mar 17, In Italy protesters
demonstrated at the third Global Forum in Naples. They clashed with
police and 50 officers and 70 protesters suffered minor injuries.
(SSFC, 3/18/01, p.D4)
2001 Mar 17, OPEC decided to
curtail its official output by 4 percent, or 1 million barrels of oil a
day, in an effort to halt a recent slide in oil prices, a decision the
Bush administration called “disappointing.”
(SSFC, 3/18/01, p.D1)(AP, 3/17/02)
2001 Mar 17, In Spain Santos
Santamaria Avedano (32), a police officer, was killed when a car bomb
went off as he evacuated guests from a hotel in Roses.
(SFC, 3/19/01, p.A9)
2002 Mar 17, After nearly a year's
run, Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick left the Broadway hit musical
"The Producers." They later returned for a limited engagement.
(AP, 3/17/07)
2002 Mar 17, US troops killed 16
al Qaeda fighters in the Gardez region.
(WSJ, 3/19/02, p.A1)
2002 Mar 17, It was reported that
McDonald’s Corp. had agreed to give 410 million to vegetarian groups,
Hindu and Sikh organizations and to pay $4,000 to 12 plaintiffs to
settle a suit over the use of beef tallow in french fries.
(SSFC, 3/17/02, p.A22)
2002 Mar 17, Israeli and
Palestinian officials met to prepare for a cease-fire following
meetings with US envoy Adm. Zinni. A Palestinian gunman opened fire in
Kfar Saba. He killed an Israeli high school student (18) and was shot
dead. A suicide bomber detonated himself in Jerusalem.
(SSFC, 3/17/02, p.A1)(SFC, 3/18/02, p.A3)
2002 Mar 17, In Karadzigach,
Kyrgyzstan, 4 people were killed during a protest over the sentencing
of lawmaker Azimbek Beknazarov.
(SFC, 3/19/02, p.A7)
2002 Mar 17, In Islamabad,
Pakistan, 2 attackers hurled grenades into a Protestant Int’l. Church
and 5 people were killed including a US Embassy employee, Barbara
Green, and her daughter Kristen Wormsley (17). Investigators later
believed that the attack was by a lone suicide bomber, one of the dead.
(SFC, 3/18/02, p.A1)(SFC, 3/19/02, p.A10)
2002 Mar 17, In Portugal the
Social Democrats won elections with 40% of the vote to 37.85% for the
Socialists. The SD gained 102 seats and the Popular Party won 14 giving
them a majority in the 230-seat parliament. Jose Manuel Durao Barroso
became prime minister.
(SFC, 3/18/02, p.A5)(Econ, 3/27/04, p.51)
2003 Mar 17, Pres. Bush gave
Saddam Hussein 48 hours to go into exile or face military onslaught.
(SFC, 3/19/03, p.A1)
2003 Mar 17, Berlin Plus
agreement, a short title for a comprehensive package of agreements
between NATO and EU, was based on conclusions of the NATO
Washington Summit.
(www.nato.int/shape/news/2003/shape_eu/se030822a.htm)(Econ, 2/10/07,
p.54)
2003 Mar 17, In Washington, D.C.,
tobacco farmer Dwight Ware Watson, claiming to be carrying bombs, drove
a tractor and trailer into a pond on the National Mall; the threat
disrupted traffic for two days until Watson surrendered; there were no
bombs.
(AP, 3/17/04)
2003 Mar 17, Herbert Aptheker
(87), historian, died. His work included a multi-volume "Documentary
History of the Negro People," and the editing of 3 volumes of letters
from W.E.B. DuBois.
(SFC, 3/21/03, p.A21)
2003 Mar 17, Pen Hadow, 41, began
a 478-mile trek from Ward Hunt Island in northern Canada to the
geographic North Pole. He reached the Pole unsupported on May 19, but a
plane has been unable to retrieve him because of broken ice and thick
clouds.
