1846
Mar 17, Kate Greenway, painter and illustrator (Mother Goose), was born.

1905
Mar 17, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, married her fifth cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt in New York and by 1916, they had become the parents of six children.

1910
Mar 17, The Camp Fire Girls organization was formed in Lake Sebago, Maine. It was formally presented to the public exactly two years later.

1973
Mar 17, Queen Elizabeth II opened the new London Bridge.

1993
Mar 17, Helen Hayes (92), the "First Lady of the American Theater," died in Nyack, N.Y. Hayes quit the theater in 1971 due to severe asthma.

1994
Mar 17, Mae Zetterling (b.1925), Swedish director and actress (Night Games), died.


1996
Mar 17, In Dunblane, Scotland, Queen Elizabeth II came with flowers and sympathy as residents paused in silence to mourn 16 murdered children and their teacher.

2000
Mar 17, In Dominica it was reported that Elizabeth Israel, the daughter of a freed slave, was living at age 125.

2002
Mar 17, In Islamabad, Pakistan, 2 attackers hurled grenades into a Protestant Int’l. Church and 5 people were killed, including a US Embassy employee, Barbara Green, and her daughter Kristen Wormsley (17). Investigators later believed that the attack was by a lone suicide bomber, one of the dead.

2003
Mar 17, Chinese police found 28 baby girls hidden in suitcases aboard a long-distance bus in southern Guangxi, apparently being smuggled for sale. Police later arrested 10 people involved in the scheme.

2003
Mar 17, Israeli forces invaded 2 communities in the Gaza Strip and gun battles left 10 Palestinians dead, including a 4-year-old girl.

2010
Mar 17, In Abu Dhabi Hissa Hilal, only her eyes visible through her black veil, delivered a blistering poem against Muslim preachers "who sit in the position of power" but are "frightening" people with their fatwas, or religious edicts, and "preying like a wolf" on those seeking peace. She presented her 15-verse poem on the live TV “The Million's Poet” program.

2010
Mar 17, Uniformed Cuban security agents prevented the mothers and wives of dissidents from marching on the outskirts of Havana to demand release of their loved ones, shoving them into a bus when they lay down in the street in protest.

2011
Mar 17, In Mexico, police found the body of a 4-year-old girl who had been shot in the chest, the fifth child killed in drug-related violence in Acapulco in less than a week. Police also found the bullet-ridden body of a man outside a state prison in Acapulco. Police in Michoacan state found two bodies hanging from the neck in two different towns. In Jalisco state marines found the bodies of two men and two women buried in two clandestine graves. US citizen, Josue Reyes Castro (26), was killed by gunmen while visiting relatives in Ciudad Juarez. A neighbor also was killed, and two of Reyes Castro's relatives were wounded, including a girl (4).

2013
Mar 17, Palestinian lawmaker Mariam Farhat (64), aka “the mother of martyrs,” died in a Gaza hospital of health complications including lung ailments and kidney failure. She had lost three sons in militant activities against Israelis.