As of today, March 17, 2023

What happened like today in Greece and the world.

180: Marcus Aurelius dies leaving Commodus sole emperor of the Roman Empire.

455: Petronius Maximus becomes emperor of the Western Roman Empire with the support of the Roman Senate.

1805: The Italian Republic, with Napoleon as president, becomes the Kingdom of Italy, with Napoleon as king.

1821: The candidates of Mani, under the leadership of Petrobeis Mavromichalis, raise the flag of the revolution in the village of Tsimova (today’s Areopolis) in Laconia.

1821: Greek fighters under Sotiris Charalambis and the Petmezaians besiege the Kalavryta Towers, which will be surrendered after a few days (March 21). This action constitutes the first revolutionary act in southern Greece.

1861: The various kingdoms and independent regions in the territory of today’s Italy are united for the first time in a national state under the crown of King Victor Emmanuel II of the House of Savoy, monarch of Sardinia and Piedmont.

1920: The monarchist coup in Germany, which took place on March 13th, fails. Wolfgang Kapp, self-proclaimed chancellor and dictator, secretly leaves the city of Berlin and finds refuge in Sweden.

1930: In the US, prison inmate and notorious gangster, Al Capone, is released.

1931: Joseph Stalin expels Vladimir Lenin’s widow, Nadesna Krupskaya, from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

1932: The curtain of the National Theater opens, with Ioannis Gryparis as the first director. First director is Fotos Politis, first play is “Agamemnon” by Aeschylus.

1934: The Panteios School of Political Sciences is inaugurated on Syngrou Avenue.

1939: The Battle of Nanchang between the Kuomintang and Japan begins.

1948: Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, France and Great Britain sign the Brussels Agreement, the forerunner of NATO.

1950: Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, announce the creation of element 98, which they call californium.

1959: Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, flees Tibet to India.

1963: Volcano eruption in Bali kills at least 11,000 people.

1969: Golda Meir becomes Israel’s first female prime minister.

1971: In Argentina, in the league match between Boca Juniors and Sporting Cristal, the referee sends off 19 of the 22 players. Only the two goalkeepers and one more player remain on the pitch.

1984: Christina Onassis and Thierry Roussel are getting married, in one of the most talked about weddings.

1988: A Colombian Boeing 727 crashes into a mountainside near the border with Venezuela, killing 143 people.

1988: The fans of Larissa close the Athens-Thessaloniki national road and blockade the city for 36 hours. They are protesting the deduction of 4 points from their team, due to the doping case of the football player Giorgi Chigov. Finally, the Thessalian team will get back the points and win the Championship of the 1st National Division.

1991: Diego Maradona is arrested in Napoli for the use of cocaine after the match of the Italian championship Napoli – Bari 1-0, where he scored the goal with a penalty, and is punished by FIFA with a ban of 15 months.

1992: A bombing at the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires kills 22 and injures 242.

1992: A referendum is held to end apartheid in South Africa. 68.73% voted in favor against 31.27%.

2020: Coronavirus pandemic – UEFA postpones the Euro 2020 football tournament until summer 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic in Europe.

2021: US President Joe Biden says Russian President Vladimir Putin “will pay the price” for alleged attempts to influence the 2020 US presidential election and that he has “no soul” and is a “murderer”.

Births

599 – Ali ibn Abu Talib, Arab caliph

763 – Harun al-Rashid, Arab caliph

1473 – James IV, King of Scotland

1537 – Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Japanese warlord

1834 – Gottlieb Daimler, German engineer and businessman

1837 – Konstantinos Volanakis, Greek painter

1878 – Peter Ouspensky, Russian mathematician

1884 – Frank Buck, American hunter

1890 – George Kalafatis, Greek football player

1906 – Brigitte Helm, German actress

1917 – Takis Sinopoulos, Greek writer

1919 – Nat King Cole, American singer

1920 – Tonis Maroudas, Greek singer

1929 – Peter Berger, Austrian sociologist

1938 – Rudolf Nureyev, Russian dancer and choreographer

1940 – Giorgis Giatromanolakis, Greek writer

1943 – Bakili Muluzi, president of Malawi

1944 – Juan Ramon Veron, Argentine soccer player

1948 – William Gibson, American writer

1951 – Kurt Russell, American actor

1952 – Nikos Xydakis, Greek composer

1955 – Gary Sinise, American actor

1969 – Alexander McQueen, English fashion designer

1972 – Mia Hamm, American soccer player

1976 – Alvaro Recomba, Uruguayan soccer player

1979 – Samoa Joe, American wrestler

1982 – Steven Pienaar, South African footballer

1983 – Athena-Theodora Alexopoulou, Greek athlete

1983 – Raul Meireles, Portuguese footballer

1986 – Edin Dzeko, Bosnian footballer

1990 – Hozier (born Andrew Hozier-Byrne), Irish songwriter

1992 – John Boyega, English actor

Deaths

180 – Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor

460 – Saint Patrick, patron Saint of Ireland

1040 – Harold the Harefoot, King of England

1058 – Lulach, King of Scotland

1394 – Louis d’Enghien, Count of Conversano and Brienne

1680 – François de La Rochefoucauld, French writer

1736 – Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Italian composer

1782 – Daniel Bernoulli, Dutch mathematician

1846 – Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel, German mathematician and astronomer

1853 – Christian Doppler, Austrian physicist and mathematician

1935 – Alexandros Pallis, Greek writer

1958 – John Boland, Irish politician and punter

1967 – Thrasos Kastanakis, Greek writer

1974 – Louis Kahn, American architect

1976 – Luchino Visconti, Italian director

1979 – Tasos Kolokythas Greek politician

1988 – Nikolas Asimos, Greek songwriter

1993 – Ellen Hayes, American actress

2007 – Tanya Reinhart, Israeli linguist

2011 – Christos Tsagas, Greek actor

2017 – Derek Walcott, writer from Saint Lucia.