(AP, 5/27/03)
2003 Mar 17, Chinese police found
28 baby girls hidden in suitcases aboard a long-distance bus in
southern Guangxi, apparently being smuggled for sale. Police later
arrested 10 people involved in the scheme.
(AP, 3/22/03)(WSJ, 3/24/03, p.A1)
2003 Mar 17, In Soro, Denmark,
Nizar Al-Khazraji (65), former Iraqi general, disappeared.
(WSJ, 4/9/03, p.A1)(SFC, 4/16/03, p.A11)
2003 Mar 17, Iraq rejected Bush's
ultimatum, saying that a U.S. attack to force Saddam from power would
be "a grave mistake."
(AP, 3/17/04)
2003 Mar 17, Israeli forces
invaded 2 communities in the Gaza Strip and gun battles left 10
Palestinians dead including a 4-yer-old girl.
(SFC, 3/18/03, p.AA6)
2003 Mar 17, In the Netherlands a
law went into effect that allowed pharmacies to fill prescriptions for
marijuana.
(SFC, 3/18/03, p.A8)
2003 Mar 17, In Nigeria ethnic
clashes left 8 people dead, including an employee of ChevronTexaco.
(AP, 3/18/03)
2003 Mar 17-May 25, Iraq was
scheduled to take over as chairman of the UN disarmament organization,
but declined the position.
(SSFC, 2/9/03, p.A16)
2004 Mar 17, Charles A. McCoy Jr.,
suspected in a series of highway shootings in central Ohio, was
arrested in Las Vegas.
(AP, 3/17/05)
2004 Mar 17, Major league Baseball
banned THG, a steroid at the center of a criminal probe involving a
SF-area lab.
(WSJ, 3/18/04, p.A1)
2004 Mar 17, Harvard researchers
reported that an enzyme in the brain appears to regulate appetite and
weight.
(WSJ, 3/18/04, p.A1)
2004 Mar 17, John "J.J." Jackson
(62), former MTV personality, died in Los Angeles.
(AP, 3/17/05)
2004 Mar 17, Angola decided to
reject genetically modified food aid. The decision threatened to
disrupt distributions to hundreds of thousands of people.
(AP, 3/29/04)
2004 Mar 17, It was reported that
locusts have swarmed through the Australian Outback, devastating crops
just as farmers had begun recovering from a two-year drought.
(AP, 3/17/04)
2004 Mar 17, In Iraq a car bomb
tore apart the five-story Mount Lebanon Hotel in central Baghdad,
killing 7 people. In northeastern Iraq gunmen opened fire on a minibus,
killing three Iraqi journalists and wounding nine other employees of a
coalition-funded TV station. Insurgents killed two U.S. Marines who
were on patrol in al-Anbar province. In Mosul 4 US Baptist missionaries
were killed in a drive-by shooting.
(AP, 3/18/04)(SFC, 3/18/04, p.A1)(AP, 3/19/04)(WSJ,
4/1/04, p.A10)
2004 Mar 17, Israeli helicopters
fired two missiles into a crowd of suspected gunmen in a Palestinian
refugee camp, killing four people in a stepped-up campaign to root out
militants in the Gaza Strip. 2 teenage boys were killed in an air
strike at the Rafah refugee camp.
(AP, 3/17/04)(SFC, 3/18/04, p.A2)
2004 Mar 17, Israel's Supreme
Court imposed an open-ended freeze on construction of a 15-mile section
of the country's controversial West Bank separation barrier.
(AP, 3/18/04)
2004 Mar 17, The Maldives ferry
Enamaa was carrying far more than its capacity of up to 100 when a wave
overturned it. At least 18 people were killed. More than 50 others were
missing.
(AP, 3/18/04)
2004 Mar 17, In Kosovo ethnic
Albanians traded gunfire with Serbs after blaming them for the
drownings of two boys. The clashes left eight dead and more than 300
injured.
(AP, 3/17/04)
2005 Mar 17, US Congressional
hearings began on steroid use among baseball players. Baseball players
told Congress that steroids were a problem in the sport; stars Rafael
Palmeiro and Sammy Sosa testified they hadn't used them while Mark
McGwire refused to say whether he had.
