On March 17, 461 A.D., St. Patrick (full name unknown) dies in Ireland. Most of what is known about his life comes from his own writings. Probably born in Scotland, he was captured by Irish marauders as a teen and enslaved for several years, turning to religion for comfort during his captivity. He escaped and reunited with his family, also entering the priesthood. A voice in a dream led him to return to Ireland, where he converted thousands to the Catholic faith and eventually was made bishop of the nation. Legend has it he drove all the snakes from Ireland, and in teaching, used the shamrock to illustrate the Holy Trinity. The Irish have celebrated St. Patrick's Day as a religious holiday for more than a millennium; homesick immigrants created the secular celebrations we know in America in the 1700's, and the government of Ireland began marketing St. Patty's Day as a means to drive tourism in 1995.


On March 17, 1776, British troops evacuate the city of Boston, ending their 8-year occupation. On orders of General George Washington, colonial troops had encircled the city over the previous two weeks, aided by bad weather that hindered British efforts to break up the operation. The bloodless liberation of the city earns Washington his first decoration from the Continental Congress. (Washington posed for this painting in his general's uniform in 1776)


On March 17, 2000, Erin Brockovich has its debut. The film is based on the true story of an untrained legal aide who was instrumental in bringing a class action lawsuit against Pacific Gas and Electric on behalf of the residents of Hinckley, CA, many of whom had become ill from the company's contamination of the groundwater. Erin Brockovich wins Julia Roberts an Oscar for Best Actress, but is more significant in that it brings Roberts into what has exclusively been a Hollywood men's-only club; Roberts is paid $20 million for her appearance in the movie. A-list male leads had been commanding $20 million for some time, and Roberts' agent argued - with 5 $100 million grossing films already to her credit - that she was on the same level of box office demand.
Erin Brockovich: Double Surprise HD CLIP - YouTube

On March 18, 1766, Parliament throws its colonies in the New World a bone, and then smacks them on the ass. The bone is repeal of the Stamp Act, passed almost exactly one year earlier. The Stamp Act required colonists to buy a British stamp (below, the French phrase around the crown reads ""shame to him who thinks evil of it"). to be affixed to any official document. Passed without any colonial say-so in the matter (taxation without representation), the stamps arrived in the colonies in October and the colonists immediately launched protests and boycotts of British goods. Parliament bowed to the pressure, but on the same day it repealed the Stamp Act (here's the smack), it passed the Declarative Acts, which asserted free and total British legislative authority over the colonies.


On March 18, 1937, a gas explosion at the Consolidated School of New London, Texas, kills nearly 300 students. Built just a few years earlier in the middle of an oil field (there were 11 derricks on school property), the school was built to be powered by natural gas from a local gas firm. But eventually, a nearby oil company convinced school officials to switch to their "wet gas", a refining byproduct that is less stable than natural gas (this was not uncommon at the time). Modern researchers believe static electricity set off the explosion, which killed nearly half of the student body. Today, refineries must burn off wet gas at the site.


On March 18, 1852 in NYC, Wells-Fargo opens for business. Seeking to jump in on the cross-country shipping business that had suddenly boomed with the California Gold Rush, Henry Wells, William Fargo and other investors launched their company, shipping their first load of freight west the following July. In 1857, Wells, Fargo and Co. expanded into more common mail delivery and a passenger service. Using stage coaches, horse and rider (at an extra charge), and rail once the Transcontinental Railroad was complete, the company was soon the nation's most trusted delivery service. Late in the century, Wells-Fargo expanded into banking, and that enterprise broke off on its own in 1905. Nationalization of the railroads during WWI effectively put the company's delivery service out of business, but the banking side flourished. Today, Wells Fargo Bank remains one of the nation's largest banking institutions. (below....I can't resist)
05_Wells Fargo Wagon - YouTube

On March 21, 1963, the Federal Bureau of Prisons officially closes its maximum security facility on Alcatraz Island, San Francisco. Opened in 1934, Alcatraz housed about 200 prisoners at its peak. The 12-acre island was purchased in 1849 by the federal government for the posting of a lighthouse. It was the base for a fort during the civil war and later a military prison before being converted to a maximum security prison. Its natural location combined with the advanced security measures installed made it nearly escape-proof; the 1962 attempt by Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers remains an open case as proof of their fates has never been established. Alcatraz is now open for public tours.


On March 21, 1804, French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte enacts a new legal code for France, the "Napoleonic Code." The product of about 80 debates by a special commission over four years (Napoleon presided over about half of the sessions himself), the Code gave men more legal authority over their families while stripping women of any individual rights at all. It permitted religious freedom but also permitted slavery in colonial territories. Although greatly amended over two centuries, the Napoleonic Code remains the basis of French law (and still influences Louisiana state law), and was also copied by many European nations.


