February 17 is the 48th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 317 days remaining until the end of the year (318 in leap years).
Holidays
- Christian Feast Day:
- Independence Day, celebrates the independence declaration of Kosovo in 2008, still under dispute.
- Quirinalia, in honor of Quirinus (Roman Empire)
History
In 364, Emperor Jovian dies after a reign of eight months. He is found dead in his tent at Tyana (Asia Minor) en route back to Constantinople in suspicious circumstances.
In 1370, Northern Crusades: Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Teutonic Knights meet in the Battle of Rudau.
In 1411, Following successful campaigns during the Ottoman Interregnum, Musa Çelebi, one of the sons of Bayezid I, becomes Sultan with the support of Mircea I of Wallachia.
In 1500, Duke Friedrich and Duke Johann attempt to subdue the peasantry of Dithmarschen, Denmark, in the Battle of Hemmingstedt.
In 1600, The philosopher Giordano Bruno is burned alive, for heresy, at Campo de’ Fiori in Rome. He was born Filippo Bruno, was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician, poet and astronomer. His cosmological theories went beyond the Copernican model: while supporting its heliocentrism, he also correctly proposed that the Sun was just another star moving in space, and claimed as well that the universe contained an infinite number of inhabited worlds populated by other intelligent beings, The Roman Inquisition found him guilty of heresy, and he was burned at the stake. After his death he gained considerable fame, particularly among 19th- and early 20th-century commentators who, focusing on his astronomical beliefs, regarded him as a martyr for free thought and modern scientific ideas. Some assessments suggest that Bruno’s ideas about the universe played a smaller role in his trial than his pantheist beliefs, which differed from the interpretations and scope of God held by the Catholic Church. In addition to his cosmological writings, Bruno also wrote extensively on the art of memory, a loosely organized group of mnemonic techniques and principles. The historian Frances Yates argues that Bruno was deeply influenced by Arab astrology, Neoplatonism and Renaissance Hermeticism. Other studies of Bruno have focused on his qualitative approach to mathematics and his application of the spatial paradigms of geometry to language.
In 1621, Myles Standish is appointed as first commander of Plymouth colony.
In 1680, Jan Swammerdam, Dutch biologist (b. 1637) dies. He was a Dutch biologist and microscopist. His work on insects demonstrated that the various phases during the life of an insect—egg, larva, pupa, and adult—are different forms of the same animal. As part of his anatomical research, he carried out experiments on muscle contraction. In 1658, he was the first to observe and describe red blood cells. He was one of the first people to use the microscope in dissections, and his techniques remained useful for hundreds of years.
In 1739, The Battle of Vasai commences as the Marathas move to invade Portuguese-occupied territory.
In 1753, In Sweden February 17 is followed by March 1 as the country moves from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar.
In 1801, An electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr is resolved when Jefferson is elected President of the United States and Burr Vice President by the United States House of Representatives.
In 1814, War of the Sixth Coalition: The Battle of Mormans.
In 1819, The United States House of Representatives passes the Missouri Compromise for the first time.
In 1838, Weenen massacre: Hundreds of Voortrekkers along the Blaukraans River, Natal are killed by Zulus.
In 1854, The United Kingdom recognizes the independence of the Orange Free State.
In 1859, Cochinchina Campaign: The French Navy captured the Citadel of Saigon, a fortress that was manned by 1,000 Nguyễn dynasty soldiers, en route to conquering Saigon and other regions of southern Viet Nam.
In 1863, A group of citizens of Geneva founded an International Committee for Relief to the Wounded, which later became known as the International Committee of the Red Cross.
In 1864, American Civil War: The H. L. Hunley becomes the first submarine to engage and sink a warship, the USS Housatonic.
In 1865, American Civil War: Columbia, South Carolina, is burned as Confederate forces flee from advancing Union forces.
In 1867, The first ship passes through the Suez Canal.
In 1871, The victorious Prussian Army parades through Paris, France after the end of the Siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War.
In 1904, Madama Butterfly receives its première at La Scala in Milan.
In 1913, The Armory Show opens in New York City, displaying works of artists who are to become some of the most influential painters of the early 20th century.
In 1933, The Blaine Act ends Prohibition in the United States.
In 1944, World War II: The Battle of Eniwetok Atoll begins. The battle ends in an American victory on February 22.
In 1944, World War II: Operation Hailstone begins. U.S. naval air, surface, and submarine attack against Truk Lagoon, Japan’s main base in the central Pacific, in support of the Eniwetok invasion.
In 1949, Chaim Weizmann begins his term as the first President of Israel.
In 1959, Project Vanguard: Vanguard 2 – The first weather satellite is launched to measure cloud-cover distribution.
In 1964, In Wesberry v. Sanders the Supreme Court of the United States rules that congressional districts have to be approximately equal in population.
In 1964, Gabonese president Leon M’ba is toppled by a coup and his rival, Jean-Hilaire Aubame, is installed in his place.
In 1965, Project Ranger: The Ranger 8 probe launches on its mission to photograph the Mare Tranquillitatis region of the Moon in preparation for the manned Apollo missions. Mare Tranquillitatis or the “Sea of Tranquility” would become the site chosen for the Apollo 11 lunar landing.
In 1968, In Springfield, Massachusetts, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame opens.
