Historical Events on February 17

Events 1 - 200 of 221

• 1370 Battle at Rudau: Germany beats Lithuania
• 1461 Wars of the Roses: Second Battle of St Albans - Lancastrian army defeats Yorkists and recapture King Henry VI

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

• 1568 Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II agrees to pay tribute to the Ottoman Empire for peace
• 1598 Boris Godunov chosen as Tsar of Russia
• 1600 Philosopher Giordano Bruno is burned alive at Campo de' Fiori in Rome, charged with heresy.

• 1634 William Prynne tried in Star Chamber for publishing "Histrio-masti"
• 1670 France & Bavaria sign military assistance treaty
• 1691 Thomas Neale granted English patent for American postal service
• 1714 Parliament of Paris accepts Pope Clemens XI's "Unigenitus" degree
• 1772 1st Partition of Poland signed in Vienna by Austria, Prussia and Russia

• 1791 Messier catalogs M83 (spiral galaxy in Hydra)
• 1795 Thomas Seddal harvests 8.3-kg potato from his garden 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)

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

• 1864 Confederate submarine HL Hunley sinks Union ship Housatonic
• 1865 -18] Battle of Charleston, South Carolina
• 1865 Columbia, South Carolina, burns down during 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 opens with 18 phones

• 1882 1st Test Cricket match played at Sydney Cricket Ground
• 1883 A Ashwell patents free-toilet in London

• 1896 Muzzling Order on the London County Council enforced
• 1897 National Organization of Mothers forms (Parent Teacher Association)

• 1902 A general strike in Barcelona and nearby towns leads to government-troop reprisals that leave 40 dead

• 1905 Frances Willard becomes 1st women honored in National Statuary Hall
• 1911 1st hydroplane flight to & from a ship (Glenn Curtiss, San Diego)
• 1913 1st minimum wage law in US takes effect (Oregon)

• 1915 Edward Stone, 1st US combatant to die in WW I, is mortally wounded
• 1916 Romberg/Hanley/Atteridge/Smith's musical premieres in NYC
• 1917 In Australia, Nationalist Party takes over a coalition government
• 1921 Arthur Honegger's "Pastorale D'ete" premieres

• 1924 American swimmer Johnny Weissmuller sets 100m world freestyle record 57.4s at Miami, FL
• 1926 Avalanche buries 75 in Sap Gulch, Bingham, Utah; 40 die
• 1927 Toronto Maple Leafs beat the New York Americans, 4-1 in the team's first game since changing name from "St. Patricks"
• 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 1st telecast of a sporting event in Japan (baseball)
• 1931 Hockey's Hershey Bears (now with AHL) 1st game

• 1933 First issue of American news magazine "Newsweek" is published
• 1933 Marinus van der Lubbe arrives in Glindow, at Potsdam
• 1933 US Senate accept Blaine Act: ending prohibition
• 1934 1st high school auto driving course offered (State College, Penn)
• 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
• 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

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

• 1944 US begins night bombing of Truk
• 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
• 1949 Men's Figure Skating Championship in Paris won by Richard Button of the USA
• 1950 31 die in a train crash in Rockville Center NY

• 1952 Montreal Canadiens center Elmer Lach picks up his 354th career assist in a 3-2 loss at the NY Rangers to become the 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
• 1954 WAST (now WNYT) TV channel 13 in Albany-Troy, NY (NBC) 1st broadcast
• 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


• 1955 Ladies Figure Skating Championship in Vienna won by Tenley Albright US
• 1955 Mike Souchak sets PGA 72-hole record of 257 (not broken until 2001)
• 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
• 1956 Ladies' Figure Skating Championship in Garmisch won by Carol Heiss USA
• 1956 Men's Figure Skating Championship in Garmisch won by H A Jenkins USA
• 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 Toru Terasawa runs world record marathon (2:15:15.8
• 1964 101st member elected to baseball's hall of fame (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
• 1965 US-Japan baseball relations suspended over Masanori Murakami dispute
• 1966 French satellite Diapason D-1A launch into Earth orbit
• 1967 Beatles release "Penny Lane" & "Strawberry Fields"
• 1967 Kosmos 140 (Soyuz Test) launches into Earth orbit
• 1968 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Springfield, Massachusetts opens
• 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 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)
• 1970 US army officer Jeffrey MacDonald murders his pregnant wife and two small daughters


