What happened this day in history

Wikipedia defines history as the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. It came from the Greek word ‘historia’ – which means ‘inquiry, knowledge acquired by investigation’.

Did you know? There are many who claim Herodotus, a fifth century BC Greek historian, as the “father of history”.

This website utilizes pages from Wikipedia to extract historical events from 3761 BC up to the present. There are 105,060 records in the database that include events, births and deaths of popular individuals. The present day Gregorian calendar was adopted to show dates of interest.

Let us begin with today’s history. You may also enter a specific day using the form on the top bar. Year is optional.

What are the important events that happened on March 17? Here are historical events, facts, and some myths about this day.

March 17: Facts & Myths About This Day

March 17 is the 76th day of the year 2025 in the Gregorian calendar. There are 289 days remaining until the end of this year. The day of the week is Monday.

Under the Julian calendar, this day is March 4, 2025 – a Monday. Both day of the week are the same but did you notice the difference with the Gregorian calendar?

When this day started, 1,742,169,600 seconds has elapsed since midnight of January 1, 1970 – the Unix epoch.

Strange as it may, if we name this day after a polygon then it will be called ‘heptacontahexagon’ day.

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Pisces is the zodiac sign of a person born on this day. Aquamarine is the modern birthstone for this month. Jade is the mystical birthstone from Tibetan origin that dates back over a thousand years.

According to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, there are 337 days remaining before the start of the next Chinese New Year.

The ancient Maya civilization believes that the end of the world will happen on December 21, 2012. There are now 4,469 days since this fabled cataclysmic event.

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March 17 Historical Events

  • 1337
    Edward, the Black Prince is made Duke of Cornwall, the first Duchy in England.
  • 1941
    In Washington, D.C., the National Gallery of Art is officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
  • 1969
    Golda Meir becomes the first female Prime Minister of Israel.
  • 1985
    Serial killer Richard Ramirez, aka the “Night Stalker”, commits the first two murders in his Los Angeles, California murder spree.
  • 2000
    More than 800 members of the Ugandan cult Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God die in what is considered to be a mass murder and suicide orchestrated by leaders of the cult.

Who were born on March 17?

  • 1846
    Kate Greenaway, English children’s author and illustrator (d. 1901)
  • 1862
    Silvio Gesell, Belgian economist (d. 1930)
  • 1937
    Rudy Ray Moore, American comedian and actor (d. 2008)
  • 1951
    Craig Ramsay, Canadian ice hockey player
  • 1956
    Patrick McDonnell, American cartoonist

Who died on March 17?

  • 1974
    Louis Kahn, American architect
  • 1976
    Luchino Visconti, Italian director (b. 1906)
  • 1990
    Ric Grech, British bass player (Blind Faith – Traffic) (b. 1946)
  • 1992
    Grace Stafford, American actress (b. 1903)
  • 1997
    Jermaine Stewart, American singer (b. 1957)

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