YEAR | DAY | EVENT |
1454 | Feb 17 | At a grand feast, Philip the Good of Burgundy took the “vow of the pheasant,” by which he swore to fight the Turks. |
1691 | Feb 17 | Thomas Neale was granted a British patent for American postal service. |
1836 | Feb 17 | HMS Beagle and Charles Darwin left Tasmania. |
1859 | Feb 17 | Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Un Ballo in maschera” premiered in Napoli. |
1867 | Feb 17 | The 1st ship passed through the Suez Canal. |
1904 | Feb 17 | The original two-act version of Giacomo Puccini’s opera “Madame Butterfly” was poorly received during its world premiere at La Scala, Milan. |
1917 | Feb 17 | Edmund Bishop (70), English secretary of Thomas Carlyle, died. |
1920 | Feb 17 | A directorship for the Klaipeda (Kaliningrad) region was formed. |
1926 | Feb 17 | An avalanche buried 75 in Sap Gulch, Bingham, Utah, and 40 died. |
1932 | Feb 17 | Irving Berlin’s musical “Face the Music,” premiered in NYC. |
1934 | Feb 17 | 1st high school auto driving course was offered by State College, Penn. |
1942 | Feb 17 | Sidney Newsom (b.1877), California architect, died. He and his brother Noble created homes that recalled Spanish haciendas, English cottages, French chateaus and American colonial homesteads. |
1951 | Feb 17 | Packard introduced its “250″ Chassis Convertible. |
1957 | Feb 17 | Suez Canal reopened. |
1959 | Feb 17 | The U.S. launched its first weather station in space, Vanguard II weighing 9.8 kg. |
1967 | Feb 17 | Beatles released “Penny Lane” & “Strawberry Fields.” Strawberry Fields was a children’s home run by the Salvation Army. It was closed in 2005 |
1972 | Feb 17 | President Nixon departed on his historic 10-day trip to China. |
1973 | Feb 17 | President Richard Nixon named Patrick Gray director of the FBI. |
1993 | Feb 17 | President Clinton addressed a joint session of Congress, asking Americans to accept one of the biggest tax increases in history as part of a plan to stimulate the economy and curb massive budget deficits. |
1994 | Feb 17 | The U.S. government reported a record trade deficit with Japan the previous year. |
1996 | Feb 17 | World chess champion Garry Kasparov beat IBM supercomputer “Deep Blue,” winning a six-game match in Philadelphia. Kasparov had lost the first game, won the second, fifth and sixth games and earned draws in the third and fourth. |
1998 | Feb 17 | The U.S. women’s hockey team won the gold medal at Nagano, Japan, defeating Canada 3-1. |
1999 | Feb 17 | In a satellite-linked address to college campuses across the country, President Clinton made his case for shoring up Social Security and Medicare. |
2000 | Feb 17 | A House panel said in a report that the program to inoculate all 2.4 million American military personnel against anthrax was based on “a paucity of science” and should be suspended; the Pentagon defended the program and vowed to continue the inoculations. |
2002 | Feb 17 | Pres. Bush opened a three-nation Asian tour in recession-wracked Japan, where he urged PM Junichiro Koizumi to follow through on long-promised economic reforms |
2003 | Feb 17 | An estimated 40 million viewers tuned in to the finale of Fox’s reality show “Joe Millionaire,” in which Evan Marriott chose Zora Andrich. |
2004 | Feb 17 | In Wisconsin John Kerry won the primary with about 40 percent of the vote while Edwards finished a close second with 34 percent. Dean, who had banked his future on a strong showing, drew just 18 percent. |
2005 | Feb 17 | President Bush named John Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, as the government’s first national intelligence director (DNI). Central American politicians and human rights activists issued stinging criticism of Negroponte, citing the career diplomat’s active backing for the Contra rebels and support for a government involved in human rights abuses. |
2006 | Feb 17 | Harry Whittington, the lawyer shot by Vice President Dick Cheney while quail hunting, left a Corpus Christi, Texas, hospital, saying “accidents do and will happen. |
2008 | Feb 17 | US President George W. Bush discussed the bloody conflict in neighboring Kenya with Tanzania’s Pres. Jakaya Kikwete before showering him with praise and signing over a $700 million development grant. |
2009 | Feb 17 | Liberty Media Corp. said it will invest $530 million in financially struggling satellite radio company Sirius XM Radio Inc. |
2010 | Feb 17 | Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced that the Obama administration has decided to give the war in Iraq a new name, “Operation New Dawn,” effective Sept 1, to reflect the reduced role US troops will play in securing the country this year as troop levels fall. |
2011 | Feb 17 | Federal prosecutors in Arizona said two illegal immigrants from Mexico, Jose Beltran-Bermudez and Yazmin Arvayo-Palafox, have been indicted after they were found to possess a combined 222 assault rifles and 5 pistols that authorities say were headed to Mexico. |
2012 | Feb 17 | The westbound top deck of the SF Bay Bridge was closed until Feb 21 as work progressed on the new eastern span set to open Labor Day 2013. The bridge reopened the evening of Feb 19 as work was completed ahead of schedule. |
2013 | Feb 17 | Thousands of protesters gathered on Washington’s National Mall calling on Pres. Obama to reject the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline proposal and honor his inaugural pledge to act on climate change. |
2014 | Feb 17 | In California 2 CHP officers were killed as they responded to a multi-vehicle crash on Hwy. 99 near Kingsburg. |
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