Today in HISTORY

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YEARDAYEVENT
682Aug 17Leo II, later St. Leo, began his reign as Catholic Pope.
1498Aug 17French King Louis XII made Cesare Borgia (1475-1507) the Duke of Valentinois. Borgia resigned his position as cardinal, which had been bestowed on him at age 18 by his father, Pope Alexander VI.
1590Aug 17John White, the leader of 117 colonists sent in 1587 to Roanoke Island (North Carolina) to establish a colony, returned from a trip to England to find the settlement deserted. No trace of the settlers was ever found.
1743Aug 17By the Treaty of Abo, Sweden ceded southeast Finland to Russia, ending Sweden’s failed war with Russia.
1787Aug 17Jews were granted permission in Budapest, Hungary, to pray in groups.
1805Aug 17Sacagawea, while traveling with the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery, reunited with her brother Cameahwait, a Shoshoni Indian chief on the Lemhi River (Idaho).
1809Aug 17In Canada work commenced on Nelson’s column, a tribute Adm. Horatio Nelson, was erected Place Jacques-Cartier, Montreal, Quebec.
1812Aug 17Napoleon Bonaparte’s army defeated the Russians at the Battle of Smolensk during the Russian retreat to Moscow.
1833Aug 17The first steam ship to cross the Atlantic entirely on its own power, the Canadian ship Royal William, began her journey from Nova Scotia to The Isle of Wight.
1846Aug 17US took Los Angeles.
1858Aug 17The 1st bank in Hawaii opened.
1859Aug 17Harry Colcord crossed over the Niagara Falls while strapped to the back of French tightrope walker Blondin.
1869Aug 17Oxford beat Harvard on the Thames River in the 1st international boat race.
1870Aug 17The 1st ascent of Mt. Rainier in Washington state.
1908Aug 17The San Francisco Bank of Italy opened new HQ at Clay and Montgomery.
1920Aug 17Ray Chapman died after he was hit in the head by Yanks’ pitcher Carl Mays.
1940Aug 17President Roosevelt and Canadian Prime Minister William Mackenzie King met in Ogdensburg, N.Y., where they agreed to set up a joint defense commission.
   
1942Aug 17U.S. Eighth Air Force bombers attacked Rouen, France.
1943Aug 17A mass attack of 376 B-17s attacked the Messerschmitt Bf-109 factory at Regensburg, Germany.  60 B-17s were shot down. That was a 16 percent loss rate and meant 600 empty bunks in England.
1944Aug 17Japanese and Swiss officials agreed to divert 40% of millions of dollars, paid by the US and Britain for the care of prisoners of war held by the Japanese, to pay off Japan’s debts to Swiss businesses. The other 60% was for the free disposal by the Japanese government.
1948Aug 17Former State Department official Alger Hiss faced his chief accuser, Whittaker Chambers, during a closed-door meeting in New York of the House Un-American Activities Committee, and repeated his denial that he’d ever been a Communist agent.
1951Aug 17Hurricane winds drove 6 ships ashore at Kingston, Jamaica.
1955Aug 17Hurricane Diane followed hurricane Connie and flooded the Connecticut River killing 190 and doing $1.8 billion in damage.
1959Aug 17A 7.1 quake struck at Yellowstone National Park.
1960Aug 17American Francis Gary Powers pleaded guilty at his Moscow trial for spying over the Soviet Union in a U-2 plane.
1961Aug 17The Kennedy administration established the Alliance for Progress.
1962Aug 17East German border guards shot and mortally wounded Peter Fechter (18), who had attempted to cross over the Berlin Wall into the western sector.
1966Aug 17Pioneer 7 launched into solar orbit.
1970Aug 17Venera 7 was launched by USSR for a soft landing on Venus.
1971Aug 17Horace McMahon (b.1906), film, theater and TV actor, died.
1975Aug 17Sig Arno (b.1895), German film actor (My Friend Irma), died in Hamburg, Germany.
1979Aug 17Vivian Vance (b.1909), TV and theater actress, died. She played Ethel Mertz in the “I Love Lucy” show.
1982Aug 17A jury in South Bend, Ind., acquitted self-avowed racist Joseph Paul Franklin, for the 1980 attempted assassination of Vernon Jordan Jr, National Urban League president.
1985Aug 17More than 1,400 meatpackers walked off the job at the Geo. A. Hormel and Co.’s main plant in Austin, Minn., in a bitter strike that lasted just over a year.
1986Aug 17A bronze pig statue was unveiled at Seattle’s Pike Place Market.
1987Aug 17The DJIA closed above 2,700 for 1st time (2,700.57).
1988Aug 17Vice President George Bush was nominated for president at the Republican National Convention in New Orleans.
1989Aug 17The Commerce Department reported the U.S. trade deficit had shrunk to $8.7 billion in June.
1990Aug 17The film “The Exorcist 3” premiered.
1992Aug 17Actor-director Woody Allen admitted being romantically involved with Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of Allen’s longtime companion, actress Mia Farrow.
1996Aug 17The Reform Party in Valley Forge, Pa., announced Ross Perot had won its nomination to be its first-ever presidential candidate.
1998Aug 17The Federal Reserve Board approved the megamerger of NationsBank and BankAmerica.
1999Aug 17In Colombia suspected rightist gunmen shot and killed at least 13 villagers in Zambrano including a girl age 13.
2000Aug 17It was reported that researchers had cloned pigs for the 1st time.
2001Aug 17US CIA Director George Tenet briefed Pres. Bush in Texas on day-to-day threats facing the US.
2002Aug 17The new $ 1 billion Navy destroyer McCampbell, completed in July at the Bath Iron Works in Maine, was commissioned in SF.
2003Aug 17US Federal investigators joined industry teams in the search for clues into what triggered the country’s worst power blackout in the Midwest and Northeast as the Bush administration promised to get answers and address whatever problem was found.
2004Aug 17Britain brought terrorism charges against 8 al Qaeda suspects tied to recent alerts about US financial sites. They were charged with conspiring to commit murder and use radioactive materials, toxic gases, chemicals or explosives to cause “fear or injury.”
2005Aug 17Hundreds of anti-war vigils were held nationwide, part of an effort spurred by Cindy Sheehan’s protest near President Bush’s Texas ranch in memory of her son Casey, who was killed in Iraq.
2006Aug 17President Bush signed new rules to prod companies into shoring up their pension plans.
2007Aug 17The US Federal Reserve cut the primary discount rate, a dramatic move aimed at easing worries about tightening credit and calming global financial markets.
2008Aug 17In San Mateo, Ca., the final race was held at Bay Meadows after nearly 74 years of horse racing.
2009Aug 17The Central African Republic’s Communications Minister Cyriaque Gonda said on state radio that the government has set a three-year timetable to disarm, demobilize and reintegrate former rebels.
2010Aug 17A federal jury in Chicago deadlocked on all but one of 24 charges against former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. He was convicted of lying to federal agents. Prosecutors pledged to retry the case as soon as possible.
2011Aug 17Texas Gov. and GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry told New Hampshire voters that he does not believe in manmade global warming, calling it a scientific theory that has not been proven.
2012Aug 17Australian police said they were investigating the theft of some 500,000 credit card numbers which resulted in Aus$25 million (US$26.2 million) worth of fraudulent transactions.
2013Aug 17A hunter’s camp fire in California’s Tuolumne County turned into a wildfire that came to known as the Rim Fire.
2014Aug 17In Arkansas two Union Pacific freight trains collided in Hoxie killing 2 crew members.

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