Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/March 17

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 * 455 – After arranging for the assassination of Valentinian III, Petronius Maximus secured the throne of the Western Roman Empire, only to be killed 11 weeks later during the sack of Rome.
 * 1337 – Edward the Black Prince (pictured) was created Duke of Cornwall, the first English dukedom.
 * 1452 – Reconquista: Combined Castilian and Murcian forces defeated the Emirate of Granada at the Battle of Los Alporchones around the city of Lorca.
 * 1677 – Franco-Dutch War: France captured the town of Valenciennes in the Spanish Netherlands.
 * 1776 – American Revolutionary War: The 11‑month Siege of Boston ended with the evacuation of the city's British garrison.
 * 1891 – The transatlantic steamship Utopia accidentally collided with the battleship HMS Anson (1886) in the Bay of Gibraltar, sinking in less than twenty minutes and killing 562.
 * 1917 – World War I: Hugh Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminster led a force to rescue 92 prisoners of war from Bir Hakeim, killing the Senussi guards and their families.
 * 1942 – The Holocaust: The first mass killings of Jews began at Belzec extermination camp in occupied Poland, the first of the Operation Reinhard camps to begin operation.
 * 1950 – Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announced the synthesis of californium, a radioactive transuranium element.
 * 1955 – Ice hockey fans in Montreal rioted to protest the suspension of Montreal Canadiens star Maurice Richard for hitting an official.
 * 1963 – An eruption of Mount Agung on Bali, Indonesia, killed at least 1,100 people.


 * 1968 – Six thousand sheep were killed on ranches near Dugway Proving Ground in Utah as a result of the U.S. Army spraying a nerve agent.
 * 1973 – Slava Veder took his Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph Burst of Joy, which came to symbolize the end of United States involvement in the Vietnam War.
 * 1988 – Eritrean War of Independence: Eritrean People's Liberation Front troops encircled Ethiopian forces in the Battle of Afabet, gaining a decisive victory three days later.
 * 1991 – In a referendum, nearly 70 percent of voters in nine Soviet republics agreed that the Soviet Union should be preserved.
 * 2000 – Hundreds of followers of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, a Ugandan sect, died in a mass murder committed by its leaders.
 * 2011 – First Libyan Civil War: The United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1973, authorizing military intervention in Libya to protect civilians.
 * Born/died this day: | Gertrude of Nivelles |d|659| François Girardon |b|1628|William F. Raynolds |b|1820| Emily Sartain |b|1841| Rosina Heikel |b|1842|Edith New |b|1877| Walter Rudolf Hess |b|1881| Eduard Fraenkel |b|1888|  Toni Preckwinkle |b|1947| William Gibson |b|1948|  Chuck Muncie |b|1953 | Stormy Daniels |b|1979|Margaret Whitlam |d|2012

March 17: Saint Patrick's Day (Christianity); Anniversary of the Unification of Italy (1861)


 * 1864 – Second Schleswig War: In an attempt to end a Danish blockade, Eduard von Jachmann led a Prussian squadron in an attack against a Danish fleet led by Edvard van Dockum.
 * 1902 – The Dorchester Heights Monument (pictured), memorializing the siege of Boston during the American Revolutionary War, was dedicated.
 * 1957 – A plane crash on the slopes of Mount Manunggal killed Philippine president Ramon Magsaysay and 24 others.
 * 1979 – The Penmanshiel Tunnel in the Scottish Borders region of Scotland collapsed during refurbishing construction, killing two workers, and leading to the abandonment of the tunnel.
 * 2004 – Unrest in Kosovo broke out, resulting in the deaths of 28, the wounding of more than 600 others, and the destruction of several Serb Orthodox churches and shrines.