(SFC, 3/18/05, p.A1)(AP, 3/17/06)
2005 Mar 17, Rapper Lil' Kim was
convicted of lying to a grand jury about a shootout outside a New York
radio station. Lil' Kim started serving her 366-day sentence just
before her fourth album was released in September 2005.
(AP, 3/17/06)
2005 Mar 17, Toys R Us agreed to
become a privately owned company in a $6.6 billion buyout deal that
included 2 equity firms and a real estate developer.
(SFC, 3/18/05, p.C1)
2005 Mar 17, George F. Kennan
(b.1904), former US diplomat and historian, died. In 1947 Kennan wrote
an article that would guide US postwar policy (containment) for
decades. He proposed in the piece signed "X" that the US stop the
global spread of Communism through ideology and politics, not war. His
books included "Russia Leaves the War" (1956). In 2007 John Lukacs
authored “George Kennan: A Study of Character.”
(AP, 3/18/05)(SFC, 3/18/05, p.A2)(Econ, 3/26/05,
p.85)(SSFC, 4/8/07, p.M3)
2005 Mar 17, In Afghanistan a bomb
exploded near a taxi carrying women and children in the southern city
of Kandahar, killing at least five people and wounding.
(AP, 3/17/05)
2005 Mar 17, President Fidel
Castro announced a 7 percent revaluation of Cuba's national currency,
giving Cubans slightly more buying power as the communist-run island
moves to reassert greater control over its economy.
(AP, 3/17/05)
2005 Mar 17, Italian airline
Alitalia SpA said that the latest strike by flight attendants could
plunge the struggling carrier into bankruptcy.
(AP, 3/17/05)
2005 Mar 17, In Pakistan’s
Baluchistan province 17 minority Hindus were killed when their temple
was hit by rockets during fighting between renegade tribesmen and
security forces in Dera Bugti. Officials later said up to 45 people,
including eight soldiers, were killed in the clashes between the
Frontier Corps troops and Bugti tribesmen. Of the 67 people killed
about half died when the ghetto was shelled by government forces.
(AP, 3/21/05)(Econ, 5/7/05, p.37)
2005 Mar 17, Palestinian militants
declared a halt to attacks on Israel for the rest of this year, their
longest cease-fire promise ever and a victory for Palestinian leader
Mahmoud Abbas.
(AP, 3/17/05)
2005 Mar 17, Anatoly Chubais, head
of Russia’s state-controlled Unified Energy Systems power grid, was
ambushed on his way to work near his country home outside Moscow by
assailants who detonated a bomb and raked his armored car with
automatic weapons fire. No one was hurt. In September prosecutors
indicted 3 former servicemen in connection with the attempted
assassination. Formal charges were filed against retired military
intelligence colonel, Vladimir Kvachkov, and former paratroopers Robert
Yashin and Alexander Naidyonov.
(AP, 9/27/05)
2005 Mar 17, Stephane Lambiel of
Switzerland won the men's title at the World Figure Skating
Championships in Moscow.
(AP, 3/17/06)
2005 Mar 17, Zimbabwe's highest
court barred 3.4 million citizens living abroad, over 20 percent of the
country's population, from voting in this month's parliamentary
elections.
(AP, 3/18/05)
2006 Mar 17, A US federal appeals
court blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from easing clean air
rules on aging power plants, refineries and factories, one of the
regulatory changes that had been among the top environmental priorities
of the White House.
(AP, 3/18/06)
2006 Mar 17, US Federal regulators
reported the deaths of two more women who had taken the abortion pill
RU-486; Planned Parenthood, which had provided the pills to the women,
said it would immediately stop disregarding the approved instructions
for the drug's use.
(AP, 3/17/07)
2006 Mar 17, The new Kavli
Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology opened in Menlo Park,
Ca., as part of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Researchers
there planned to focus on investigations on the dark matter and dark
energy components of the universe.
