February 17
Events
Pre-1600
- 1370 - Northern Crusades: Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Teutonic Knights meet in the Battle of Rudau.
- 1411 - Following the successful campaigns during the Ottoman Interregnum, Musa Çelebi, one of the sons of Bayezid I, becomes Sultan of the Ottoman Empire with the support of Mircea I of Wallachia.
- 1500 - Duke Frederick of Schleswig-Holstein and King John of Denmark attempt to subdue the peasantry of Dithmarschen, Denmark, in the Battle of Hemmingstedt.
- 1600 - On his way to be burned at the stake for heresy, at Campo de' Fiori in Rome, the philosopher Giordano Bruno has a wooden vise put on his tongue to prevent him continuing to speak.
1601–1900
- 1616 - Nurhaci proclaims himself Khan of the Later Jin, precursor to the Qing Dynasty.
- 1621 - Myles Standish is appointed as first military commander of the English Plymouth Colony in North America.
- 1674 - An earthquake strikes the Indonesian island of Ambon. It triggers a megatsunami which drowns over 2,300 people.
- 1676 - Sixteen men of Pascual de Iriate's expedition are lost at Evangelistas Islets at the western end of the Strait of Magellan.
- 1739 - The Battle of Vasai commences as the Marathas move to invade Portuguese-occupied territory.
- 1753 - In Sweden, February 17 is followed by March 1 as the country moves from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar.
- 1801 - United States presidential election: A tie in the Electoral College between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr is resolved when Jefferson is elected President of the United States and Burr Vice President by the United States House of Representatives.
- 1814 - War of the Sixth Coalition: The Battle of Mormant.
- 1819 - The United States House of Representatives passes the Missouri Compromise for the first time.
- 1838 - Weenen massacre: Hundreds of Voortrekkers along the Blaukraans River, Natal are killed by Zulus.
- 1854 - The United Kingdom recognizes the independence of the Orange Free State.
- 1859 - Cochinchina Campaign: The French Navy captures the Citadel of Saigon, a fortress manned by 1,000 Nguyễn dynasty soldiers, en route to conquering Saigon and other regions of southern Viet Nam.
- 1863 - A group of citizens of Geneva found an International Committee for Relief to the Wounded, which later became known as the International Committee of the Red Cross.
- 1864 - American Civil War: The becomes the first submarine to engage and sink a warship, the.
- 1865 - American Civil War: Columbia, South Carolina, is burned as Confederate forces flee from advancing Union forces.
1901–present
- 1905 - Russian Revolution of 1905: Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia is assassinated in the Moscow Kremlin by Socialist Revolutionary Ivan Kalyayev.
- 1913 - The Armory Show opens in New York City, displaying works of artists who are to become some of the most influential painters of the early 20th century.
- 1919 - The Ukrainian People's Republic asks the Entente and the United States for help fighting the Bolsheviks.
- 1944 - World War II: The Battle of Eniwetok begins. The battle ends in an American victory on February 22.
- 1944 - World War II: Operation Hailstone begins: U.S. naval air, surface, and submarine attack against Truk Lagoon, Japan's main base in the central Pacific, in support of the Eniwetok invasion.
- 1948 - The Al-Waziri coup briefly ousts the ruling Hamidaddin dynasty of Yemen; Imam Yahya Muhammad Hamid ed-Din is killed.
- 1949 - Chaim Weizmann begins his term as the first President of Israel.
- 1959 - Project Vanguard: Vanguard 2: The first weather satellite is launched to measure cloud-cover distribution.
- 1959 - A Turkish Airlines Vickers Viscount crashes near Gatwick Airport, killing 14; Turkish prime minister Adnan Menderes survives the crash.
- 1964 - In Wesberry v. Sanders the Supreme Court of the United States rules that congressional districts have to be approximately equal in population.
- 1964 - Gabonese president Léon M'ba is toppled by a coup and his rival, Jean-Hilaire Aubame, is installed in his place.
- 1965 - Project Ranger: The Ranger 8 probe launches on its mission to photograph the Mare Tranquillitatis region of the Moon in preparation for the crewed Apollo missions. Mare Tranquillitatis or the "Sea of Tranquility" would become the site chosen for the Apollo 11 lunar landing.
- 1966 - Aeroflot Flight 065 crashes during take-off from Sheremetyevo International Airport, killing 21.
- 1969 - American aquanaut Berry L. Cannon dies of carbon dioxide poisoning while attempting to repair a leak in the SEALAB III underwater habitat. The SEALAB project was subsequently abandoned.
- 1970 - the family of Jeffrey R. MacDonald, United States Army captain, is found murdered in their home in Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. Eventually, MacDonald himself was charged with and convicted of the murder of his pregnant wife and two daughters.
