Today in history

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Today in history

By Correspondent

Today in history
YEARDAYEVENT
6BCEApr 17Jupiter was in a rare alignment with the constellation Aries and marked an important date for ancient astrologers. Jesus was believed to have been born in this year.
485Apr 17Proclus (b.411), Greek mathematician, died in Athens.
858Apr 17Benedict III, Catholic Pope, died.
1272Apr 17Zita (Cita), Italian maid, saint, died at about age 59.
1421Apr 17Dikes at Dort, Holland, broke and some 100,000 people drowned.
1492Apr 17A contract was signed by Christopher Columbus and a representative of Spain’s King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, giving Columbus a commission to seek a westward ocean passage to find the Indies (to Asia).
1521Apr 17Under the protection of Frederick the Wise, elector of Saxony, Martin Luther first appeared before Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and the Imperial Diet to face charges stemming from his religious writings. The Roman Catholic Church had already excommunicated him on Jan 3, 1521. He was later declared an outlaw by Charles V.
1524Apr 17Giovanni da Verrazano, Florentine navigator, reached present-day New York Harbor. He explored from Cape Fear to Newfoundland and discovered New York Bay and the Hudson River. He was later eaten by natives
1534Apr 17Sir Thomas Moore (d.1535) was jailed in the Tower of London.
1535Apr 17Antonio Mendoza was appointed first viceroy of New Spain.
1539Apr 17Tobias Stimmer, Swiss painter, cartoonist (Comedia), was born.
1586Apr 17John Ford (d.1640), English dramatist (‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore), was born.
1622Apr 17Henry Vaughan (d.1695), English poet and mystic, was born.
1630Apr 17Christian I, ruler of Anhalt-Bernburg (battle of White Mt), died.
1676Apr 17Frederick I, king of Sweden, was born.
1679Apr 17John van Kessel (53), Flemish painter, died.
1695Apr 17Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (b.~1648), Mexican nun and poet, died of plague.
1699Apr 17Robert Blair, Scottish poet (Grave), was born.
1741Apr 17Samuel Chase, signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born.
1758Apr 17Frances Williams, the first African-American to graduate for a college in the western hemisphere, published a collection of Latin poems.
1790Apr 17Benjamin Franklin (born 1706), American statesman, died in Philadelphia at age 84. He mechanized the process of making sounds from tuned glass with his glass armonica. In 2000 H.W. Brands authored his Franklin biography: “The First American.” In 2003 Walter Isaacson authored “Benjamin Franklin: An American Life.”
1793Apr 17The Battle of Warsaw was fought.
1808Apr 17The Bayonne Decree by Napoleon I of France ordered the seizure of U.S. ships.
1810Apr 17Lewis Norton of Troy, PA., introduced his pineapple cheese.
1817Apr 171st US school for deaf was founded in Hartford, Conn.
1818Apr 17Alexander II, son of Nicholas I and Tsar of Russia (1855-1881), was born.
1820Apr 17Alexander Cartwright, sportsman, was born. He developed baseball
1824Apr 17Russia abandoned all North American claims south of 54′ 40′.
1835Apr 17William Henry Ireland (b.1775)), English forger of Shakespeare’s works, died. He is less well-known as a poet, writer of gothic novels and histories.
1837Apr 17J. Pierpont Morgan (d.1913), American financier, was born in Hartford, Conn. J.P. Mogan later owned U.S. Steel and International Harvester. In 1999 Jean Strouse published the biography “Morgan: American Financier.”
1838Apr 17J. Schopenhauer (71), writer, died.
1839Apr 17Guatemala formed a republic.
1860Apr 17English boxer Tom Sayers (1826-1865) fought John Heenan (1833-1873) of the US for 37 rounds in an international bare-knuckle match at Farnborough, Hampshire, that was called a draw. Heenan was later acclaimed as the “World Boxing Champion.”
1861Apr 17In Australia Charles Gray, the ex-sailor in the Burke party, was found dead in his bed roll.
1864Apr 17General Grant banned the trading of prisoners.
1865Apr 17Mary Surratt was arrested as a conspirator in the Lincoln assassination.
1866Apr 17Ernest Henry Starling, British physiologist, was born.
1875Apr 17The game of “snooker” was invented by Sir Neville Chamberlain.
1882Apr 17Artur Schnabel, pianist (Beethoven Piano Sonatas), was born in Lipnik, Austria.
1885Apr 17Karen Blixen-Finecke (Isak Dinesen, d.1962), Danish writer (Out of Africa), was born. “God made the world round so we would never be able to see too far down the road.”
1894Apr 17Nikita S Khrushchev (d.1971), Soviet premier (1958-64) during the Cold War, was born.
