Holiday — St. Patrick’s Day parades kicked off in big cities from Dublin to New York on Saturday, but the real holiday that honors all things Irish is today. A1
Rape trial — A verdict will be handed down in the Steubenville, Ohio, case against two high school football players, a day after closing arguments ended.
— From wire reports
Highlight: In 1973, U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Robert Stirm, a freed prisoner of the Vietnam War, was joyously greeted by his family on the tarmac at Travis Air Force Base in California in a scene captured in a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph by Slava Veder of the AP.
In 461 (or 493, depending on sources), St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, died in Saul.
In 1762, New York’s first St. Patrick’s Day parade took place.
In 1861, Victor Emmanuel II was proclaimed the first king of a united Italy.
In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt first likened crusading journalists to a man with “the muckrake in his hand" in a speech to the Gridiron Club in Washington.
In 1912, the Camp Fire Girls organization was incorporated in Washington, D.C., two years to the day after it was founded in Thetford, Vt. (The group is now known as Camp Fire USA.)
In 1950, scientists at the University of California at Berkeley announced they had created a new radioactive element, “californium."
In 1963, Mother Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton, an American, was beatified by Pope John XXIII. (She was canonized 12 years later by Pope Paul VI.)
In 1966, a U.S. submarine located a missing hydrogen bomb which had fallen from an American bomber into the Mediterranean off Spain.
In 1970, the United States cast its first veto in the U.N. Security Council. (The U.S. killed a resolution that would have condemned Britain for failure to use force to overthrow the white-ruled government of Rhodesia.)
In 1988, Avianca Flight 410, a Boeing 727, crashed after takeoff into a mountain in Colombia, killing all 143 people on board.
In 1993, Helen Hayes, the “First Lady of the American Theater," died in Nyack, N.Y., at age 92.
Ten years ago: Edging to the brink of war, President George W. Bush gave Saddam Hussein 48 hours to leave his country; Iraq rejected Bush’s ultimatum, saying that a U.S. attack to force Saddam from power would be “a grave mistake."
Five years ago: Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, recalling a goodwill trip she’d made to Bosnia as first lady in March 1996, said she remembered landing under “sniper fire" — a statement that conflicted with accounts of the time. David Paterson was sworn in as governor of New York. Paul McCartney’s divorce from Heather Mills was settled for $48.6 million.
One year ago: John Demjanjuk, 91, convicted of being a low-ranking guard at the Sobibor death camp, but who maintained his innocence, died in Bad Feilnbach, Germany.
It’s Sunday, March 17, the 76th day of 2013. There are 289 days left in the year.
The former national chairwoman of the NAACP, Myrlie Evers-Williams, is 80. Former NASA astronaut Ken Mattingly is 77. Rock musician Paul Kantner is 72. Singer-songwriter Jim Weatherly is 70. Former National Security Agency Director and former CIA Director Michael Hayden is 68. Actor Patrick Duffy is 64. Actor Kurt Russell is 62. Actor Gary Sinise is 58. Actor Rob Lowe is 49. Rock singer Billy Corgan is 46. Soccer player Mia Hamm is 41.