• 1970 Robert Marasco's "Child's Play" premieres in NYC
• 1971 England regains cricket Ashes with a 2-0 series win
• 1972 British Parliament votes to join the European Common Market

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

• 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.
• 1974 16th Daytona 500: Richard Petty first driver to win back-to-back titles at Daytona; his 5th Great American race
• 1976 "Rockabye Hamlet" opens at Minskoff Theater NYC for 7 performances
• 1976 Macau adopts constitution (Organic Law of Macau)
• 1976 NZ scores their 1st innings win in Test Cricket, v India

• 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
• 1979 China invades Vietnam, marking the start of the Sino-Vietnamese War
• 1979 Eric Heiden equals skating world record 1000m (1:14.99)
• 1980 22nd Daytona 500: Buddy Baker wins ahead of Bobby Allison and Neil Bonnett
• 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 Corp 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 34th Berlin International Film Festival: "Love Streams" wins the Golden Bear
• 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


• 1985 3rd person to receive an artificial heart (Murray Haydon)
• 1985 Dutch speed skater Hein Vergeer becomes World Allround champion
• 1985 Laffit Pincay Jr is third to ride 6,000th winners at Santa Anita
• 1985 27th Daytona 500: After taking pole at then-record speed of 205.114 mph Bill Elliott dominates race leading 136 of 200 laps
• 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 no longer sell capsule drugs
• 1986 Libyan bombers attack N'djamena Airport in Chad
• 1987 Don Mattingly wins highest salary arbitration ($1,975,000 per year)
• 1987 Michelle Renee Royer, 21, (Texas), crowned 36th Miss USA
• 1988 Lebanese terrorists kidnap UN truce observer Lt Col William Higgins
• 1988 US Lt Col Williamm Higgins kidnapped by Lebanese terrorists & later killed
• 1989 6-week study of Arctic atmosphere shows no ozone "hole"

• 1989 Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia & Libya form common market
• 1989 Orel Hershiser, Dodger pitcher signs record $7.9M-3 year contract
• 1989 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
• 1991 US male Figure Skating championship won by Todd Eldredge
• 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 Mark Foster swims world record 50m free style (21.60 sec)
• 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 11th Soap Opera Digest Awards - "Days of Our Lives" wins
• 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
• 1996 1st full ODI for the Netherlands, v NZ, cricket World Cup Nolan Clarke makes ODI debut for Netherlands at age 47

• 1997 Weekly Standard shows evidence Larry Flint sexually abused his daughter
• 1998 US Naval Academy cadet Diane Zamora, 20, convicted of capital murder


• 1998 Larry Wayne Harris & Bill Levitt arrested for possession of anthrax
• 1998 USA Women's Ice Hockey Team beats Canada and wins the first Olympic Gold medal
• 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.

• 2002 44th Daytona 500: Ward Burton's win first for Dodge since Richard Petty's victory in the 1974 race
• 2003 The London Congestion Charge scheme begins.

• 2006 A massive mudslide occurs in Southern Leyte, Philippines; the official death toll is set at 1,126.
• 2008 Kosovo declares independence from Serbia.

• 2008 50th Daytona 500: Ryan Newman wins shootout going into the final turn from Tony Stewart, and the Busch brothers, Kurt and Kyle
• 2012 Approximately 70 ancient Olympic artifacts are stolen from the Archaeological Museum of Greece
• 2012 The President of Germany, Christian Wulff, resigns over a corruption scandal
• 2012 43rd NAACP Image Awards: "The Help" wins Outstanding Motion Picture
• 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
• 2013 62nd NBA All-Star Game, Toyota Centre, Houston, TX: West beats East, 143-138; MVP: Chris Paul, LA Clippers, G
• 2013 Jess Cameron with 75 and Elise Perry 3-27 lead Australia to 114 run win over West Indies in the Women's Cricket World Cup Final in Bombay, India

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