February 17
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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).
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Births [change]
- 624 - Wu Zetian, Chinese Empress of the Zhou Dynasty (d. 705)
- 1192 - Minamoto no Sanetomo, Japanese shogun (d. 1219)
- 1490 - Charles III, Duke of Bourbon (d. 1527)
- 1519 – Francis, Duke of Guise, French soldier and politician (d. 1563)
- 1524 - Charles of Guise, French cardinal (d. 1574)
- 1653 – Arcangelo Corelli, Italian composer (d. 1713)
- 1699 – Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff, Prussian soldier, painter and architect (d. 1753)
- 1718 - Matthew Tilgh, American Continental Congressman (d. 1790)
- 1740 - John Sullivan, American general, politician and Governor of New Hampshire (d. 1795)
- 1752 – Friedrich Maximilian Klinger, German writer (d. 1831)
- 1781 – Rene Laennec, French physician (d. 1826)
- 1782 – Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy, Russian aristocrat (d. 1846)
- 1792 - Karl Ernst von Baer, German biologist (d. 1876)
- 1796 – Giovanni Pacini, Italian opera composer (d. 1867)
- 1796 – Philipp Franz von Siebold, German physician (d. 1886)
- 1820 - Elzear-Alexandre Taschereau, French cardinal (d. 1898)
- 1820 - Henri Vieutemps, Belgian composer (d. 1881)
- 1821 – Lola Montez, Irish dancer (d. 1861)
- 1836 - Gustavo Adolfo Becquer, Spanish poet (d. 1870)
- 1848 - Louisa Lawson, Australian writer and feminist (d. 1920)
- 1848 – Albert Gustaf Dahlman, Swedish executioner (d. 1920)
- 1854 – Friedrich Alfred Krupp, German industrialist (d. 1902)
- 1861 – Princess Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont (d. 1922)
- 1862 – Mori Ogai, Japanese novelist and poet (d. 1922)
- 1862 - Eugen Schmidt, Danish athlete (d. 1931)
- 1863 - Fyodor Sologub, Russian writer (d. 1927)
- 1864 – Banjo Paterson, Australian poet (d. 1941)
- 1877 - Isidora Sekulic, Serbian writer (d. 1958)
- 1877 - Andre Maginot, French politician (d. 1932)
- 1885 – Romano Guardini, German theologian (d. 1968)
- 1888 – Otto Stern, German physicist (d. 1969)
- 1891 – Abraham Fraenkel, German-Israeli mathematician (d. 1965)
- 1893 - Wally Pipp, American baseball player (d. 1965)
- 1894 - Hendrik Kramers, Dutch physicist (d. 1952)
- 1903 - Sadeq Hedayat, Iranian writer (d. 1951)
- 1904 – Hans Morgenthau, German political philosopher (d. 1980)
- 1908 - Bo Yibo, Chinese politician (d. 2005)
- 1910 - Arthur Hunnicutt, American actor (d. 1979)
- 1916 – Alexander Obolensky, Russian prince and England rugby player (d. 1940)
- 1917 – Abdur Rahman Badawi, Egyptian philosopher (d. 2002)
- 1917 – Guillermo Gonzalez Camarena, Mexican inventor (d. 1965)
- 1919 – Kathleen Freeman, American actress (d. 2001)
- 1920 - Ivo Caprino, Norwegian animated movie director (d. 2001)
- 1923 - Buddy DeFranco, American jazz musician
- 1924 – Margaret Truman, American writer (d. 2008)
- 1925 - Hal Holbrook, American actor
- 1927 – Juan Almeida Bosque, Cuban Communist revolutionary (d. 2009)
- 1929 – Patricia Routledge, British actress
- 1930 – Ruth Rendell, British writer
- 1931 - Jirina Jiraskova, Czech actress (d. 2013)
- 1933 - Craig L. Thomas, American politician (d. 2007)
- 1933 - Larry Jennings, American magician (d. 1997)
- 1934 – Barry Humphries, Australian actor and comedian
- 1934 – Alan Bates, British actor (d. 2003)
- 1937 – Willi Koslowski, German footballer
- 1939 - Mary Ann Mobley, American actress and beauty queen
- 1939 - Clement Richard, Canadian businessman and politician
- 1940 – Gene Pitney, American singer (d. 2006)
- 1941 - Julia McKenzie, English actress and theatre director
- 1942 – Huey Newton, American political activist (d. 1989)
- 1943 - Costas Azariadis, Greek economist
- 1944 – Bruce Fogle, Canadian-born British veterinarian and author
- 1948 - Rick Majerus, American basketball player
- 1948 - Don Scardino, American television director[disambiguation needed] and actor
- 1949 - Fred Frith, English musician and composer
- 1954 – Rene Russo, American actress
- 1955 - Mo Yan, Chinese novelist and Nobel Prize winner
- 1959 - Rowdy Gaines, American swimmer
