March 17th in NYC History
Posted: Mar 17, 2013 | 12:43 AM
1762: The first St. Patrick's Day Parade is held in Manhattan. Being Irish in New York City was controversial for nearly 200 years!
1871: The National Baseball League is formed at a meeting of baseball officials held at a cafe on Broadway. Teams included the New York Mutuals and the Brooklyn Eckfords.
1905: Franklin D. Roosevelt married his distant cousin, Eleanor Roosevelt, in New York City. His fifth cousin, President Theodore Roosevelt, gave his niece away.
1912: Civil Rights leader and organizer Bayard Rustin born elsewhere. He died in NYC in 1987. He organized the famous and influential 1963 March on Washington DC for Johs and Freedom with A. Philip Randolph. His being Gay, formerly in the Communist Party, and his later advocacy for Blacks to get into politics over Black Power nationalism made him not achieve requisite public fame.
Randolph left, Rustin right.
Rustin on the left.
1944: John Sebastian, Rock musician from the Lovin' Spoonful, born in Greenwich Village.
1993: Actress Helen Hayes , "The First Lady of Theater," died at 92.
2008: David Paterson, a Harlem political scion and former Lieutenant Governor, took the oath of office in Albany, the New York State Capitol, to become the first African-American – and first legally-blind – governor of New York State. He replaced Governor Elliott Spitzer who was forced to resign.
2011: The U.N. Security Council authorized military action to protect civilians and impose a no-fly zone over Libya.