March the Seventeenth

This day in history:

March 17th, 432 - Patrick, is carried off to Ireland as a slave  

According to legend, on this day in 432, sixteen year old Patrick was carried off into captivity by Irish marauders and was sold as a slave to a chieftain named Milchu in Dalriada, a territory of the present county of Antrim in Ireland.

"I would pray constantly during the daylight hours," he later recalled. "The love of God and the fear of him surrounded me more and more. And faith grew. And the spirit roused so that in one day I would say as many as a hundred prayers, and at night only slightly less."

Before long, the voice spoke again: "Come and see, your ship is waiting for you." So Patrick fled and ran 200 miles to a southeastern harbor. There he boarded a ship of traders, probably carrying Irish wolfhounds to the European continent.

Years later Patrick returned and brought the message of Christ's salvation to the Irish people who were steeped in Celtic superstitions. He is also credited with ending slavery in Ireland.

Other legends have it that March 17th was the day he died.

March 17th, 1753 - 1st official St Patrick's Day

March 17th, 1755 - Transylvania Land Co buys Kentucky for $50,000 from a Cherokee chief 

That was a heck of a lot of money back then. Kinda screws up all that nonsense about the Indians having their land stolen from them. We paid less per acre for the Louisiana purchase. The irony is that Indians didn't think of land as something that could be owned, and therefore thought they were tricking the Anglos. They sure pulled one over on us, didn't they.

March 17th, 1836 - Texas abolishes slavery 

This is significant because Texas was the first state to secede from the Union preceding the Civil War. How then, one must ask, could the Civil War be just about slavery? How indeed. Surely the history written by the victors couldn't have been “revised” to make them look better, could it? 

March 17th, 1845 - Bristol man, Henry Jones, patents self-raising flour 
March 17th, 1845 - Rubber band patented by Stephen Perry of London 

Use this to make yourself look smart to your fellow students or co-workers today.

March 17th, 1976 - Rubin "Hurricane" Carter is retried 
March 17th, 1996 - "Getting Away With Murder" opens at Broadhurst NYC for 17 performances 

Fitting.

Birth:
March 17th, 1919 - Nat "King" Cole
March 17th, 1942 - John Wayne Gacy Jr 
March 17th, 1949 - Patrick Duffy
March 17th, 1951 - Kurt Russell
March 17th, 1955 - Paul Overstreet (Country music song writer))
March 17th, 1964 - Rob Lowe

Deaths:
March 17th, 461 - St Patrick patron St of Ireland, dies in Saul (according to legend) 
March 17th, 1993 - Helen Hayes

•called the First Lady of the American Theater
•first person ever to win a Grammy, an Oscar, a Tony, and an Emmy in competitive categories.
•had a career than spanned over 80 years beginning as a child actress at age 5
•The lights of Broadway were dimmed for one minute at 8:00 p.m. on this day in 1993 in her memory

Posted by Danny Carlton at March 17, 2005 11:08 AM