Historical Events on February 17

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

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

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

1791 Charles Messier catalogs M83 (spiral galaxy in Hydra)

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

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

1880 Alexander II of Russia survives an assassination attempt

1885 Bismarck gives Carl Peters' firm management of East-Africa

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

1904 Giacomo Puccini's opera "Madama Butterfly" premieres in Milan

1913 NY Armory Show introduces Picasso, Matisse, Duchamp to US public

1921 Arthur Honegger's "Pastorale D'ete" premieres

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

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

1932 Irving Berlin's musical "Face the Music" premieres in NYC

1941 Joe Louis KOs Gus Dorazio in 2 for heavyweight boxing title

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

1943 Major General Omar Bradley flies to Washington, D.C.

1943 NY Yankee Joe DiMaggio enlists into the US army

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

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

1962 Wilt Chamberlain of NBA Philadelphia Warriors scores 67 points vs St Louis Hawks

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

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

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

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 16th Daytona 500: Richard Petty first driver to win back-to-back titles at Daytona; his 5th Great American race

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

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

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

1995 Tiger Manager Sparky Anderson takes unpaid leave due to baseball strike

1996 Garry Kasparov defeats Deep Blue 4-2 in chess

2002 'Always On Time' by R&B artist Ja Rule featuring Ashanti starts a two-week run at No.1 on the US singles chart.

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)

2008 57th NBA All-Star Game, New Orleans Arena, New Orleans, LA: East beats West, 134-128; MVP: LeBron James, Cleveland Cavaliers, F