In 1970, Alfred Newman, American composer and conductor (b. 1900) died on February 17, 1970, one month before his 70th birthday, at his home in Hollywood, from complications of emphysema. He was an American composer, arranger, and conductor of film music.
In a career spanning more than four decades, Newman composed the scores for over 200 motion pictures. His most famous scores include Wuthering Heights, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Mark of Zorro, How Green Was My Valley, The Song of Bernadette, Captain from Castile, All About Eve, Love is a Many Splendored Thing, Anastasia, The Diary of Anne Frank, How The West Was Won, The Greatest Story Ever Told, and his final score, Airport, all of which were nominated for or won Academy Awards.
Newman was also highly regarded as a conductor, and arranged and conducted many scores by other composers. In addition, he conducted the music for many film adaptations of Broadway musicals (having worked on Broadway for ten years before coming to Hollywood), as well as many original Hollywood musicals.
Along with such composers as Max Steiner, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and Franz Waxman, Newman was among the first composers to write original music for motion pictures, although unlike most of his colleagues, Newman did not write any music other than for film. He was one of the most respected film score composers of his time, and is today regarded as one of the greatest musicians ever to work in film.
His nine Academy Award wins remains the record for a composer, while his total of forty-five nominations makes him the third-most nominated individual after Walt Disney and John Williams.
In 1972, Sales of the Volkswagen Beetle exceed those of the Ford Model-T.
In 1974, Robert K. Preston, a disgruntled U.S. Army private, buzzes the White House in a stolen helicopter.
In 1978, The Troubles: The Provisional IRA detonates an incendiary bomb at the La Mon restaurant, near Belfast, killing 12 and seriously injuring 30.
In 1979, The Sino-Vietnamese War begins.
In 1980, Mount Everest, 1st Winter Ascent by Krzysztof Wielicki and Leszek Cichy.
In 1982, Lee Strasberg, Austrian-American actor and director (b. 1901) dies. He was an American actor, director and acting teacher. He cofounded, with directors Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford, the Group Theatre in 1931, which was hailed as “America’s first true theatrical collective“. In 1951, he became director of the non-profit Actors Studio, in New York City, considered “the nation’s most prestigious acting school”. In 1969, Strasberg founded the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York City and in Hollywood to teach the work he pioneered. He is considered the “father of method acting in America,” according to author Mel Gussow, and from the 1920s until his death in 1982 “he revolutionized the art of acting by having a profound influence on performance in American theater and movies”. From his base in New York, he trained several generations of theatre and film’s most illustrious talents, including Anne Bancroft, Dustin Hoffman, Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Julie Harris, Paul Newman, Ellen Burstyn, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and director Elia Kazan.
In 1982, Thelonious Monk, American pianist and composer (b. 1917) dies of a stroke. He was an American jazz pianist and composer, considered one of the giants of American music. Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including “Epistrophy“, “‘Round Midnight“, “Blue Monk“, “Straight, No Chaser” and “Well, You Needn’t“. Monk is the second-most recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington, which is particularly remarkable as Ellington composed over 1,000 songs while Monk wrote about 70. His compositions and improvisations are full of dissonances and angular melodic twists, and are consistent with Monk’s unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of silences and hesitations. This style was not universally appreciated, shown for instance in poet and jazz critic Philip Larkin‘s dismissal of Monk as “the elephant on the keyboard”.
In 1992, Nagorno-Karabakh War: Armenian troops massacre more than 20 Azerbaijani civilians in the village of Qaradağlı
In 1995, The Cenepa War between Peru and Ecuador ends on a cease-fire brokered by the UN.
In 1996, In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, world champion Garry Kasparov beats the Deep Blue supercomputer in a chess match.
In 1997, Joe Kieyoomia, American soldier (b. 1919) dies. He was a Navajo soldier in New Mexico’s 200th Coast Artillery unit who was captured by the Imperial Japanese Army after the fall of the Philippines in 1942 during World War II. Kieyoomia was a POW in Nagasaki at the time of the atomic bombing but survived, reportedly having been shielded from the effects of the bomb by the concrete walls of his cell. The Japanese tried unsuccessfully to have him decode messages in the “Navajo Code” used by the United States Marine Corps, but although Kieyoomia understood Navajo, the messages sounded like nonsense to him because even though the code was based on the Navajo language, it was decipherable only by individuals specifically trained in its usage. Kieyoomia is notable for having not only survived the Bataan death march and related internment and torture in a concentration camp, but also being a hibakusha (survivor of an atomic bomb blast).
In 1996, NASA‘s Discovery Program begins as the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft lifts off on the first mission ever to orbit and land on an asteroid, 433 Eros.
In 2003, The London Congestion Charge scheme begins.
In 2006, A massive mudslide occurs in Southern Leyte, Philippines; the official death toll is set at 1,126.
In 2008, Kosovo declares independence.
In 2011, Libyan protests begin. In Bahrain, security forces launched a deadly pre-dawn raid on protesters in Pearl Roundabout in Manama, the day is locally known as Bloody Thursday.
In 2015, 18 people are killed and 78 injured in a stampede at a Mardi Gras parade in Haiti.
In 2016, Military vehicles explode outside a Turkish Armed Forces barracks in Ankara, Turkey, killing at least 29 people and injuring 61 others.