Historical Events on February 17 (original) (raw)

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• Summary

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Events 1 - 200 of 215

• 1370 Battle at Rudau: Germany beats Lithuania

Second Battle of St Albans

1461 Wars of the Roses: Second Battle of St Albans - Lancastrian army defeats Yorkists and recaptures King Henry VI

• 1500 Battle of Hemmingstedt - German peasant army repels ducal army of Schleswig and Holstein

Portuguese Conquer Goa

1510 Portuguese admiral Afonso de Albuquerque first conquers the city of Goa, entering it with little conflict

Maximilian II Pays Tribute

1568 Treaty of Adrianople of 1568: Representatives of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II and Ottoman Sultan Selim II agree to a peace plan ending the war between the Habsburg monarchy and the Ottoman Empire; Maximilian agrees to provide a cash "present" and ruling authority is granted to the Ottomans in Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia

• 1598 Boris Godunov chosen as Tsar of Russia
• 1600 Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno is burned alive at Campo de' Fiori in Rome, convicted of heresy by the Roman Inquisition [1]

Plymouth Colony

1621 Myles Standish is elected as the first commander of the Plymouth Colony

• 1634 Puritan author William Prynne tried in Star Chamber for publishing "Histrio-masti", criticising the theatre
• 1670 France and Bavaria sign military assistance treaty
• 1674 Ambon earthquake and megatsunami kills at least 2322 people in the Maluku Islands (modern Indonesia), tsunami reaches height of 100 meters (330 ft) [1]
• 1691 Thomas Neale granted English patent for American postal service
• 1772 1st Partition of Poland signed in Vienna by Austria, Prussia and Russia

The Decline and Fall of Roman Empire

1776 1st volume of Edward Gibbon's seminal work "The Decline and Fall of Roman Empire" published

• 1795 Thomas Seddal harvests 8.3-kg potato from his garden in Chester, England

• 1814 Battle of Mormant: French Imperial army defeat Russian Austrian forces (War of the Sixth Coalition)

• 1818 Baron Karl von Drais de Sauerbrun patents "draisine" (early bicycle)

Historic Discovery

1837 Charles Lyell makes his presidential address to the Geographical Society, London and announces that Richard Owen has concluded from Darwin's fossils that extinct species were related to current species in the same locality

• 1848 Tuscany gets liberal Constitution
• 1854 Britain recognises independence of Orange Free State (South Africa)

Un Ballo in maschera

1859 Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Un Ballo in maschera" premieres in Naples

• 1864 Confederate submarine CSS H.L. Hunley sinks Union ship USS Housatonic at Charleston, South Carolina in the world's first successful submarine attack; crews of both vessels were killed [1]
• 1865 -18] Battle of Charleston, South Carolina
• 1865 Columbia in South Carolina burns down during the American Civil War
• 1867 Gyula Andressy becomes premier of Hungary
• 1876 Sardines first canned by Julius Wolff in Eastport, Maine
• 1878 1st telephone exchange in San Francisco, California opens with 18 phones

Assassination Attempt

1880 Alexander II of Russia survives an assassination attempt

• 1882 Australian cricket opening bowlers Joey Palmer (7/68) and Edwin Evans (3/64) dismiss England for 133 in 2nd Test; first Test match played at Sydney Cricket Ground
• 1883 Arthur Ashwell patents 'vacant/engaged' toilet lock in London, England

Event of Interest

1885 Otto von Bismarck gives Carl Peters' firm management of German possessions in East-Africa

• 1896 Muzzling Order on the London County Council enforced

Battle of Zapote Bridge

1897 Emilio Aguinaldo and a group of katipuneros defeat Spanish forces led by General Camilo de Polavieja at the Battle of Zapote Bridge in Cavite

• 1897 National Organization of Mothers formed in American by Alice McLellan Birney and Phoebe Apperson Hearst (Parent Teacher Association)
• 1902 A general strike in Barcelona and nearby towns leads to government-troop reprisals that leave 40 dead

Madama Butterfly

1904 Giacomo Puccini's opera "Madama Butterfly" premieres at La Scala in Milan, Italy

• 1905 American educator and women's suffragist Frances Willard becomes 1st women honored in National Statuary Hall in the US Capital building, Washington, D.C.

