Events on March 17 45
Year 455
Petronius Maximus becomes, with support of the Roman Senate, emperor of the Western Roman Empire.
Year 1001
The Raja of Butuan in what is now the Philippines sends a tributary mission to the Song dynasty.
Year 1452
The Battle of Los Alporchones is fought in the context of the Spanish Reconquista between the Emirate of Granada and the combined forces of the Kingdom of Castile and Murcia resulting in a Christian victory.
Year 1560
Fort Coligny on Villegagnon Island in Rio de Janeiro is attacked and destroyed during the Portuguese campaign against France Antarctique.
Year 1677
The Siege of Valenciennes, during the Franco-Dutch War, ends with France's taking of the city.
Year 1776
American Revolution: British forces evacuate Boston, ending the Siege of Boston, after George Washington and Henry Knox place artillery in positions overlooking the city.
Year 1780
American Revolution: George Washington grants the Continental Army a holiday "as an act of solidarity with the Irish in their fight for independence".
Year 1805
The Italian Republic, with Napoleon as president, becomes the Kingdom of Italy, with Napoleon as King.
Year 1824
The Malay archipelago splits into two domains after the Anglo-Dutch Treaty is signed in London. As a result, the Malay Peninsula is dominated by the British, while Sumatra and Java and surrounding areas are dominated by the Dutch.
Year 1842
The Relief Society of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is formed;
Year 1860
The First Taranaki War begins in Taranaki, New Zealand, a major phase of the New Zealand land wars.
Year 1891
SS Utopia collides with HMS Anson in the Bay of Gibraltar and sinks, killing 562 of the 880 passengers on board.
Year 1939
Second Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Nanchang between the Kuomintang and Japan begins,
Year 1941
In Washington, D.C., the National Gallery of Art is officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Year 1942
Holocaust: The first Jews from the Lvov Ghetto are gassed at the Belzec death camp in what is today eastern Poland.
Year 1945
The Ludendorff Bridge in Remagen, Germany, collapses, ten days after its capture.
Year 1948
Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom sign the Treaty of Brussels, a precursor to the North Atlantic Treaty establishing NATO.
Year 1950
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley announce the creation of element 98, which they name "californium".
Year 1957
A plane crash in Cebu, Philippines kills Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay and 24 others.
Year 1960
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the National Security Council directive on the anti-Cuban covert action program that will ultimately lead to the Bay of Pigs Invasion.
Year 1966
Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the DSV Alvin submarine finds a missing American hydrogen bomb.
Year 1968
As a result of nerve gas testing in Skull Valley, Utah, over 6,000 sheep are found dead.
Year 1970
My Lai Massacre: The United States Army charges 14 officers with suppressing information related to the incident.
Year 1973
The Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph Burst of Joy is taken, depicting a former prisoner of war being reunited with his family, which came to symbolize the end of United States involvement in the Vietnam War.
Year 1985
Serial killer Richard Ramirez, aka the "Night Stalker", commits the first two murders in his Los Angeles murder spree.
Year 1988
A Colombian Boeing 727 jetliner, Avianca Flight 410, crashes into a mountainside near the Venezuelan border killing 143.
Year 1988
Eritrean War of Independence: The Nadew Command, an Ethiopian army corps in Eritrea, is attacked on three sides by military units of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front in the opening action of the Battle of Afabet.
Year 1992
Israeli Embassy attack in Buenos Aires: Car bomb attack kills 29 and injures 242.
Year 2000
Five hundred thirty members of the Ugandan cult Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God die in a fire, considered to be a mass murder or suicide orchestrated by leaders of the cult. Elsewhere another 248 members are later found dead.
Year 2003
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Robin Cook, resigns from the British Cabinet in disagreement with government plans for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Year 2004
Unrest in Kosovo: More than 22 are killed and 200 wounded. Thirty-five Serbian Orthodox shrines in Kosovo and two mosques in Serbia are destroyed.
Year 2011
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 relating to Libyan Civil War is adopted.
Year ?
In his last victory, Julius Caesar defeats the Pompeian forces of Titus Labienus and Pompey the Younger in the Battle of Munda.