1895Apr 17China and Japan signed the peace treaty of Shimonoseki. This followed a war over control of the Korean peninsula. Taiwan and the islands that it controlled were taken over by Japan
1897Apr 17Thornton Wilder (d.1975), novelist and playwright, was born. His work included “Our Town” and “The Bridge of San Luis Rey.”
1903Apr 17Gregor Piatigorsky, cellist, was born in Ekaterinoslav, Russia.
1909Apr 17In San Francisco 5 bodies were recovered and probably eight or ten others buried in the ruins of an early morning fire which destroyed the St. George hotel, a lodging house for laborers at Howard and Eighth streets, and eight other small buildings.
1918Apr 17William Holden, Ill, actor (Stalag 17, Bridge Over River Kwai, SOB), was born.
1923Apr 17Harry Reasoner, American broadcast journalist, was born in Dakota City, Iowa.
1928Apr 17Cynthia Ozick, writer (The Cannibal Galaxy, The Messiah of Stockholm), was born.
1929Apr 17Baseball player Babe Ruth and Claire Hodgeson, a former member of the Ziegfield Follies, got married.
1932Apr 17Graziella Sciutti, Italian opera singer, was born.
1937Apr 17Cartoon characters Daffy Duck, Elmer J. Fudd and Petunia Pig, debuted.
1939Apr 17S.N. Behrman’s “No Time for Comedy,” premiered in NYC.
1940Apr 17In Egypt King Farouk arrived at Tanis and ordered French archeologist Pierre Montet to open the tomb of King Amenemope, son of 21st Dynasty King Psusennes I.
1941Apr 17Office of Price Administration OPA formed to handle war time rationing.
1943Apr 17SS lt. General Jurgen Stoop arrived in Warsaw.
1945Apr 17Walter Model (54), German field marshal, committed suicide. [see Apr 21]
1946Apr 17The last French troops left Syria.
1947Apr 17Jackie Robinson bunted for his first major league hit.
1949Apr 17At midnight 26 counties officially left the British Commonwealth. A 21-gun salute on O’Connell Bridge, Dublin, ushered in the Republic of Ireland.
1951Apr 17Olivia Hussey, actress (Romeo and Juliet, Death on Nile), was born in Buenos Aires.
1952Apr 17The California Supreme Court ruled that Sei Fujii, a non-citizen issei, could purchase and own property in his own name. Chief Justice Phil S. Gibson, aided by Justices Edmonds, Carter, and Traynor, wrote the majority opinion. Justice Schauer, along with Justices Shend and Spence, wrote the dissenting opinion.
1953Apr 17Mickey Mantle hit a home run in Washington’s Griffith Stadium off the Senator’s Chuck Stobbs that was entered in the Guinness Book of World Records as measuring 565 feet. The distance was later said to have been padded.
1955Apr 17The Bandung Conference opened in the Javanese city of Bandung and continued to April 25. This int’l. meeting founded the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). The 1st forum of 29 Asian and African nations was marked by superpower hostility. The aim of the conference was to oppose the Western and Soviet blocs and stay neutral.
1956Apr 17“Sugar” Ray Charles Leonard, boxer (Oly-gold-1976) [or 5/17], was born.
1958Apr 17A World Fair opened in Brussels, Belgium. The 335-foot Atomium, representing a large-scale metal molecule, was built to celebrate the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels. It became one of Belgium’s most famous landmarks and in 2005 was restored to its shiny splendor, the faded aluminum sheets on the nine balls fully replaced with hardy stainless steel.
1959Apr 17A nationwide US air raid drill suspended most television and radio programs for a half hour.
1961Apr 17In the 33rd Academy Awards “The Apartment” won as best picture. The best actor award went to Burt Lancaster for his role in Elmer Gantry. Elizabeth Taylor won for her role in Butterfield 8.
1964Apr 17Jerrie Mock (1925-2014) became the first woman to complete a solo airplane flight around the world. Her journey had begun on March 19 from Columbus, Ohio.
1965Apr 17Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) held its 1st anti-Vietnam war protest rally in Washington DC. Daniel Ellsburg helped Patricia Marx tape the event for public radio.
1967Apr 17In Vietnam Lt. Col. Leo Thorsness and “backseater” Harry Johnson shot down 2 MiG fighters. Both men were captured on Apr 28, and spent 6 years as POWs. 
1969Apr 17Czechoslovak Communist Party chairman Alexander Dubcek (1921-1992), considered the architect of Czechoslovakia’s Prague Spring, was deposed.)
1970Apr 17The Apollo 13 crew splashed down safely in the Pacific, four days after a ruptured oxygen tank crippled their spacecraft. A film was made in 1995 that depicted the mission.
1971Apr 17In Vietnam Lance Corporal John Gillespie (24), an Australian army medic, died when his helicopter crashed and caught ablaze after coming under fire during a medical evacuation in the Minh Dam Mountains of southern Phuoc Tuy province. His remains were returned to Australia in 2007.
