These are some of the notable events to have happened on this date throughout history.

180, Marcus Aurelius dies leaving the Roman Empire to his son Commodus.

1337, The Duchy of Cornwall was created when Edward the Black Prince was made the first Duke of England.

1756, St. Patrick's Day is celebrated in New York City for the first time.

1845, Elastic bands were patented by Stephen Perry of a London rubber company.

1899, The classic Neapolitan song O Sole Mio was published.

1899, The first radio distress call was sent from a lightship off Kent, England, summoning a lifeboat to assist a ship which ran aground on the Goodwin Sands.

1912, Captain Lawrence Edward Grace Oates, deliberately walked out into a blizzard, knowing that he was impeding the progress of his companions on Scott's journey from the South Pole.

1942, Jews at the Lviv Ghetto become the first to be gassed at the Belzec death camp.

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

1969, Golda Meir became the first woman President of Israel.

1976, American boxer Reuben 'Hurricane' Carter was granted a retrial for murder.

1988, Adolf Hitler's former deputy Rudolf Hess was buried in Bavaria.

1992, A suicide car-bomb kills 29 and injures 242 at the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

1997, Scientists warned that litter orbiting Earth is threatening the safety of spacecraft.

2004, Massive unrest in Kosovo left over 22 killed, 200 wounded, 35 destroyed Serb Orthodox shrines in Kosovo and two mosques in Belgrade and Nis.

2008, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer resigns after his involvement in a high-priced prostitution ring is uncovered.