• 1911 (Glenn Curtiss demonstrates his Triad hydroplane's flight to and from a ship, landing alongside USS Pennsylvania, and having the craft lifted aboard by crane in San Diego Bay, California: after lunch, the plane was returned to the water and took off for land [1]

• 1913 US State of Oregon becomes second to enact minimum wage law

• 1915 Edward Stone, 1st US combatant to die in WW I, is mortally wounded

• 1917 In Australia, Nationalist Party takes over a coalition government

NHL Record

1923 Ottawa left wing Cy Denneny passes Joe Malone as all-time NHL goal scoring leader; scores his 143rd career goal in Senators' 2-0 win over Montreal Canadiens

Sports History

1924 American swimmer Johnny Weissmuller sets 100m world freestyle record 57.4s at Miami, Florida

• 1926 Avalanche buries 75 in Sap Gulch, Bingham, Utah; 40 die
• 1927 Deems Taylor's opera "The King's Henchman", with libretto by Edna St. Vincent Millay, premieres at the Metropolitan Opera, NYC
• 1927 Toronto Maple Leafs, in the team's first game since changing name from "St. Patricks", beat the visiting New York Americans, 4-1 at the Mutual Street Arena
• 1928 American brothers, Jennison and John Heaton fight out the top placings in the cresta (now known as skeleton) at the St. Moritz Winter Olympics; Jennison takes the gold by 1.0s
• 1928 Johan Grøttumsbråten leads a Norwegian sweep of the medals in the 18k cross country at the St. Moritz Winter Olympics; he also wins the Nordic combined gold the following day
• 1930 French government of André Tardieu falls for the first time
• 1931 Hockey's Hershey Bears (now with AHL) 1st game
• 1933 First issue of American news magazine "Newsweek" is published
• 1933 US Senate accepts Blaine Act: ending prohibition
• 1934 1st high school auto driving course offered (State College, Pennsylvania)
• 1936 -58°F (-50°C), McIntosh, South Dakota (state record)
• 1936 S. N. Behrman's play "End of Summer" premieres in NYC
• 1936 The world's first superhero, The Phantom, a cartoon strip by Lee Falk, makes his first appearance in comics
• 1938 1st public experimental demonstration of Baird color TV (London)
• 1939 Katwijk soccer team forms in the Netherlands
• 1940 Altmark Incident: Crew of the British destroyer "Cossack" board German "Altmark" in Jøssingfjord, Norway, releasing 299 British prisoners after hand-to-hand fighting with bayonets and the last recorded Royal Naval action with cutlass

Louis KOs Dorazio

1941 In his 14th title defense Joe Louis KOs Gus Dorazio in the 2nd round at the Convention Center, Philadelphia to retain NYSAC heavyweight boxing crown

Event of Interest

1943 Adolf Hitler visits field marshal Erich von Manstein's headquarters in Zaporozje, Ukraine and stays until the 19th

Scientific Discovery

1943 Dow Chemical and Corning Glass Works form a joint venture to explore and produce silicon materials, based upon the work of James Franklin Hyde

• 1943 Dutch churches protest at Seyss-Inquart against persecution of Jews

Battle of Eniwetok

1944 Battle of Eniwetok begins with US forces landing on Canna and Camelia islets in the Pacific

• 1944 Operation Hailstone: US begins night bombing of Truk island in the Pacific
• 1946 Humanistic Covenant forms in Amsterdam
• 1947 Dutch RC bishops publish manifest against "godless communism"
• 1947 Voice of America begins broadcasting to USSR
• 1949 Chaim Weitzman elected 1st president of Israel
• 1949 Ice Pairs Championship at Paris won by Andrea Kekesy and Ede Kiraly of Hungary
• 1949 Ladies' Figure Skating Champions in Paris won by Alena Vrzanova of CZE
• 1950 Two Long Island Rail Road trains collide head-on, killing 32 near Rockville Centre, Long Island, New York

Sports History

1951 Detroit right wing Gordie Howe scores his 100th career NHL goal and adds an assist in a 2-1 Red Wings' victory over the Canadiens, in Montreal, Quebec

