On this date...

National Gallery of Art

In 1762, New York held its first St. Patrick’s Day parade.

In 1766, Britain repealed the Stamp Act but passed the Declaratory Act, which asserts Great Britain’s right to pass any laws governing the American colonies.

In 1775, the Transylvania Land Company, headed by Richard Henderson, bought most of Kentucky through a treaty signed with Cherokee chiefs at Sycamore Shoals on the Watauga River (it was later declared illegal)

In 1776, British General William Howe evacuated Boston after a successful siege by American revolutionaries led by General George Washington. At dawn, more than 8,000 British soldiers march to the wharves at Boston Harbor. By midmorning, 120 vessels crowd the water. Aboard are over 11,000 souls—the King’s troops, hundreds of women and children, and more than 1,100 Loyalists waiting below the harbor, abandoning the town with the army. 

In 1780, George Washington granted the Continental Army a holiday “as an act of solidarity with the Irish in their fight for independence”.

In 1842, the Treaty of 1842: Wyandotte (Huron) Indian nation cedes 114,000 acres of land in Ohio and Michigan to the US, in exchange for 148,000 acres west of the Mississippi.

In 1854, the 1st park land purchased by a US city in Worcester, Massachusetts.

In 1860, six years after the forcible ending of Japan's isolationist policy by US Navy Commodore Matthew C. Perry, the Japanese Embassy arrived in San Francisco to sign the Treaty of Friendship

In 1897, British boxer Bob Fitzsimmons KOs American champion 'Gentleman' Jim Corbett in the 14th round to win the World Heavyweight title in Carson City, Nevada.

In 1898, John Philip Holland achieved a successful test run for the first modern submarine off Staten Island, submerging for 1 hour and 40 minutes.

In 1905, Eleanor Roosevelt, niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, married her distant cousin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, later U.S. president.

In 1905, Albert Einstein finished his scientific paper detailing his quantum theory of light, a foundation of modern physics.

In 1910, the Camp Fire Girls organization was founded in Thetford, Vt.

1927 – The Teapot Dome and Elk Hills naval oil reserve, which had featured in the scandals of the Harding Administration, were returned to the jurisdiction of the Navy Department.

In 1941, the National Gallery of Art opened in Washington, DC.

In 1942, US General Douglas MacArthur arrived in Australia to become the supreme commander

In 1950, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, announced that they had created a new radioactive element they named “californium.”

In 1958, the first solar-powered satellite, Vanguard 1, was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida; the small satellite—it weighed less than four pounds—stopped transmitting in 1964.

In 1960, US President Eisenhower formed an anti-Castro exile army under the CIA.

In 1963, Elizabeth Ann Seton of NY was beatified (she was canonized in 1975).

In 1967, the first woman Marine to report to Vietnam for duty, Master Sergeant Barbara J. Dulinsky, began her 18-hour flight to Bien Hoa, 30 miles north of Saigon.

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 1973, Associated Press photographer Slava “Sal” Veder captured a heartwarming scene on the tarmac of California's Travis Air Force Base as a recently freed American prisoner of war runs toward his family. The jubilation of the moment is encapsulated in the central image of his teenage daughter, whose wide smile and outstretched arms express her unbridled exuberance over her father's return from Vietnam. The photo depicting Lt. Col. Robert L. Stirm and his family, called “Burst of Joy,” went on to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1974.

In 2000, with Erin Brockovich, Julia Roberts became the first actress ever to command $20 million per movie.

In 2005, baseball players Rafael Palmeiro and Sammy Sosa testified before Congress that they hadn't used steroids; Mark McGwire refused to say whether he had.

In 2003, edging to the brink of war, U.S. President George W. Bush gave Iraqi President Saddam Hussein 48 hours to leave his country. Iraq rejected Bush’s ultimatum, saying a U.S. attack to force Saddam from power would be “a grave mistake.”

In 2009, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published its final print edition.

In 2010, Michael Jordan became the first ex-player to become a majority owner in the NBA as the league’s Board of Governors unanimously approved his $275 million bid to buy the Charlotte Bobcats from Bob Johnson.

In 2011, 26-year-old Raymond Clark III, a former animal research assistant at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, pleaded guilty to the murder and attempted sexual assault of 24-year-old Yale graduate student Annie Le.

In 2016, finally bowing to years of public pressure, SeaWorld Entertainment said it would stop breeding killer whales and making them perform crowd-pleasing tricks.