On March 21, 1871, New York Herald reporter Henry Morton Stanley departs from Zanzibar in modern day Tanzania in search of Dr. David Livingstone. The English physician had entered the African continent in 1865 on what was supposed to be a 2-year expedition to find the source of the Nile River, and also to advocate for the abolition of the slave trade. Little had been heard from him since. With an expedition of 2,000 at his command, Stanley endured dysentery, malaria and smallpox before stumbling into the village of Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika in October. Spotting a bearded white man among the villagers, Stanley famously stepped forward with hand extended and said, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" Livingstone refused to leave Africa; he died 18 months later and his body is buried in Westminster Abbey. Stanley vowed to continue Livingstone's mission, but he ended up an ally to Belgian king Leopold II, helping to establish Belgium's colony in the Congo and continue the slave trade. (left: Stanley, right: Livingstone)

On March 22, 1893, the Stanley Cup is awarded to the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association for winning the Amateur Hockey Association championship. The Cup was commissioned by Lord Frederick Arthur Stanley, a minster of Canadian Parliament and avid hockey fan since its introduction in 1875. Stanley envisioned the trophy (originally called the Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup) being awarded to the winner of some type of annual challenge series or tournament, and an amateur tournament was created specifically for the Cup until 1915, when it was agreed the champions of the professional Pacific Coast Hockey Association and National Hockey Association would play an annual game for the Cup. When the two Associations merged in 1926 to form the National Hockey League, they brought the Cup along as its championship trophy. At some point, the original Cup was retired and a new one fabricated, this one with a base consisting of five tiers with room for the champions' names to be engraved. There is room for 13 names on each tier, and when a tier is filled, a new one is added. The oldest is removed and given to the Hockey Hall of Fame, which also owns a "permanent" duplicate of the Cup. The Stanley Cup is the only major sports championship trophy that is not duplicated for permanent ownership of the champions. Other than the "permanent cup" at the Hall of Fame, there is only one Stanley Cup, and when a new champion is crowned it takes possession. By tradition, each member of the champion team's organization (including office employees) keeps the Cup for 24 hours and may do with it is as they please, leading to some unusual locales and situations for the trophy over the years. (below: the Montreal AAA with the original Cup and other trophies, and the Cup as it exists today)

On March 23, 1806, Lewis and Clark begin the homeward bound leg of their expedition through the Louisiana Purchase territory. They had spent a harsh winter camped along the banks of the Columbia River in present-day Washington. Recognizing they had a difficult journey ahead, Meriwether Lewis left a list of the expedition members with Chief Coboway of the Clatsop tribe camped nearby, asking him to give it to the next trading vessel that arrived. He also made a gift of the encampment with its furniture - dubbed Fort Clatsop - to Coboway. Despite Lewis' apprehension, the Corps of Discovery, living mostly off the land for the next six months, arrived mostly intact in St. Louis the following September.


On March 23, 1983, Barney Clark dies 112 days after becoming the first human recipient of an artificial heart. Machines that could temporarily take over the functions of the human heart and lungs had been around since the early 1950's. In 1982, Dr. Robert K. Jarvik created a sensation with his introduction of the Jarvik-7, the first artificial heart intended to be permanent. It was implanted in Clark in December, 1982, but he was never able to even leave the hospital with it, eventually dying of various complications. Jarvik and his team made modifications, repurposing the Jarvik-7 as a successful temporary option in more than 150 patients who eventually underwent a human heart transplant.


On March 23, 1839, the Boston Morning Post prints an article on a local issue that includes the phrase "o.k. - all correct." It is a reference to popular youth slang of the day. It was a favorite practice of the younger set (even back then) to intentionally misspell and abbreviate common phrases of the day. In this case, "all correct" became "oll korrect", and then "ok." The term would shortly thereafter spring into politics, as the major campaigns in the 1832 presidential election - Martin Van Buren and Andrew Jackson, used it to disparage each other. But the Morning Post usage is the first time it enters the published word, and has of course become one of the most commonly used bits of slang in the English language.

On March 24, 2015, Germanwings (a budget-flight subsidiary of Lufthansa) Flight 9525 from Barcelona to Dusseldorf crashes in the French Alps, killing all 150 aboard. "Black box" data would show that copilot Andreas Lubitz locked the cabin door when the pilot left the cockpit momentarily, then deliberately crashed the plane. The data also showed that Lubitz had rehearsed the crash on a previous flight by setting the autopilot to 100 feet when he had the controls, resetting it before the pilot noticed. An investigation revealed Lubitz to be severely depressed and had doctor's notes certifying him unfit to fly, which he did not turn over to Lufthansa.


On March 24, 1996, U.S. astronaut/biochemist Shannon Lucid transfers from the space shuttle Atlantis to the Russian space station Mir. She will spend 188 days aboard the station (her intended 5-month stay was extended by technical problems with Atlantis, and a hurricane), becoming the first American to live in space, while setting records for the longest time in space for an American and a woman.


On March 24, 1958, Elvis Presley is inducted into the U.S. Army, at age 23. Presley had registered for the draft as law required on his 18th birthday, but received a student deferment. By the time his number came up in 1957, he had already achieved rock and roll fame and was in production of his third movie, King Creole, for which he was given another deferment. When the movie was completed, the Army called again, and Presley fulfilled his two-year obligation as a member of a tank platoon in Germany.