August 17

is the 229th day of the year (230th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 136 days remaining.

Events

1427 - First band of gypsies visits Paris, according to an account of the citizen of Paris
1807 - Robert Fulton's first American steamboat leaves New York City for Albany, New York on the Hudson River, inaugurating the first commercial steamboat service in the world.
1850 - Argentine War of Independence hero, General José de San Martín, dies in Boulogne-sur-Mer (France), at the age of 77.
1862 - Indian Wars: Lakota (Sioux) uprising begins in Minnesota as desperate Lakota attack white settlements along the Minnesota River. They will be overwhelmed by the U.S. military six weeks later.
1863 - American Civil War: In Charleston, South Carolina, Union batteries and ships bombard Confederate-held Fort Sumter. Bombardment will not end until December 31, 1863.
1864 - American Civil War: Confederate forces defeated Union troops at the Battle of Gainesville.
1877 - Arizona blacksmith F.P. Cahill is fatally wounded by Billy the Kid. Cahill will die the next day, becoming the first person killed by the Kid.
1883 - Dominican Republic the first public performance of the Dominican National Anthem, Quisqueyanos valientes
1914 - World War I: The German army of General Hermann von Francois defeats the Russian force commanded by Pavel Rennenkampf at the Battle of Stalluponen.
1915 - Jewish American Leo Frank is lynched for the alleged murder of a 13-year-old girl in Marietta, Georgia.
1918 - Bolshevik revolutionary leader Moisei Uritsky is assassinated.
1943 - World War II: The U.S. Eighth Air Force suffers the loss of 60 bombers on the Schweinfurt-Regensburg mission.
1943 - World War II: 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.
1945 - Indonesia proclaims itself independent from the Netherlands.
1953 - Addiction: First meeting of Narcotics Anonymous in Southern California.
1960 - Gabon gains independence from France.
1962 - East German border guards kill 18-year-old Peter Fechter as he attempts to cross the Berlin Wall into West Berlin. He thus became the first victim of the wall.
1963 - A ferry linking remote islands off the coast of Okinawa sinks, killing 112.
1969 - Category 5 Hurricane Camille hits the Mississippi coast, killing 248 people and causing $1.5 billion in damage.
1970 - Venera program: Venera 7 is launched. It will later becomes the first spacecraft to successfully transmit data from the surface of another planet, Venus.
1978 - Double Eagle II becomes first balloon to cross the Atlantic Ocean when it lands in Miserey near Paris, 137 hours after leaving Presque Isle, Maine.
1979 - Two Soviet Aeroflot jetliners collide in mid-air over Ukraine, killing 156
1980 - Azaria Chamberlain disappears, likely taken by a dingo, leading to what was then the most publicised trial in Australian history.
1988 - Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and US Ambassador Arnold Raphel are killed in a plane crash.
1991 - Wade Frankum starts his killing spree in Strathfield, Australia, an event that was later dubbed the Strathfield Massacre.
1998 - Monica Lewinsky scandal: US President Bill Clinton admits in taped testimony that he had an "improper physical relationship" with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. On the same day he admits before the nation that he "misled people" about his relationship.
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.

