GMT

Today in History: March 17

1766 Britain repeals the Stamp Act.

1872 Yellowstone becomes the world's 1st national park

1868 The first postage stamp canceling machine patent is issued.

1910 The Camp Fire Girls are founded in Lake Sebago, Maine.

1914 Russia increases the number of active duty military from 460,000 to 1,700,000.

1930 Mob boss Al Capone is released from jail.

1942 The Nazis begin deporting Jews to the Belsen camp.

1966 A U.S. submarine locates a missing H-bomb in the Mediterranean.

1970 The Army charges 14 officers with suppression of facts in the My Lai massacre case.

1972 Nixon asks Congress to halt busing in order to achieve desegregation.

1974 A grand jury indicts seven of President Nixon's aides for the conspiracy on Watergate.

1985 The Pentagon accepts the theory that an atomic war would block the sun, causing a "nuclear winter."

1992 Bosnian Serbs begin sniping in Sarajevo, after Croats and Muslims vote for Bosnian independence.

2016 Two Guatemalan military officers are convicted of sexual slavery during country's civil war - first ever prosecution of sexual slavery during an armed conflict

2020 First known COVID-19 case identified in New York, a health care worker returning from Iran

2022 Cargo ship carrying 4,000 luxury Volkswagen Group cars sinks off the Portuguese Azores archipelago, two weeks after it caught fire


Born on March 17

1919 Nat "King" Cole, American jazz pianist and singer.

1914 Ralph Waldo Ellison, African-American author (Invisible Man).



JOTD
The day after his wife disappeared in a kayaking accident...

an Irish man answered his door to find a grim-faced constable waiting in the front yard. "We're sorry, Mr. O' Flynn, but we have some information about your dear wife, Maureen" said the officer.
"Tell me! Did you find her?" Michael Patrick O'Flynn asked. The constable said, "I have some bad news, some good news, and some really great news. Which would you like to hear first?"
Fearing the worst, Mr. O' Flynn said, "Give me the bad news first." The constable said, "I'm sorry to tell you, sir, but early this morning we found your poor wife's body in the bay." "Lord sufferin' Jesus and Holy Mother of God!" exclaimed O' Flynn. Swallowing hard, he asked,"What could possibly be the good news?"
The constable continued, "When we pulled the late, departed poor Maureen up, she had 12 of the best-looking Atlantic lobsters that you have ever seen clinging to her. Haven't seen lobsters like that since the 1960's, and we feel you are entitled to a share in the catch."
Stunned, Mr. O' Flynn demanded, "Glory be to God, if that's the good news, then what's the really great news?" The constable replied, "We're gonna pull her up again tomorrow."