(SFC, 3/18/06, p.B4)
2006 Mar 17, Oleg Cassini (92),
who designed the dresses that helped make Jacqueline Kennedy the most
glamorous first lady in history, died on Long Island, NY.
(AP, 3/18/06)
2006 Mar 17, Former US Federal
Reserve Chairman and former treasury secretary G. William Miller died
at age 81.
(AP, 3/17/07)
2006 Mar 17, In Vienna, Austria,
ethnic Albanian and Serbian officials laid out their demands at
UN-mediated talks on the future of Kosovo, one of the most intractable
disputes left over from the disintegration of Yugoslavia.
(AP, 3/17/06)
2006 Mar 17, In southern
Afghanistan a roadside bomb hit a convoy carrying the bodies of four
men believed to be kidnapped Macedonians, a day after the remains were
recovered. Five police were killed and three wounded.
(AP, 3/17/06)
2006 Mar 17, Bangladesh confirmed
the country's first case of polio in nearly six years, prompting plans
to resume mass vaccinations against the crippling disease next month.
(AP, 3/17/06)
2006 Mar 17, Britain’s PM Tony
Blair's Labour Party revealed it had received 24.5 million dollars in
loans from individual supporters as a furor over the party's secret
funding deepened.
(AP, 3/17/06)(Econ, 3/25/06, p.65)
2006 Mar 17, Mohammed Ajmal Khan
(31), a British man who bought equipment which might have been used in
attacks on coalition troops in Afghanistan, was jailed after he
admitted being a "terrorist quartermaster." He had been trying to buy
night vision and thermal imaging equipment when arrested in 2003 and
also worked closely with Masaud Khan and Seifullah Chapman, both given
long jail terms in the US in 2004 for terrorism-related offences.
(AP, 3/17/06)
2006 Mar 17, Statistics Canada
reported that the nation's net worth hit $4.5 trillion, or $137,000 a
head, at the end of 2005.
(AP, 3/17/06)
2006 Mar 17, A Chinese court
dropped charges against a Chinese researcher for The New York Times who
was accused of leaking state secrets, about a month ahead of a visit by
Chinese President Hu Jintao to Washington. Zhao Yan, who worked for the
Times' Beijing bureau, was detained in September 2004.
(AP, 3/17/06)
2006 Mar 17, A Chinese court
jailed teacher Ren Ziyuan (27) for 10 years for publishing
anti-government views on the Internet, continuing an official crackdown
on Web-based dissidents.
(AP, 3/17/06)
2006 Mar 17, Yuan Baojing, a
Chinese tycoon once worth more than $360 million, and two accomplices
were executed by lethal injection. Yuan (40) was convicted last year of
hiring a hit man in a failed plot to kill a business partner who had
caused Yuan's company to lose $11 million in futures trading.
(AP, 3/18/06)
2006 Mar 17, Thomas Lubanga Dyilo,
a Congolese militia leader accused of conscripting and enlisting
children aged under 15 for warfare (1998-2002), became the first
suspect sent for trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the
Netherlands.
(Reuters, 3/17/06)(WSJ, 3/18/06, p.A1)
2006 Mar 17, Nearly 1,000 Egyptian
judges held a half-hour silent protest to demonstrate for full judicial
independence and against the government's order to interrogate six of
their colleagues who criticized recent elections.
(AP, 3/17/06)
2006 Mar 17, Indian PM Manmohan
Singh thanked Russia for its decision to supply uranium to two
fuel-starved Indian nuclear reactors, during a visit to New Delhi by
Russian Premier Mikhail Fradkov.
(AFP, 3/17/06)
2006 Mar 17, Some 93 whales began
beaching themselves in Indonesia's Central Sulawesi province. About 50
died as local villagers dragged at least 40 back to the open sea.
(AFP, 3/19/06)
2006 Mar 17, Akbar Ganji (46), an
Iranian dissident journalist, was freed after spending most of his
six-year prison term in solitary confinement. He vowed to keep
criticizing the hard-line clerical regime. Ganji was jailed in 2000
after reporting on the killings of five dissidents by Intelligence
Ministry agents.