- 1962 – Lou Diamond Phillips, American actor
- 1963 – Michael Jordan, American basketball player
- 1963 – Alison Hargreaves, British mountain climber (d. 1995)
- 1963 – Larry the Cable Guy, American comedian and actor
- 1964 - Jim Jordan, American politician
- 1965 – Michael Bay, American director and producer
- 1966 - Luc Robitaille, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1968 – Giuseppe Signori, Italian footballer
- 1969 - Tuesday Knight, American actress
- 1970 - Dominic Purcell, English-Australian actor
- 1971 – Denise Richards, American actress
- 1972 – Billie Joe Armstrong, American lead singer of Green Day
- 1972 – Philippe Candeloro, French figure skater
- 1972 – Taylor Hawkins, American musician
- 1976 - Kelly Carlson, American actress
- 1979 – Cara Black, Zimbabwean tennis player
- 1981 – Paris Hilton, American socialite and heiress
- 1981 – Joseph Gordon-Levitt, American actor
- 1982 – Daniel Merriwether, Australian singer
- 1982 – Adriano Leite Ribeiro, Brazilian footballer
- 1983 - Nguyen Tien Minh, Vietnamese badminton player
- 1985 - Anders Jacobsen, Norwegian ski jumper
- 1985 – Mario Bolatti, Argentine footballer
- 1988 – Natascha Kampusch, Austrian kidnapping victim
- 1989 – Rebecca Adlington, British swimmer
- 1989 - Stacey McClean, British singer
- 1989 - Chord Overstreet, American actor
- 1991 – Ed Sheeran, British singer-songwriter
- 1991 – Bonnie Wright, British actress
- 1993 - Philip Wiegratz, German actor
- 1996 – Sasha Pieterse, South African-born American actress
Deaths [change]
- 197 – Clodius Albinus, would-be Roman emperor (killed in battle)
- 364 – Jovian, Roman emperor (b. ca. 332)
- 1339 – Otto the Merry, Duke of Austria
- 1371 - Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria
- 1600 – Giordano Bruno, Italian religious reformer (burned at the stake) (b. 1548)
- 1609 – Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (b. 1549)
- 1652 - Gregorio Allegri, Italian composer (b. 1582)
- 1673 – Molière, French playwright (b. 1622)
- 1680 – Jan Swammerdam, Dutch scientist (b. 1637)
- 1848 - George W. Campbell, Scottish-born 5th United States Secretary of the Treasury (b. 1769)
- 1854 – John Martin, English painter (b. 1789)
- 1856 – Heinrich Heine, German writer (b. 1797)
- 1883 - Vasudeo Balwant Phadke, Indian revolutionary (b. 1855)
- 1883 – Napoleon Coste, French guitarist, composer (b. 1806)
- 1890 – Christopher Latham Sholes, American inventor (b. 1819)
- 1909 – Geronimo, Apache leader (b. 1829)
- 1919 – Wilfrid Laurier, seventh Prime Minister of Canada (b. 1841)
- 1924 - Oskar Merikanto, Finnish composer (b. 1868)
- 1934 – King Albert I of Belgium (b. 1875)
- 1934 – Siegbert Tarrasch, German chess player (b. 1862)
- 1939 - Willy Hess, German violinist (b. 1859)
- 1943 – Konstantin Bogaevsky, Russian painter (b. 1872)
- 1943 – Armand J. Piron, American jazz musician (b. 1888)
- 1962 – Bruno Walter, German conductor (b. 1876)
- 1970 – Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Israeli writer (b. 1888)
- 1970 - Alfred Newman, American movie composer (b. 1900)
- 1982 – Thelonious Monk, American jazz pianist (b. 1917)
- 1982 – Lee Strasberg, American acting teacher, actor (b. 1901)
- 1986 - Jiddu Krishnamurti, Indian philosopher (b. 1895)
- 1994 - Gretchen Fraser, American ski racer (b. 1919)
- 1994 – Randy Shilts, author, AIDS activist (b. 1951)
- 1998 – Ernst Jünger, militaristic German author (b. 1895)
- 2001 – Khalid Abdul Muhammed, Nation of Islam spokesman (b. 1948)
- 2004 – José López Portillo, former President of Mexico (b. 1920)
- 2005 – Dan O'Herlihy, Irish movie actor (b. 1919)
- 2005 – Omar Sivori, Argentine footballer (b. 1935)
- 2007 – Maurice Papon, French Nazi collaborator (b. 1910)
- 2010 – Kathryn Grayson, American singer and actress (b. 1922)
- 2011 – Perry Moore, American author and movie producer (b. 1971)
- 2012 - Ulric Neisser, German-born American psychologist (b. 1928)
- 2013 - Richard Briers, British actor (b. 1934)
- 2013 - Mindy McCready, American country music singer (b. 1975)
Events [change]
- 364 – Roman Emperor Jovian dies under suspicious circumstances, after a short reign of eight months.
