17 April History


Month:                           Date:     

  • 858    -    Benedict III ends his reign as Catholic Pope.
  • 1492    -    Christopher Columbus signs a contract with Spain to find a western route to the Indies.
  • 1521    -    Martin Luther is excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church.
  • 1524    -    Present-day New York Harbor is discovered by Giovanni Verrazano.
  • 1535    -    Antonio Mendoza is appointed first viceroy of New Spain.
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  • 1758    -    Frances Williams, the first African-American to graduate for a college in the western hemisphere, publishes a collection of Latin poems.
  • 1808    -    Bayonne Decree by Napoleon I of France orders seizure of U.S. ships.
  • 1824    -    Russia abandons all North American claims south of 54' 40'.
  • 1861    -    Virginia become eighth state to secede from the Union.
  • 1864    -    General Grant bans the trading of prisoners.
  • 1865    -    Mary Surratt is arrested as a conspirator in the Lincoln assassination.
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  • 1875    -    The game "snooker" is invented by Sir Neville Chamberlain.
  • 1895    -    China and Japan sign peace treaty of Shimonoseki.
  • 1929    -    Baseball player Babe Ruth and Claire Hodgeson, a former member of the Ziegfield Follies, get married.
  • 1946    -    The last French troops leave Syria.
  • 1947    -    Jackie Robinson bunts for his first major league hit.
  • 1961    -    Some 1,400 Cuban exiles attack the Bay of Pigs in an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro.
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  • 1964    -    Jerrie Mock becomes first woman to fly solo around the world.
  • 1969    -    Sirhan Sirhan is convicted of assassinating Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
  • 1970    -    Apollo 13–originaly scheduled to land on the moon–lands back safely on Earth after an accident.
  • 1975    -    Khmer Rouge forces capture the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh.
  • 1983    -    In Warsaw, police rout 1,000 Solidarity supporters.

  • 17 April Birthdays

  • 1622    -    Henry Vaughan, poet
  • 1676    -    Frederick I, king of Sweden
  • 1741    -    Samuel Chase, signer of the Declaration of Independence
  • 1820    -    Alexander Cartwright, sportsman, developed baseball.
  • 1866    -    Ernest Henry Starling, British physiologist.
  • 1885    -    Isak Dinesen (Karen Dinesen), Danish writer (Out of Africa).
  • 1894    -    Nikita S. Khrushchev, Soviet premier (1958-64).
  • 1897    -    Thornton Wilder, novelist and playwright (Our Town).
  • 1923    -    Harry Reasoner, American broadcast journalist.
  • 1928    -    Cynthia Ozick, writer (The Cannibal Galaxy, The Messiah of Stockholm).