(AP, 3/18/06)
2006 Mar 17, In Iraq the Muslim
pilgrims' road to the holy city of Karbala was a highway of bullets and
bombs for Shiites. Drive-by shootings and roadside and bus bombs killed
or wounded 19 people.
(AP, 3/17/06)
2006 Mar 17, Israel set up a
quarantine and destroyed flocks after bird flu was found at 2 turkey
farms.
(WSJ, 3/18/06, p.A1)
2006 Mar 17, Officials in Japan
said they have confirmed the country's first case of mad cow disease in
cattle raised to provide meat.
(AP, 3/17/06)
2006 Mar 17, Liberia said it has
asked Nigeria to hand over former Pres. Charles Taylor, who is living
there in exile and wanted on war crimes charges for his role in Sierra
Leone's civil war.
(AP, 3/17/06)
2006 Mar 17, A bus carrying dozens
of teenagers on a school field trip toppled off a bridge on the
outskirts of Mexico's capital, killing 7 people and injuring at least
28.
(AP, 3/18/06)
2006 Mar 17, A helicopter
evacuated the five conservation workers from Raoul Island, a nature
reserve in New Zealand's remote Kermadec Islands. An erupting volcano
forced the conservation team to abandon a missing colleague on the
South Pacific island. The last known eruption on Raoul Island, about
625 miles northeast of the New Zealand city of Auckland, was on Nov.
21, 1964, from a vent close to Green Lake.
(AP, 3/17/06)
2006 Mar 17, Exiled Syrian
opposition figures in Belgium formed a united front, calling for a
transitional government to prepare for the overthrow of President
Bashar Assad's regime.
(AP, 3/17/06)
2006 Mar 17, In Uruguay 7
residents of Young were killed when they were run over by a train they
were pushing as part of a reality television show aimed at raising
funds for a local hospital.
(AP, 3/17/06)
2007 Mar 17, An estimated 10-20
thousand protesters marched in Washington DC marking the 4th
anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq and demanding an end to the war
there.
(SSFC, 3/18/07, p.A10)
2007 Mar 17, John Backus (b.1924),
programmer, died in Oregon. His development of the Fortran programming
language in the 1950s changed how people interacted with computers and
paved the way for modern software. Fortran, short for Formula
Translation, reduced the number of programming statements necessary to
operate a machine by a factor of 20. The Association for Computing
Machinery gave Backus its 1977 Turing Award, one of the industry's
highest accolades. Backus also won a National Medal of Science in 1975
and got the 1993 Charles Stark Draper Prize, the top honor from the
National Academy of Engineering.
(AP, 3/20/07)
2007 Mar 17, In southern
Afghanistan a suicide bomber targeting a Canadian military convoy
killed a child and wounded a NATO soldier and three other people. More
than 1,400 artifacts, protected from looters and the Taliban since 1999
at a museum-in-exile in Switzerland, were returned to the National
Museum of Afghanistan. In western Afghanistan a two-hour clash between
suspected Taliban militants and police left two officers dead. Taliban
guerrillas chopped noses and ears of at least five truck drivers in
eastern Afghanistan as punishment for transporting supplies to US-led
troops.
(AP, 3/17/07)(AP, 3/18/07)(Reuters, 3/18/07)
2007 Mar 17, China's central bank
said it will raise key interest rates by more than a quarter point to
control a surge in bank lending and investment and to prevent consumer
prices from rising. The 0.27% point hike in one-year deposit and
lending benchmark rates will go into effect Mar 18. This was the 3rd
rate hike in a year.
(SSFC, 3/18/07, p.A18)(AP, 3/19/07)
2007 Mar 17, Two cargo ships
collided in the East China Sea, killing at least eight people. The
collision occurred off Zhejiang province between a cargo ship from
China and a Hong Kong-registered vessel. The Hong Kong ship, with 29
crew aboard, sank immediately.
