Today In History

Today is Thursday, March 17, the 76th day of 2011. There are 289 days left in the year.

Highlights in history on this date:

1229 - Holy Roman Emperor Fredrick II, at the head of the Sixth Crusade, enters Jerusalem after gaining the city from the Muslims by treaty.

1328 - Scotland wins its independence from England.

1526 - France's King Francis I is released from Spanish captivity.

1649 - England's Parliament abolishes House of Lords.

1813 - Prussia's Frederick William III declares war on France.

1848 - Revolution under Daniele Manin begins in Venice, Italy.

1860 - Second Maori War breaks out in New Zealand.

1861 - The Kingdom of Italy is proclaimed by a parliament assembled in Turin, but Venice and Rome remain outside the power of King Victor Emmanuel.

1888 - Britain establishes protectorate over Sarawak on Borneo.

1921 - Poland's Constitution is established.

1942 - Gen. Douglas MacArthur arrives in Australia to become supreme commander of Allied forces in the southwest Pacific theater during World War II.

1948 - Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg sign Brussels Treaty for 50-year alliance against armed attack in Europe, and economic, social and military cooperation.

1962 - Soviet Union accuses United States of fighting "undeclared war" in Vietnam and demands removal of American military forces there.

1969 - Golda Meir becomes prime minister of Israel.

1973 - Cambodian Air Force officer steals plane and bombs presidential palace in Phnom Penh, missing President Lon Nol but killing at least 20 people.

1977 - Angolan troops invading Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) take important copper mining center of Kolwezi.

1990 - Lithuania rejects a Soviet deadline to renounce its independence and calls on the Western powers to support it.

1991 - Majority of Soviet voters favor preserving the union, according to referendum.

1992 - White voters in referendum overwhelmingly support reforms toward ending apartheid in South Africa.

1993 - Hundreds of police in Assiut, Egypt, storm two buildings where bomb-throwing extremists are holed up. At least 11 people are killed.

1994 - Serbs and Muslims sign an agreement to ease the stranglehold on Bosnian capital of Sarajevo.

1995 - The Azerbaijani army smashes a two-day rebellion by mutinous police in a fierce battle in Northern Baku.

1997 - The Italian coast guard rescues 900 Albanians from a sinking gunboat off Brindisi, Italy.

1998 - Catholics hold the first St. Patrick's Day in the religously-divided city of Belfast.

1999 - In an unprecedented purge, the International Olympic Committee expels six members for taking cash, travel and lavish gifts from the winning Utah bidders for the 2002 Winter Games.

2000 - Some 500 members of a doomsday cult die in a church fire in a remote part of southwestern Uganda. After the inferno, mass graves containing 400 more corpses are discovered around cult leaders homes.

2001 - Explosions at four workers' dormitories kill 108 in Shijiazhuang, China. The bomber plus three others charged with supplying explosives and detonators are sentenced to death.

2002 - A grenade attack at a Protestant church near the U.S. Embassy in the heavily guarded diplomatic enclave in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, kills five worshippers and wounds 40.

2004 - A car bomb shatters a five-story hotel housing foreigners in central Baghdad, killing 27 people and leaving a jagged, 20-foot-(6-meter-)wide crater just days before the anniversary of the start of the Iraq war.

2005 - Under pressure from Egypt and the Palestinian leadership, the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad agree for the first time to halt attacks against Israel.

2006 - A roadside bomb kills five policemen as they travel in a convoy transporting four bodies believed to be Macedonian workers kidnapped in southern Afghanistan the previous week.

2007 - Three suicide bombers driving chlorine-laden trucks strike targets in Iraq's Anbar province, spreading panic and exposing 350 Iraqi civilians and six U.S. troops to the poisonous gas.

2008 - U.N. police storm a courthouse in northern Kosovo to remove Serb protesters occupying the building, setting off clashes that injure dozens of international peacekeepers and demonstrators.

2009 - Pope Benedict XVI says condoms are not the answer to the AIDS epidemic in Africa and can make the problem worse, setting off criticism as he begins a week-long trip to the continent where some 22 million people are living with HIV.

2010 - A Pakistani court charges five young Americans with planning terrorist attacks in the South Asian country and conspiring to wage war against nations allied with Pakistan. They plead not guilty.

Today's Birthdays:

Madame Roland, French author-revolutionary politician (1754-1793); Edmund Kean, British actor (1787-1833); Kate Greenaway, English illustrator (1846-1901); Rudolf Nureyev, Russian dancer (1938-1993); Bakili Muluzi, former president of Malawi (1943--); Kurt Russell, U.S. actor (1951--); Gary Sinise, U.S. actor (1955--); Billy Corgan, U.S. musician (1967--).

Thought For Today:

It is my rule never to lose me temper till it would be detrimental to keep it — Sean O'Casey, Irish playwright (1880-1964).