• 1952 Montreal Canadiens center Elmer Lach picks up his 354th career assist in a 3-2 loss at the NY Rangers to become NHL's all-time assists leader; passes Bill Cowley's mark

• 1952 Trude Jochum-Beiser of Austria wins the downhill gold medal at the Oslo Winter Olympics; second career gold medal after taking out the combined event at St. Moritz (1948)

• 1953 DSB soccer team forms in Eindhoven (now PSV Eindhoven), Netherlands

• 1954 WAST (now WNYT) TV channel 13 in Albany-Troy, NY (NBC) 1st broadcast

• 1955 American golfer Mike Souchak sets PGA 72-hole record of 257 (not broken until 2001)

• 1955 Ice Dance Championship at Vienna Austria won by J Westwood/Demmy GRB

• 1955 Ice Pairs Championship at Vienna won by Frances Dafoe and Norris Bowden of Canada

• 1955 KTVF TV channel 11 in Fairbanks, AK (CBS/ABC) begins broadcasting

• 1956 Ice Dance Championship at Garmisch won by Pamela Weight/P Thomas GRB

• 1956 Ice Pairs Championship at Garmisch won by Schwarz & Oppelt of AUT

• 1957 A fire at a home for the elderly in Warrenton, Missouri kills 72 people.

• 1958 Comic strip "BC" 1st appears

• 1958 WETV (now WPBA) TV channel 30 in Atlanta, GA (PBS) begins broadcasting

• 1959 1st weather satellite launched, Vanguard 2, 9.8 kg

• 1962 Storm in Hamburg kills 265

• 1963 Japanese runner Toru Terasawa runs a world record marathon (2:15:15.8) at the Beppu Marathon on the island of Kyushu, Japan

• 1964 101st member elected to Baseball Hall of Fame, Chicago White Sox shortstop Luke Appling

• 1964 US House of Representatives accept Law on the civil rights

• 1964 US Supreme Court rules - 1 man 1 vote (Westberry v Sanders)

• 1964 WMEM TV channel 10 in Presque Isle, ME (PBS) begins broadcasting

• 1965 US Ranger 8 launched, will transmit 7,137 lunar pictures

• 1966 French satellite Diapason D-1A launch into Earth orbit

• 1967 Kosmos 140 (Soyuz Test) launches into Earth orbit

• 1967 Parlophone releases the Beatles' double "A" side single "Penny Lane" & "Strawberry Fields" in the UK

• 1968 Frenchman Jean Claude-Killy completes a clean sweep of the alpine skiing events at the Grenoble Winter Olympics when he wins the slalom; also takes out the downhill and giant slalom

• 1968 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Springfield, Massachusetts opens

• 1968 Norwegian cross country skier Ole Ellefsæter wins 50k event at the Grenoble Winter Olympics; 2nd gold medal of the Games (4 x 10k relay)

• 1968 Soviet Union wins its 3rd Olympic ice hockey gold medal in Grenoble; clinch title with final round, 5-0 win over Canada; Soviet LW Anatoli Firsov top scores with 16 points

• 1969 "Cloud Nine" 9th studio album by The Temptations is released (Grammy Award Best Rhythm & Blues Performance by a Duo or Group 1969, Billboard Album of the Year 1969)

Music Recording

1969 Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash record an album; it is never released

• 1970 Robert Marasco's "Child's Play" premieres in NYC
• 1970 US army officer Jeffrey MacDonald murders his pregnant wife and two small daughters

Music Concert

1972 Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti receives record 17 curtain calls after his performance in "La fille du régiment" at New York's Metropolitan Opera

Event of Interest

1972 US President Richard Nixon leaves Washington, D.C. for a groundbreaking trip to China

• 1973 Rodney Redmond scores 107 on debut v Pakistan, his only Test Cricket

Meeting of Interest

1973 US National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger meets Chinese leader Mao Zedong, where the latter jokingly offers to send 10 million Chinese women to the United States

• 1974 49 die in stampede for seats at soccer match, Cairo, Egypt
• 1974 Robert K. Preston, a disgruntled U.S. Army private, buzzes the White House with a stolen helicopter.