(AP, 3/19/07)
2007 Mar 17, In France tens of
thousands of people filled the streets of five cities to protest plans
to build the next generation of nuclear reactors.
(AP, 3/17/07)
2007 Mar 17, Officials in
Guatemala City said China is seeking to join the Inter-American
Development Bank, Latin America's largest financing institution, as a
way to fuel its economic development and increase its influence in the
region.
(AP, 3/18/07)
2007 Mar 17, India’s West Bengal
state government said it is dropping plans for an industrial zone after
deadly riots by farmers furious that their land was being taken for the
project.
(AP, 3/17/07)
2007 Mar 17, In Iraq bombings and
shootings targeted police patrols, killing five policemen, including
two who died after a suicide car bomber struck the checkpoint they were
manning near a Sunni mosque in western Baghdad. 7 US troops were
killed, including four by a roadside bomb while patrolling western
Baghdad.
(AP, 3/17/07)(AP, 3/18/07)
2007 Mar 17, Lithuanian musicians,
drum-beating Punjabis and West African dancers used Dublin's St.
Patrick's Day parade to celebrate their place in a booming Ireland that
has become a land of immigrants.
(AP, 3/17/07)
2007 Mar 17, The Arenitas waste
water treatment plant, that Mexican officials say will help prevent
pollution of US waterways, was inaugurated in the city of Mexicali,
across the border from Calexico, Calif.
(AP, 3/18/07)
2007 Mar 17, In Nigeria retired
general Adetunji Olurin, who runs Ekiti State, warned he could invoke
State of Emergency Laws against politicians bent on causing violence as
April general elections draw near. Newspapers next day reported that he
threatened to have troublemakers shot on sight to curb political
violence. In central Nigeria 2 Asians and one Nigerian were kidnapped.
(AFP, 3/18/07)(AP, 3/19/07)
2007 Mar 17, North Korea warned it
would not shut a nuclear plant until the United States lifted banking
curbs, while Washington's envoy maintained the bank issue would not
kill a budding disarmament deal.
(Reuters, 3/17/07)
2007 Mar 17, Authorities eased
restrictions on Pakistan's chief justice and sacked 15 police for
attacking a private news channel that had criticized the government's
handling of the judge's dismissal.
(AP, 3/17/07)
2007 Mar 17, The new Hamas-Fatah
coalition won overwhelming parliamentary approval, clearing a final
formal hurdle before taking on the challenge of persuading a skeptical
world to end a crippling yearlong boycott of the Palestinian
government. Fatah counted 6 ministers, Hamas had 12, and 7 more went to
independents and small, centrist parties.
(AP, 3/16/07)(Econ, 3/24/07, p.51)
2007 Mar 17, A Russian Tu-134
airliner crash landed in heavy fog in the central Russian city of
Samara, killing 6 people and injuring 26.
(AP, 3/17/07)
2007 Mar 17, In Spain film
director Pedro Almodovar joined tens of thousands of people in a march
through Madrid to protest the war in Iraq and to demand the closure of
the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay.
(AP, 3/17/07)
2007 Mar 17, In southern Thailand
attackers hurled explosives and opened fire on an Islamic school,
killing three students and sparking a riot by angry Muslim villagers.
Shortly after the attack, three Buddhists were shot dead in the same
district.
(AP, 3/18/07)
2007 Mar 17, Half of Uganda’s 28
million population was reported to be under age 15.
(Econ, 3/17/07, p.50)
2007 Mar 17, Three Zimbabwean
opposition activists were arrested as they tried to leave the country,
including two who were allegedly beaten by police and were going to
South Africa to seek medical treatment. The African Union (AU)
expressed "great concern" about Zimbabwe's crisis and called for human
rights to be respected, after opposition members said they were beaten
after an anti-government protest.
(AP, 3/17/07)
2008 Mar 17, The US administration
signed deals with Hungary, Lithuania and Slovakia paving the way for
visa-free travel for their citizens despite concerns in Brussels over
the bilateral agreements.
