This Day Trivia - March 17th

Holidays

St. Patrick's Day Celebrates the life of Saint Patrick who died on this date (Various sources give the year as AD 460, 461, or 493). St. Patrick's color was originally blue, but over the years has changed to green to commemorate his use of the shamrock to explain the Trinity to pagans.

Events

2003 Iraq War Pres. George W. Bush gives Saddam Hussein and his two sons 48 hours to leave Iraq, or face war.

1989 Oldest known mummy is discovered. It was buried about 2600 B.C., Egypt.

1968 The Bee Gees The British rock group makes their American TV debut on The Ed Sullivan Show, singing To Love Somebody and Words.

1950 Californium The heaviest of the elements is discovered.

1942 World War II -"I shall return": General Douglas MacArthur makes his famous declaration after leaving the Philippines.

1876 Alexander Graham Bell receives a patent for his telephone.

1871 First significant baseball league The National Association of Base-Ball Players is formed in New York City.

Births

1964 Rob Lowe American actor. Film: St. Elmo's Fire and About Last Night. He also made headlines by starring in a home pornographic video.

1954 Lesley-Anne Down English actress. TV: Dallas (Stephanie Rogers).

1951 Kurt Russell American actor. Film: The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969), The Barefoot Executive (1970), Escape From New York (1981), and Backdraft (1991).

1949 Patrick Duffy American actor. TV: Man From Atlantis (title role) and Dallas (Bobby Ewing).

1948 George Stallings, Jr American ex-catholic priest. He formed the African American Catholic Congregation (c1989), and is one of the leading proponents of the theory that Jesus Christ was a black man.

1942 John Wayne Gacy, Jr d. 1994 American serial killer, aka "Killer Clown." He was confessed to raping and killing 33 young men and boys between 1972 and 1978 - more than any other person in U.S. history at that time. He buried 28 of his victims in the crawl space under his house. He was executed in 1994.

1938 Rudolf Nureyev d. 1993 Russian ballet dancer. He defected to the West in 1961, and became the Paris Opera ballet director (1983-89). He died of AIDS.

1919 Nat King Cole d. 1965 (Nathaniel Adams Coles), American jazz singer. Music: Unforgettable (1951) and Stardust (1957).

1918 Mercedes McCambridge American Oscar-winning actress. Film: All the King's Men (1949, Oscar), Giant (1956), and The Exorcist (1973, voice of the demon-child).

1908 Brigitte Helm d. 1996 (Gisele Eva Schittenhelm), German actress. Film: Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1926, the female robot Robotrix).

1900 Shemp Howard d. 1955 (Samuel Howard), American comic actor, one of the original 3-Stooges.

1849 Charles Francis Brush d. 1929 American electrician, inventor of the arc light.

1834 Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler d. 1900 German inventor. He developed the first high speed internal combustion engine (1883) and invented the motorboat (1883) and the motorcycle (1885).

1473 James IV d. 1513 King of Scotland (1488-1513), outlawed golf (1491), although he later became a golfer himself.

Deaths

2006 Oleg Cassini b. 1913 French-born fashion and costume designer. He was the official couturier to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

1993 Helen Hayes b. 1900 American Oscar-Tony-Emmy-winning actress. Film: Victoria Regina (1935), Airport (1970, Oscar), and Herbie Rides Again (1974).

1992 Gracie Lantz b. 1903 (Grace Stafford), American actress, wife of Walter Lantz. She provided the voice for her husband's famous creation Woody Woodpecker.

1961 Susanna Madora Salter b. 1860 first U.S. woman mayor (1887, Argonia, Kansas). Nominated as a prank, she didn't find out she was running until the morning of the election. She received two-thirds of the vote.

1956 Fred Allen b. 1894 (John Florence Sullivan), American radio and TV comedian.

1945 Bobby Hutchins b. 1925 (Robert E. Hutchins), American actor, Wheezer of The Little Rascals, he appeared in 58 Our Gang films.

1935 John James Rickard MacLeod b. 1876 Scottish physiologist. He shared a Nobel Prize for the discovery of insulin (1921), although his primary role was only to provide the lab in which the work was done.

1917 Alonzo "Lonnie" Clayton b. 1876 American horse racer, the youngest jockey to win the Kentucky Derby (1892 at 15 years old).

1853 Christian Johann Doppler b. 1803 Austrian physicist. He discovered the "Doppler effect" (1842, The frequency of a wave is relative to the motion between its source and observer).

1846 Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel b. 1784 German astronomer. He was the first to measure the distance to a star other than the Sun (1838, 61 Cygni at 11.4 light years).