Rock 'n' Roll

1975 A&M Records releases John Lennon's sixth studio album, "Rock 'n' Roll" album, cover songs of early rock numbers

• 1976 Macau adopts constitution (Organic Law of Macau)
• 1976 NZ scores their 1st innings win in Test Cricket, v India

Sports History

1976 Richard Hadlee takes 7-23 New Zealand v India, his 1st match-winning spell

Music History

1977 Kalakuta Republic, commune of Nigerian musician and activist Fela Kuti, burnt to the ground by soldiers in Lagos

• 1978 11 civilians and 1 RUC officer are killed and 30 wounded by a Provisional Irish Republican Army incendiary bomb at the La Mon Restaurant near Belfast

World Record

1979 American speed skater Eric Heiden equals world record 1000m (1:14.99)

• 1979 China invades Vietnam, marking the start of the Sino-Vietnamese War

• 1980 Derrynaflan Hoard of five priceless 8th/9th century liturgical vessels discovered with metal detectors on Derrynaflan Island, County Tipperary - one of Ireland's most exciting archaeological finds [1]

• 1980 Sapporo downhill silver medallist Annemarie Moser-Pröll of Austria goes one better with gold at the Lake Placid Winter Olympics

• 1980 Swedish cross-country skier Thomas Wassberg earns first of 4 career Olympic gold medals in the 15k at Lake Placid; wins by 0.01s from Finland's Juha Mieto; closest margin of victory ever in Olympic cross-country skiing

• 1981 Chrysler Corporation reports largest corporate losses in US history

• 1982 Commencement of Sri Lanka's 1st Test Cricket match, v England

• 1983 Bob Bourne fails on 8th Islander penalty shot

• 1983 Netherlands adopts constitution

• 1983 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

• 1984 Biathletes Eirik Kvalfoss of Norway and West German Peter Angerer finish 2nd & 3rd respectively in the relay at the Sarajevo Winter Olympics; both have complete sets of medals from biathlon events at the Games

• 1985 1st class postage rises from 20 cents to 22 cents

• 1985 1st day/night game at the MCG, Australia v England

Daytona 500

1985 27th Daytona 500: After taking pole at then-record speed of 205.114 mph Bill Elliott dominates race leading 136 of 200 laps

• 1985 3rd person to receive an artificial heart (Murray Haydon)

Event of Interest

1985 Colombian drug lord the 'Godmother of Cocaine' Griselda Blanco arrested in Irvine, California - later convicted and serves 15 years for manufacturing and distributing cocaine [1]

• 1985 Dutch speed skater Hein Vergeer becomes World Allround champion

Sports History

1985 Panamanian jockey Laffit Pincay Jr is third to ride 6,000 winners; wins aboard Doria's Delight in the 5th race at Santa Anita Park

• 1986 1st Francophone Summit convenes at Versailles
• 1986 Howard Stern radio show returns to NYC morning radio (WXRK 92.3 FM)
• 1986 Johnson & Johnson announces it will no longer sell capsule drugs
• 1986 Libyan bombers attack N'djamena Airport in Chad

Sports History

1987 New York Yankees Don Mattingly wins highest salary arbitration ($1,975,000 per year)

• 1988 US Lt Col William Higgins kidnapped in south Lebanon by Lebanese terrorists & later killed
• 1989 6-week study of Arctic atmosphere shows no ozone "hole"

Sports History

1989 Former baseball player and manager Leo Durocher injured in a car crash

• 1989 Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia & Libya form common market

• 1989 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan

• 1991 33rd Daytona 500: Ernie Irvan, driving for Morgan-McClure Motorsports coasts to win after challengers crash on finals laps

• 1993 Haitian ferry boat capsize in storm, 800-2,000 die

• 1993 Hartford right wing Pat Verbeek scores his 300th career NHL goal and adds his 300th career assist in a 5-3 Whalers' home loss to the Buffalo Sabres

• 1995 Colin Fergusson found guilty of killing 6 people on the Long Island Rail Road in NY

• 1995 Federal judge allows lawsuit claiming US tobacco makers knew nicotine was addictive & manipulated its levels to keep customers hooked

• 1997 Weekly Standard shows evidence Larry Flint sexually abused his daughter

• 1998 Larry Wayne Harris & Bill Levitt arrested for possession of anthrax

• 1998 NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft overtakes Pioneer 10 to become the farthest object from earth in space

• 1998 US Naval Academy cadet Diane Zamora, 20, convicted of capital murder

• 1998 USA Women's Ice Hockey Team beats Canada and wins the first Olympic Gold medal

#1 in the Charts

2002 'Always On Time' by R&B artist Ja Rule featuring Ashanti starts a two-week run at #1 on the US singles chart.

