17 February History


Month:                           Date:     

  • 1454    -    At a grand feast, Philip the Good of Burgundy takes the "vow of the pheasant," by which he swears to fight the Turks.
  • 1598    -    Boris Godunov, the boyar of Tarar origin, is elected czar in succession to his brother-in-law Fydor.
  • 1720    -    Spain signs the Treaty of the Hague with the Quadruple Alliance ending a war that was begun in 1718.
  • 1801    -    The House of Representatives breaks an electoral college tie and chooses Thomas Jefferson over Aaron Burr.
  • 1864    -    The Confederate submarine Hunley sinks the USS Housatonic in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina.
ADVERTISEMENTS
  • 1865    -    The South Carolina capital city, Columbia, is destroyed by fire as Major General William Tecumseh Sherman marches through.
  • 1909    -    Apache chief Geronimo dies of pneumonia at age 80, while still in captivity at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
  • 1919    -    Germany signs an armistice giving up territory in Poland.
  • 1925    -    The first issue of Harold Ross' magazine, The New Yorker, hits the stands, selling for 15 cents a copy.
  • 1933    -    The League of Nations censures Japan in a worldwide broadcast.
  • 1935    -    Thirty-one prisoners escape an Oklahoma prison after murdering a guard.
ADVERTISEMENTS
  • 1938    -    The first color television is demonstrated at the Dominion Theatre in London.
  • 1944    -    U.S forces land on Eniwetok atoll in the South Pacific.
  • 1945    -    Gen. MacArthur's troops land on Corregidor in the Philippines.
  • 1951    -    Packard introduces its "250" Chassis Convertible.
  • 1955    -    Britain announces its ability to make hydrogen bombs.
  • 1959    -    The United States launches its first weather station in space, Vanguard II.
ADVERTISEMENTS
  • 1960    -    Martin Luther King Jr. is arrested in the Alabama bus boycott.
  • 1963    -    Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev visits the Berlin Wall.
  • 1969    -    Russia and Peru sign their first trade accord.
  • 1973    -    President Richard Nixon names Patrick Gray director of the FBI.
  • 1975    -    Art by Cezanne, Gauguin, Renoir, and van Gough, valued at $5 million, is stolen from the Municipal Museum in Milan.
  • 1979    -    China begins a "pedagogical" war against Vietnam. It will last until March.
  • 1985    -    Murray Haydon becomes the third person to receive an artificial heart.

  • 17 February Birthdays

  • 1774    -    Raphaelle Peale, U.S. painter
  • 1864    -    A (ndrew) B (arton) "Banjo" Paterson, Australian poet and journalist.
  • 1874    -    Thomas J. Watson Sr., U.S. industrialist.
  • 1902    -    Marian Anderson, American singer.
  • 1908    -    Walter Lanier "Red" Barber, baseball announcer for the Cincinnati Reds, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Yankees.
  • 1929    -    Chaim Potok, novelist (The Chosen, The Promise).
  • 1963    -    Michael Jordan, basketball player for the Chicago Bulls.