March 17, 461– Ireland, and eventually anywhere in the world where the Irish gather, pays homage to the death of St. Patrick of Ireland, the fifth century missionary and later bishop who brought Christianity to Ireland’s masses.
March 18, 1965 – Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov leaves his spacecraft for 12 minutes and become the first person to conduct a spacewalk.
March 18, 1974 – The five-month-old Arab oil embargo against the U.S is lifted. The embargo was in retaliation for the American support of Israel during the Yom Kipper War of 1973 in which Egypt and Syria suffered a crushing defeat. The embargo caused U.S. gas prices to soar 300%.
March 19, 2003 – The U.S launched an attack to topple Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Troops made rapid progress and conquered the capital, Baghdad, in just 21 days ending Hussein’s rule.