(AFP, 3/17/08)
2008 Mar 17, In New York David
Paterson was sworn in almost exactly a week after allegations first
surfaced that former Gov. Eliot Spitzer was "Client 9" of a high-priced
call girl service. Paterson tried to come clean about his own skeletons
just hours after assuming office by acknowledging a years-old affair.
(AP, 3/18/08)
2008 Mar 17, Hannaford Bros., a
grocery store chain in the Northeast US and Florida owned by Belgium’s
Delhaize Group SA, disclosed that as many as 4.2 million customer
account numbers had been stolen between Dec 7 and Mar 10. The intrusion
was not discovered until Feb 27 and occurred over a network system that
experts had believed to be secure.
(WSJ, 3/31/08, p.B4)
2008 Mar 17, The commodities
markets staged a broad sell off after climbing for months. Most
commodities recovered the next day.
(Econ, 3/22/08, p.85)
2008 Mar 17, The first
carbon-linked derivatives contracts began trading on the Green
Exchange, a joint venture between the NY Mercantile Exchange, Evolution
Markets and Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and others.
(Econ, 3/15/08, p.91)
2008 Mar 17, Roland Arnall
(b.1939), founder of Ameriquest Mortgage Co., died. He was also the
co-founder of the Holocaust memorial Simon Wiesenthal Center. In 2006
he began serving as US ambassador to the Netherlands.
(WSJ, 3/22/08,
p.A7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Arnall)
2008 Mar 17, in Afghanistan 4 NATO
soldiers, 2 Danes, a Canadian and a Czech with the International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF), were killed in new attacks, including
a Taliban suicide bomb that also took the lives of three Afghan
civilians.
(AP, 3/17/08)
2008 Mar 17, A judge awarded
Heather Mills a total of $48.6 million in the financial settlement of
her divorce from former Beatle Paul McCartney. This was a fifth of what
she had demanded.
(AP, 3/17/08)(Econ, 3/22/08, p.65)
2008 Mar 17, An EU force of 3,700
troops still deploying in Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR)
announced the official start of its year-long mission to protect
refugees and displaced people. The EU force in Chad was known as EUFOR,
and the UN Mission there and the CAR was called MINURCAT.
(AFP, 3/17/08)(Econ, 5/31/08, p.52)
2008 Mar 17, China denounced
attacks on its embassies by pro-Tibetan activists hours before a
deadline for rioters in Lhasa to turn themselves in and said it would
do all in its power to protect its territorial integrity.
(Reuters, 3/17/08)
2008 Mar 17, In India 7 migrant
workers believed to be from northern Uttar Pradesh state were shot and
killed on the outskirts of Impala, the capital of Manipur state.
(AP, 3/18/08)
2008 Mar 17, Indonesia and South
Africa agreed to reduce obstacles to trade and business and jointly
explore new avenues for electricity generation.
(AFP, 3/17/08)
2008 Mar 17, In Iraq police said
they found the bodies of three members of a US-allied group fighting
al-Qaida in Udaim. Sen. John McCain stressed the importance of a US
commitment to Iraq during talks with Iraq's prime minister. Explosions
struck Baghdad during twin visits by the presumptive Republican
presidential nominee and Vice President Dick Cheney. A female suicide
bomber struck Shiite worshippers in Karbala, killing at least 32 people
with 51 wounded. The blast was the deadliest in a series of attacks
that left at least 78 Iraqis dead.
(AP, 3/17/08)(AP, 3/18/08)(AP, 3/19/08)
2008 Mar 17, The Mozambican
government made an urgent appeal to the UN World Food Program to help
more than 60,000 people left destitute when cyclone Jokwe hit northern
and central parts of the country.
(AFP, 3/17/08)
2008 Mar 17, UN forces pulling
Serb demonstrators from a UN courthouse were attacked by hundreds of
furious protesters who massed outside, setting off an hours-long battle
with rocks, grenades and live ammunition. One UN policeman was killed.
(AP, 3/17/08)(WSJ, 3/19/08, p.A1)
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