Births

1473 - Richard, Duke of York, one of the Princes in the Tower (d. 1483?)
1562 - Hans Leo Hassler (baptised), German composer (d. 1612)
1578 - Francesco Albani, Italian painter (d. 1660)
1601 - Pierre de Fermat, French mathematician (d. 1665)
1629 - King John III of Poland (d. 1696)
1768 - Louis Charles Antoine Desaix de Veygoux, French general (d. 1800)
1786 - Davy Crockett, American frontiersman and soldier (d. 1836)
1828 - Jules Bernard Luys, French neurologist (d. 1897)
1844 - Emperor Menelek II of Ethiopia (d. 1913)
1866 - Julia Marlowe, nee Sarah Frost, Shakespearean actress (d. 1950)
1882 - Samuel Goldwyn, Hollywood producer (d. 1974)
1887 - Marcus Garvey, Jamaican leader, Rastafari prophet (d. 1940)
1887 - Emperor Charles I of Austria (d. 1922)
1893 - Mae West, American actress and playwright (d. 1980)
1904 - Leopold Nowak, Austrian musicologist
1911 - Mikhail Botvinnik, chess player (d. 1995)
1913 - W. Mark Felt, FBI associate director and Deep Throat Watergate informant
1913 - Rudy York, baseball player (d. 1970)
1920 - Maureen O'Hara, actress
1926 - Jiang Zemin, former President of the People's Republic of China
1929 - Francis Gary Powers, U-2 pilot (d. 1977)
1930 - Glenn Corbett, actor (d. 1993)
1930 - Ted Hughes, English poet (d. 1998)
1932 - V. S. Naipaul, West Indian-born writer, Nobel Prize laureate
1933 - Gene Kranz, NASA flight director
1935 - Oleg Tabakov, Russian actor
1939 - Luther Allison, American blues guitarist
1943 - Robert De Niro, American actor
1948 - Rod MacDonald, American musician
1951 - Alan Minter, boxer
1952 - Nelson Piquet, Brazilian formula one driver
1952 - Guillermo Vilas, Argentinian tennis player
1954 - Eric Johnson, guitarist
1955 - Richard Hilton, American heir
1956 - Gail Berman, president of Paramount Pictures
1957 - Robin Cousins, British figure skater
1958 - Belinda Carlisle, American singer
1958 - Kirk Stevens, Canadian snooker player
1959 - David Koresh, American cult leader (d. 1993)
1960 - Sean Penn, American actor, director
1962 - Gilby Clarke, American musician Guns N' Roses
1964 - Colin James, blues musician
1966 - Rodney Mullen, American skateboarder
1966 - William E. Dudley, American poet
1968 - Ed McCaffrey, American football player
1969 - Donnie Wahlberg, American actor and singer
1970 - Jim Courier, American tennis player
1970 - Oyvind Leonhardsen, Norwegian footballer
1971 - Jorge Posada, Puerto Rican Major League Baseball player
1977 - Thierry Henry, French footballer
1977 - Tarja Turunen, Finnish singer (Nightwish)
1977 - William Gallas, French footballer
1979 - Antwaan Randle El, American football player
1980 - Lene Marlin, Norwegian singer
1980 - Keith Dabengwa, Zimbabwean cricketer
1986 - Rudy Gay, American basketball player

Deaths

1153 - Eustace IV of Boulogne, son of Stephen of England
1304 - Emperor Go-Fukakusa of Japan (b. 1243)
1510 - Edmund Dudley, English statesman
1657 - Robert Blake, British admiral (b. 1599)
1676 - Hans Jakob Christoph von Grimmelshausen, German novelist
1673 - Regnier de Graaf, Dutch physician and anatomist (b. 1641)
1720 - Anne Lefèvre, French scholar (b. 1654)
1723 - Joseph Bingham, English scholar (b. 1668)
1768 (N. S.) - Vasily Kirillovich Trediakovsky, Russian poet (b. 1703)
1785 - Jonathan Trumbull, Governor of the Colony and the state of Connecticut (b. 1710)
1786 - King Frederick II of Prussia (b. 1712)
1834 - Husein Gradaščević, Bosnian rebel leader (b. 1802)
1850 - Don José de San Martín, Argentine general (b. 1778)
1875 - Wilhelm Bleek, linguist (b. 1827)
1880 - Ole Bull, Norwegian violinist (b. 1810)
1896 - Bridget Driscoll, world's first automobile fatality
1901 - Edmond Audran, French composer (b. 1842)
1918 - Moisei Uritsky, Russian revolutionary (b. 1873)
1920 - Ray Chapman, baseball player (b. 1891)
1925 - Ioan Slavici, Transylvanian writer of Romanian origin (b. 1848)
1954 - Billy Murray, recording artist (b. 1877)
1969 - Otto Stern, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1888)
1971 - Wilhelm List, German field marshal (b. 1880)
1973 - Jean Barraqué, French composer (b. 1928)
1973 - Paul Williams, American singer (The Temptations) (b. 1939)
1973 - Conrad Aiken, American author (b. 1889)
1979 - Vivian Vance, actress (b. 1909)
1983 - Ira Gershwin, American lyricist (b. 1896)
1987 - Rudolf Hess, Nazi deputy (b. 1894)
1988 - Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, President of Pakistan (b. 1924)
1990 - Pearl Bailey, American singer and actress (b. 1918)
1992 - Al Parker, actor (b. 1952)
2004 - Gérard Souzay, French baritone (b. 1918)
2005 - John Bahcall, astrophysicist (b. 1934)

Holidays and observances

Rastafarianism - celebration of the birth of Marcus Garvey
Roman Empire - Portunalia in honor of Portunes

External links

BBC: On This Day

August 16 - August 18 - July 17 - September 17 -- listing of all days

Gourt Home::Gourt :: August 17

Events

Births

Deaths

Holidays and observances

External links