- 1164 – A major flood on what is now Germany's North Sea coast, kills 20,000 people.
- 1370 – The Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Teutonic Knights meet in the Battle of Rudau.
- 1600 - Philosopher Giordano Bruno is burned to death for heresy in Rome.
- 1621 - Myles Standish is appointed as the first commander of the Plymouth colony.
- 1753 – Sweden changes from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, as February 17 is followed by March 1.
- 1801 – The United States House of Representatives chooses Thomas Jefferson to become the next President of the United States.
- 1854 – The United Kingdom recognises the independent Orange Free State.
- 1865 - American Civil War: Union troops capture Columbia, South Carolina. As this state is particularly seen as responsible for starting the war, the city is virtually flattened.
- 1867 – Gyula Andrassy is declared Prime Minister of Hungary after the creation of the co-operative monarchy of Austria-Hungary.
- 1871 – The victorious Prussian Army parades through Paris after the end of the Siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War.
- 1900 - Wilhelm II of Germany declares the Western Samoan Islands a "German Protectorate".
- 1904 – Madame Butterfly premieres at La Scala opera house in Milan.
- 1917 – The French troop transporter Athos is sunk, killing 754 people.
- 1924 – Johnny Weissmuller sets a world record in the 100-metre freestyle swimming.
- 1933 – Newsweek magazine is published for the first time.
- 1944 – World War II: The Battle of Eniwetok Atoll begins, ending in an American victory over Japanese forces on February 22.
- 1959 - Vanguard 2, the first weather satellite, is launched to measure cloud-cover distribution.
- 1962 - Parts of Northern Germany are severely flooded in the night from February 16, causing 300 deaths in the city of Hamburg alone.
- 1965 – Project Ranger: The Ranger 8 space probe is launched to the "Sea of Tranquility" on the Moon, where the Apollo 11 astronauts will land in 1969.
- 1968 – In Springfield, Massachusetts, the James Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame opens.
- 1972 – U.S. President Richard Nixon visits China.
- 1979 – The Sino-Vietnamese war begins.
- 1980 – Krzyzstof Wielicki and Leszek Clichy becomes the first people to reach the top of Mount Everest during the Winter season.
- 1992 – American serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is sentenced to life imprisonment.
- 1993 - The Neptune ferry sinks off Haiti. It is not known exactly how many people were killed, though it is thought to have been at least 1,500.
- 1995 – The Cenepa War between Peru and Ecuador is ended by a UN ceasefire.
- 1996 - An earthquake of magnitude 8.2 strikes Irian Jaya, the Indonesian part of the island of New Guinea, killing 166 people.
- 1996 – The NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft is launched to the asteroid 433 Eros.
- 1996 – After being defeated in a game of chess on February 10, Garry Kasparov wins a six-match series 4-2 against the computer Deep Blue.
- 1998 – Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: Armenian troops kill between 70 and 90 Azerbaijani civilians in the village of Qaradagli.
- 2003 – London's Congestion charging system begins.
- 2006 – A massive mudslide in Southern Leyte, Philippines, kills 1,126 people.
- 2008 – Kosovo declares independence from Serbia. Serbia does not recognise Kosovo as an independent state.
- 2011 – Bahraini security forces launch a pre-dawn raid on protesters at the Pearl Roundabout in Manama.
- 2011 – Protests begin in Libya against Muammar al-Gaddafi. Soon after, Libya enters into a state of Civil War between pro- and anti-Gaddafi fighters, with Gaddafi being killed in October.
- 2012 – President of Germany Christian Wulff resigns over a home-loan scandal, becoming the shortest-serving President of the Federal Republic of Germany ever. Horst Seehofer becomes interim-President until a successor can be found. Joachim Gauck becomes President just over a month later.
Observances [change]
- Celebrated as Independence Day in Kosovo