• 2002 44th Daytona 500: Ward Burton's win first for Dodge since Richard Petty's victory in the 1974 race
• 2002 Westlife go to No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'World Of Our Own.' The Irish boy band's 10th UK No.1 single.
• 2003 The London Congestion Charge scheme begins in London, England

If I Ain't Got You

2004 "If I Ain't Got You" single released by Alicia Keys (Grammy Award Best Female R&B Vocal Performance 2005, Billboard Song of the Year 2004)

• 2006 A massive mudslide occurs in Southern Leyte, Philippines; the official death toll is set at 1,126.

• 2008 50th Daytona 500: Ryan Newman wins shootout going into the final turn from Tony Stewart, and the Busch brothers, Kurt and Kyle

• 2008 Kosovo declares independence from Serbia

• 2012 Approximately 70 ancient Olympic artifacts are stolen from the Archaeological Museum of Greece

• 2012 Friso, Prince of Orange-Nassau (31), buried under an avalanche while skiing in Lech, Austria; suffers oxygen deprivation and lapses into a terminal coma

• 2012 The President of Germany, Christian Wulff, resigns over a corruption scandal

• 2013 37 people are killed and 130 are injured in a series of Baghdad car bombings

• 2013 5 people are killed and 11 are injured after a gas explosion destroyed an apartment complex in Frenštát pod Radhoštěm, Czech Republic

• 2013 President Rafael Correa wins the Ecuadorian general election in a landslide victory

The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon

2014 "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" premieres on NBC

• 2014 American pair Meryl Davis and Charlie White win the first Olympic gold medal for the US in ice dance at the Sochi Winter Games
• 2014 Belarus takes the aerials double at the Sochi Winter Olympics when Anton Kushnir wins the men's event; Alla Tsuper claims the women's section
• 2014 Belarusian biathlete Darya Domracheva wins her 3rd gold medal of the Sochi Winter Olympics in the mass start; also wins individual and pursuit gold

Event of Interest

2014 US Secretary of State John Kerry claims climate change requires urgent action and that only a small "window of time" remained open

• 2016 Car bomb attack on military convoy in Ankara, Turkey, by Kurdish militant eaves 28 dead
• 2016 Channing Dungey announced new President of ABC Entertainment Group, first African-American to lead a major US broadcast network

Event of Interest

2016 Chief executive Tim Cook confirms Apple will contest an FBI order to unlock the phone of San Bernardino gunman Syed Rizwan Farook

Sports History

2016 Nike ends endorsement deal with Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao after he made TV comments gay people are "worse than animals."

• 2016 Oldest known case of human-Neanderthal sex (100,000 yrs ago) revealed by Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig), 50,000 yr old Neanderthal woman's remains from Altai mountains show traces of Homo Sapiens DNA
• 2017 Discovery of a new mostly underwater continent Zealandia in the South Pacific announced in research journal "GSA Today"
• 2018 10k freestyle cross country champion Ragnhild Haga and 30k classical winner Marit Bjørgen win their 2nd Olympic gold medal in Pyeongchang as part of Norway's 4 x 5k relay team
• 2018 3 suicide bombers kill 18 in Konduga, north-east Nigeria
• 2018 Britain's Lizzy Yarnold wins her 2nd consecutive Olympic women's skeleton gold medal in Pyeongchang; also wins event in Sochi (2014)
• 2018 Czech skier Ester Ledecká wins super-G gold medal at Pyeongchang Winter Olympics; later wins parallel giant slalom snowboarding to be first female to win gold in different sports at a single Games
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