1972Apr 17A handful of women were first accepted as entrants to the Boston marathon.
1974Apr 17Ted Bundy victim Susan Rancourt disappeared from CWU, Ellensburg, WA.
1982Apr 17Canada adopted a new Constitution to replace the 1867 British North America Act. It enshrined special rights for indigenous peoples. Pierre Trudeau added a Charter of Rights and Freedoms to Canada’s constitution. Quebec did not sign the 1982 Constitution.
1983Apr 17Mark W. Clark (b.1896), US general (WW II), died.
1986Apr 17Pulitzer prize awarded to Larry McMurtry for “Lonesome Dove.”
1987Apr 17In Sri Lanka Tamil extremists shot dead 127, mainly Sinhalese, in Trincomalee.
1988Apr 17Louise Nevelson, the Russian-born sculptor who became one of the world’s best-known women artists, died in New York at the age of 88. .
1989Apr 17Solidarity in Poland was legalized.
1990Apr 17President Bush warned the Soviet Union against carrying out an economic blockade of Lithuania, hinting at “appropriate responses.”
1991Apr 17Congress voted to put a quick end to a day-old nationwide strike by 235,000 rail workers. President Bush signed the legislation early the next day.
1992Apr 17US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told the Senate Banking Committee the modest pace of economic expansion wasn’t adequate, a remark interpreted as a signal he might cut interest rates further.
1993Apr 17The U.N. Security Council voted to tighten sanctions against Yugoslavia for its role in the Bosnian war.
1994Apr 17Bosnian Serb tanks entered the Muslim enclave of Gorazde; the UN Security Council issued a nonbinding statement that condemned the Serbs’ escalating military activities, but made no threat of force to back its condemnation.
1995Apr 17President Clinton signed an executive order stripping the classified label from most national security documents that were at least 25 years old.
1996Apr 17Seeking to calm Pacific security jitters, President Clinton and Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto signed a joint declaration establishing new U.S.-Japan ties for a “stable and prosperous” Asia.
1997Apr 17House Speaker Newt Gingrich announced he would borrow $300,000 from retired Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole to pay a sanction imposed for violation of House rules.
1998Apr 17The space shuttle Columbia blasted off with 7 astronauts and a menagerie of creatures to test the effects of space travel on the nervous system.
1999Apr 17The US launched the 505-foot Navy destroyer Winston S. Churchill at the Bath Iron Works in Maine.
2000Apr 17Elijah Lagat of Kenya won the 104th Boston Marathon. Catherine Ndereba of Kenya won the women’s race.
2001Apr 17San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds became the 17th major leaguer ever to reach 500 career home runs.
2002Apr 17US District Judge Robert Jones upheld Oregon’s assisted-suicide law and said that Attorney General John Ashcroft should not “determine the legitimacy” of medical acts.
2003Apr 17Denver police reached an agreement with the ACLU to end the practice of keeping files on protesters.
2004Apr 17In southern Pakistan assailants opened fire on a vehicle, killing four Afghans and wounding another person.
2005Apr 17In Washington concern that rising oil prices could harm the global economy dominated weekend meetings of world finance ministers (G-7) and central bankers
2006Apr 17In the Boston Marathon was won by Kenyan Robert Cheruiyot in a record time of 2:07:14. Rita Jeptoo of Kenya won among the women in 2:23:38.
2007Apr 17A new survey said US household with a net worth of $5 million, excluding primary home, totaled one million in 2006, up from 250,000 in 1996.
2008Apr 17The May contract for light sweet crude oil hit a trading record of $115.54 as the dollar fell to a new low against the euro.
2009Apr 17The US EPA declared that greenhouse gases endanger public health paving the way for new federal regulations on pollutants. The Obama administration declared that carbon dioxide and 5 other industrial emissions threaten the planet.
2010Apr 17In southern Afghanistan a NATO solider was killed by a roadside bomb. 2 Dutch marines were killed in southern Uruzgan province.
2011Apr 17The US government said air traffic controllers would have more time to rest between shifts under new work rules announced today, while Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood made clear he won’t tolerate sleeping on duty despite studies and expert recommendations that suggest scheduled shut-eye can help combat fatigue.
2012Apr 17In California the body of Brittany Dawn Killgore (22) was found near Lake Skinner in Riverside County. The Marine’s wife had disappeared a week earlier.
2013Apr 17US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told Congress that the Pentagon is sending about 200 soldiers from an Army headquarters unit to Jordan to assist efforts to contain violence along the Syrian border and plan for any operations needed to ensure the safety of chemical weapons in Syria.
2014Apr 17US-based Michaels Stores said that about 2.6 million credit cards used at its namesake stores may have been affected in a security breach. Its subsidiary Aaron Bros. was also attacked with some 400,000 cards potentially affected.
Source: Timelines of History      

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