17th
August, on this day
682 St Leo
II begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1483 The date presumed that two young princes, the uncrowned Edward
V and his brother Richard, Duke of York, were killed in the Tower
of London
1787 Jews are granted permission in Budapest, Hungary to pray in groups
1807 Robert
Fulton's steamboat Clermont begins 1st trip up Hudson River
1833 The Canadian SS
Royal William, the first steamship to cross the Atlantic entirely
under power, sets off from Nova Scotia
1836 Britain introduces the Registration Act - making it legally compulsory
to register all births, deaths and marriages in Britain
1846 US takes Los Angeles
1859 French acrobat Charles
Blondin crosses Niagara Falls on a tightrope
1862
Indian Wars: The Lakota
(Sioux) Dakota War of 1862 begins in Minnesota as Lakota warriors
attack white settlements along the Minnesota River.
1862 Major General JEB
Stuart is assigned command of all the cavalry of the Confederate
Army of Northern Virginia.
1863 Federal batteries and ships bombard
Fort Sumter, Charleston
1864 Battle
of Gainesville - Confederate forces defeat Union troops near Gainesville,
Florida.
1869 1st international boat race (Thames River) (Oxford beats Harvard)
1870 1st ascent of Mt Rainier, Washington
1870 Mrs Esther
Morris becomes 1st woman magistrate (South Pass, Wyoming)
1877 Asaph
Hall discovers Mars' moon Phobos
1896 Gold is discovered on Klondike River
1896 Britain's first fatal car accident involving a pedestrian. Mrs
Bridget Driscoll of Croydon in South London is hit by a car travelling
at 4 mph - the lady apparently freezing in panic at the oncoming vehicule
1907 Pike
Place Market, the longest continuously-running public farmers
market in the US, opened in Seattle.
1908 Projection in Paris of the very first cartoon, Fantasmagorie
realized by Émile
Cohl.
1914 Battle
of Stalluponen - The German army of General Hermann von François
defeats the Russian force commanded by Pavel Rennenkampf near modern-day
Nesterov, Russia.
1915 Mob lynches Jewish businessman Leo
Frank in Cobb County, Ga after death sentence for murder of 13-year-old
girl commuted to life
1918 Samuel
Riddle buys Man o'War for $5,000
1938 Henry
Armstrong won his 3rd concurrent boxing championship
1939 "Wizard of Oz" opens at Loew's Capitol Theater in NY
1940 FDR and Canadian PM William
M King agree to joint defense commission
1942 US bombers staged 1st independent raid on Europe attack Rouen,
France
1943 The U.S.
Eighth Air Force suffers the loss of 60 bombers on the Schweinfurt-Regensburg
mission
1942 U.S.
Marines raid the Japanese-held Pacific island of Makin (Butaritari).
1943 The U.S.
Seventh Army under General George
S. Patton arrive in Messina, Italy, followed several hours later
by the British 8th Army under Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery,
thus completing the Allied conquest of Sicily.
1943 First
Québec Conference of Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt,
and William Lyon Mackenzie King begins.
1945 Indonesia declares independence from Netherlands
1945 Animal
Farm by George Orwell is first published by Fredric Warburg
1947 The Radcliffe
Line, the border between Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan
is revealed.
1948 Alger
Hiss denies ever being a Communist agent
1950 Indonesia gains independence from the Netherlands
1951 Hurricane winds drive 6 ships ashore, Kingston, Jamaica
1955 Hurricane
Diane, following hurricane Connie floods Connecticut River killing
190 and doing $1.8 billion damage
1958 World's 1st Moon probe, US's Thor-Able,
explodes at T +77 sec
1959 Quake
Lake was formed by the magnitude 7.5 1959
Yellowstone earthquake near Hebgen Lake in Montana.
1960 Francis
Gary Powers U-2 spy trial opens in Moscow
1960 Gabon gains independence from France
1961 East German construction workers begin the building of the Berlin
Wall which will separate East and West Berlin for another 29 years
1961 Kennedy administration establishes Alliance
for Progress
1962 Beatles replace Pete Best with Ringo Starr
1962 E German border guards shot and kill Peter
Fechter, 18, attempting to cross Berlin Wall into western sector
1965 Operation
Starlite begins - United States Marines destroy a Viet Cong stronghold
on the Van Tuong peninsula in the first major American ground battle
of the war.
1966 Pioneer 7 launched into solar orbit
1969 Hurricane
Camille claims more than 250
1970 Venera
7 launched by USSR for soft landing on Venus
1973
Lee Trevino's 1st hole-in-one
1978 The first successful trans-Atlantic balloon crossing is completed
when Eagle II lands in a wheatfield in Normandy
1980 Azaria
Chamberlain disappears, likely taken by a dingo, leading to what
was then the most publicised trial in Australian history.
1982 The first Compact
Discs (CD's) were released to the public in Germany.
1982 South Bend, Ind jury acquits self-avowed racist Joseph
Paul Franklin
1985 Rajiv Gandhi announces Punjab state elections in India
1987 The former Nazi leader and Deputy Fuhrer Rudolph
Hess commits suicide in Spandau Prison aged 93
1988 NYC 1st case of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (9 year old Bronx
boy)
1988 Pakistani President Muhammad
Zia-ul-Haq and U.S. Ambassador
Arnold Raphel are killed in a plane crash.
