This Day in History — March 17

• Solar Cycle

~A period of 28 years in the Julian calendar

~the days of the month return to the same days of the week

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National Days:

- St. Patrick’s Day

~ St. Patrick was a patron saint and national apostle that brought Christianity to Ireland.

- 3-D Day (3rd day of 3rd week in March)

- Corned Beef and Cabbage Day

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Events:

— 180 - Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius died at 58

~he was a symbol in the West of the Golden Age of the Roman Empire

— 461 - St. Patrick died.

~he was captured and carried off from Britain to Ireland tend sheep as a boy.

~After six years, he escaped & returned to Ireland to spread the word of Christianity.

— 1755 - The Transylvania Land Company bought what became the state of Kentucky for $50,000, from a Cherokee Indian chief

~ the company intended to bypassing British restrictions against colonial westward expansion & capitalize on the fertile land with farming and settlement

— 1762 - The first Saint Patrick's Day parade in NY City.

— 1845 - The rubber band patented by Stephen Perry

~designed to hold papers and documents together

— 1854 - The first park land, Elm Park, is purchased for $30,000 by Worcester, Massachusetts

~originally called “New Common” or a swampy pasture

— 1894 - The U.S. and China sign a treaty:

Chinese Exclusive Act of 1882

~prevented Chinese laborers from entering U.S. for 10 yrs

~denied the states and federal courts from granting citizenship to the Chinese

~The ban was extended in 1892 & made permanent in 1902

~ overturned by the Magnuson Act or the Chinese Exclusion Repeal Act (1943)

•which allowed Chinese immigrants to become U.S. citizens and established an annual quota of roughly 105 visas.

— 1905 - Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, married her fifth cousin; Franklin D. Roosevelt, later U.S. president.

~said to have fallen in love after a “passionate courtship” while reconnecting on a train in 1902

— 1910 - Camp Fire Girls established

~now known as Camp Fire as of 1975

~ it is an outdoorsy style, co-ed, youth development organization

— 1921 - British activist Marie Stopes and her husband opened a London facility called the Mothers' Clinic for Constructive Birth Control.

~the first birth control clinic in England

~the clinic aimed to improve the human race by limiting childbirth among the poor & to promote marital fulfillment, eugenicist (improvement of human genetic quality) ideas, educate on contraception, & collect data on fertility

— 1941 - The National Gallery of Art dedicated in Washington, D.C.

— 1950 - The University of California (Berkeley) announced the development of californium (atomic number 98)

~Cf- a synthetic, highly radioactive, and rare actinide metal

~primarily used for medical cancer treatment, industrial scanning, oil-well logging, and starting nuclear reactors.

(Crazy work for a medical treatment to also be used to start nuclear reactors!!!??!?)

— 1958 - The U.S. launches, Vanguard 1, the first solar-powered satellite.

~still the oldest artificial object orbiting Earth

~was the fourth satellite to orbit Earth

— 1960 - UN conference of the Law of the Sea opened at Geneva, Switzerland

~Constitution for the Oceans

~setting the legal framework for ocean usage, maritime boundaries, & resource management

• It defines territorial seas for 12 nautical miles, exclusive economic zones for 200 nautical miles, and regulates environmental protection and deep-sea mining.

— 1963 - Elizabeth Ann Seton of New York becomes the first American to become canonized.

~ the formal process by which the Catholic Church declares a deceased person a saint (w/ verification of two miracles)

• It confirms the person is in heaven, having lived a life of heroic virtue or martyrdom (death/torture for religion)

— 1968 - U.S. Army Chemical Corps jet sprayed VX nerve agent gas that spread off-post in Skull Valley, Utah

~the U.S. Army Chemical Corps conducted open-air nerve agent tests at the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, accidentally killing over 6,000 sheep in neighboring Skull Valley.

~Known as the "Dugway sheep incident”

— 1978 - Oil spill occured when supertanker Amoco Cadiz broke in two, dumping more than 223,000 tons of crude oil into the sea, off the Brittany coast in France

~1991: Persian Gulf War oil spill ~380-520 million gallons released when Iraqi forces opened valves on pipelines and oil tankers (worst in history)

~2010: BP Deepwater Horizon ~206 million gallons or 3.19 million barrels were accidentally released into the Gulf of Mexico after an explosion (largest in history)

— 1995 - The U.S. approves the first Varicella-zoster virus vaccine (chickenpox)

~Varivax: a live, attenuated (weakened) virus vaccine

(I’ll explain this in more detail later: what does mRNA vax actually do inside the body?)

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Birth/Death:

— Anders Dahl (Mar. 1751-1789): botanist

~dahlia flower, a genus of the Asteraceae family, named after him for his contributions to plant classification

— Robert B. Taney (Mar. 1777-1864): 5th Chief Justice of U.S.

~I made a post about this guy

— Norbert Rillieux (Mar. 1806-1894): Chemical engineer and inventor of the sugar refiner.

— Cornelia Clapp (Mar. 1849-1934): First woman to earn a PhD, Marine biology, in the U.S.A.

— Bayard Rustin (Mar. 1912-1987): American civil rights leader who helped organize the March on Washington.

— Oleg Cassini (1913-Mar. 2006): fashion designer who created the Jackie look

~the signature wardrobe created for First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in the early 1960s

****(Where’s JFK blood-splattered pink hat???)****

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Sources: nationaldayscalendar, farmersalmanac, Britannica

#thisdayinhistory #ravenseyrie