1990 "The
Exorcist 3" premiers
1990 Phyllis Polander sues Mike Tyson for sexual harassment
1998 Bill Clinton becomes the first US President to testify before
a criminal grand jury when he is questioned over his relationship
with former White House aide MonicaLewinsky
1999 A 7.4-magnitude earthquake strikes
Izmit, Turkey, killing more than 17,000 and injuring 44,000.
2004 MD5
collision found by Chinese researchers.
2004 The National
Assembly of Serbia unanimously adopts new state symbols for Serbia:
Boze Pravde becomes the new anthem and the coat of arms is adopted
for the whole country.
2005 The first forced evacuation of settlers, as part of the Israel
unilateral disengagement plan, starts.
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Birthdates which
occurred on 17th August :
1601 Pierre de
Fermat mathematician who needed wider margins
1786 Davy Crockett US, frontiersman/adventurer/politician
1840 Wilfrid Scawen Blunt England, writer (Irish Land League)
1844 Menelik II King of Ethiopia (1896-1913)
1870 Frederick Russell developed 1st successful typhoid fever vaccine
1876 Eric Drummond 1st Secretary-General of League of Nations (1919-33)
1887 Marcus Garvey began back-to-Africa movement among US blacks
1888 Monty Wooley NYC, actor (Pied Piper, Man Who Came to Dinner)
1892 Mae West Bkln, actress (Go up & see her sometime)
19-- Emily Schulain
19-- Guy Killum LA Calif, actor (Snake-Better Days)
19-- Julianna McCarthy actress (Young & Restless)
19-- Kathy McNeil actress (As the World Turns)
19-- Kenji Hino rocker (RU Ready)
19-- Steven Gorman rocker (Black Crowes-Shake Your Money Maker)
1900 Quincy Howe Boston Mass, newscaster (CBS Weekend News)
1901 Henri Tomasi Marseilles France, composer (Don Juan de Ma¤ara)
1905 John Hay Whitney publisher (NY Herald Trib 1961-67)
1914 Franklin D Roosevelt Jr son of FDR/(Rep-D-NY, 1949-55)
1918 Mort Marshall NYC, actor (Cully-Dumplings)
1920 Georgia Gibbs Worcester Mass, singer (Ballin the Jack, Kiss of
Fire)
1921 Maureen O'Hara Dublin Ireland, actress (Miracle on 34th St)
1922 Ralph Roberts NC, actor (Tradition, Gone are the Days)
1923 Larry Rivers modern/abstract painter (Wash crossing Delaware-1953)
1926 Haakon Barfod Norway, yachting (Olympic-gold-1948, 52)
1927 Robert Moore Detroit Mich, actor (Marshall-Diana)
1929 Francis Gary Powers US spy (USSR captures him in 1959 U-2 incident)
1932 Chet Allen Chickasha Okla, actor (Jerry-Bonino, Slats-Troubleshooter)
1932 V.S. Naipaul Trinidad, novelist (Middle Passage)
1939 Luther Allison Arkansas, guitarist (Bad News is Coming)
1940 Thomas Williams US, ice hockey play (Olympic-gold-1960)
1941 Boog Powell baseball player (AL MVP 1970)
1943 Robert De Niro NYC, actor (Bang the Drum Slowly, Taxi Driver)
1943 Yukio Kasaya Japan, 70m ski jumper (Olympic-gold-1972)
1951 Alain Mimoun France, marathon runner (Olympic-gold-1956)
1951 Alan Minter England, light-middleweight boxer (Olympic-bronze-1972)
1952 Kathryn C Thornton Montgomery Alabama, PhD/astronaut (STS 33,
sk: 49)
1953 Kevin Rowlands rocker (Dexy's Midnight Runners-Come on Eileen)
1958 Belinda Carlisle Hollywood Ca, (GoGos lead singer, Heaven on
Earth)
1960 Sean Penn actor (Fast Times at Ridgemont High)
1963 Carmen Berg Bismark ND, playmate (July, 1987)
1965 Glen Goldsmith rocker (What You See is What You Get)
1969 Donald E Wahlberg Jr, Boston, rocker (New Kids-Hangin' Tough)
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Deaths which occurred
on August 17th:
1850 Jos‚ Francisco de San Martin South American revolutionary
hero, dies
1915 Leo Frank lynched for raping 12 year old in Georgia
1920 Ray Chapman hit in the head by Yanks' Carl Mays pitch, dies
1971 Horace McMahon actor (Martin Kane Private Eye), dies at 64
1973 Conrad Aiken Pulitzer winning poet, dies at 74
1975 Sig Arno Hamburg Germany, actor (My Friend Irma), dies at 80
1976 William Redfield actor (Jimmy Hughes Rookie Cop), dies at 48
1979 Vivian Vance actress (Ethel Mertz-I Love Lucy), dies at 72
1982 Barney Phillips actor (Dragnet, Felony Squad), dies at 68
1983 Ira Gershwin lyricist, dies in Beverly Hills, Cal, at 86
1987 Rudolph Hess Nazi, dies at 93, after 46 years in Spandau Prison
1988 Franklin D Roosevelt Jr (Rep-D-NY, 1949-55), dies on 74th birthday
1988 Mohammad Zia Ul-Haq pres of Pakistan (1978-88), dies at 63 in
plane crash
1990 Pearl Bailey broadway actress/singer, dies at 72 from a heart
attack
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