- 1972 - Cumulative sales of the Volkswagen Beetle exceed those of the Ford Model T.
- 1974 - Robert K. Preston, a disgruntled U.S. Army private, buzzes the White House in a stolen helicopter.
- 1978 - The Troubles: The Provisional IRA detonates an incendiary bomb at the La Mon restaurant, near Belfast, killing 12 and seriously injuring 30 others, all Protestants.
- 1979 - The Sino-Vietnamese War begins.
- 1980 - First winter ascent of Mount Everest by Krzysztof Wielicki and Leszek Cichy.
- 1991 - Ryan International Airlines Flight 590 crashes during takeoff from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, killing both pilots, the aircraft's only occupants.
- 1992 - First Nagorno-Karabakh War: Armenian troops massacre more than 20 Azerbaijani civilians during the Capture of Garadaghly.
- 1995 - The Cenepa War between Peru and Ecuador ends on a ceasefire brokered by the UN.
- 1996 - In Philadelphia, world champion Garry Kasparov beats the Deep Blue supercomputer in a chess match.
- 1996 - NASA's Discovery Program begins as the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft lifts off on the first mission ever to orbit and land on an asteroid, 433 Eros.
- 1996 - The 8.2 Biak earthquake shakes the Papua province of eastern Indonesia with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII. A large tsunami followed, leaving 166 people dead or missing and 423 injured.
- 2006 - A massive mudslide occurs in Southern Leyte, Philippines; the official death toll is set at 1,126.
- 2008 - Kosovo declares independence from Serbia.
- 2011 - Arab Spring: Libyan protests against Muammar Gaddafi's regime begin.
- 2011 - Arab Spring: In Bahrain, security forces launch a deadly pre-dawn raid on protesters in Pearl Roundabout in Manama; the day is locally known as Bloody Thursday.
- 2015 - Eighteen people are killed and 78 injured in a stampede at a Mardi Gras parade in Haiti.
- 2016 - Military vehicles explode outside a Turkish Armed Forces barracks in Ankara, Turkey, killing at least 29 people and injuring 61 others.
Births
Pre-1600
- 624 - Wu Zetian, Chinese empress consort
- 1028 - Al-Juwayni, Persian scholar and imam
- 1490 - Charles III, duke of Bourbon
- 1519 - Francis, French Grand Chamberlain
- 1524 - Charles de Lorraine, French cardinal
1601–1900
- 1646 - Pierre Le Pesant, sieur de Boisguilbert, French economist
- 1653 - Arcangelo Corelli, Italian violinist and composer
- 1723 - Tobias Mayer, German astronomer and academic
- 1740 - Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, Swiss physicist and meteorologist
- 1752 - Friedrich Maximilian Klinger, German author and playwright
- 1754 - Nicolas Baudin, French cartographer and explorer
- 1758 - John Pinkerton, Scottish antiquarian, cartographer, author, numismatist and historian
- 1762 - John Cooke, English captain
- 1781 - René Laennec, French physician, invented the stethoscope
- 1796 - Philipp Franz von Siebold, German physician and botanist
- 1799 - Carl Julian Graba, German lawyer and ornithologist who visited and studied the Faroe Islands
- 1817 - Édouard Thilges, Luxembourgish jurist and politician, 7th Prime Minister of Luxembourg
- 1820 - Henri Vieuxtemps, Belgian violinist and composer
- 1821 - Lola Montez, Irish-American actress and dancer
- 1832 - Richard Henry Park, American sculptor
- 1836 - Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, Spanish author, poet, and playwright
- 1843 - Aaron Montgomery Ward, American businessman, founded Montgomery Ward
- 1848 - Louisa Lawson, Australian poet and publisher
- 1849 - Joseph Favre, Swiss chef
- 1854 - Friedrich Alfred Krupp, German businessman
- 1861 - Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont, duchess of Albany
- 1862 - Mori Ōgai, Japanese general, author, and poet
- 1864 - Jozef Murgaš, Slovak priest, botanist, and painter
- 1864 - Banjo Paterson, Australian journalist, author, and poet
- 1874 - Thomas J. Watson, American businessman
- 1877 - Isabelle Eberhardt, Swiss explorer and author
- 1877 - André Maginot, French sergeant and politician
- 1879 - Dorothy Canfield Fisher, American educational reformer, social activist and author
- 1881 - Mary Carson Breckinridge, American nurse midwife, founded Frontier Nursing Service
- 1887 - Joseph Bech, Luxembourgish lawyer and politician, 15th Prime Minister of Luxembourg
- 1887 - Leevi Madetoja, Finnish composer and critic
- 1888 - Ronald Knox, English Catholic priest
- 1888 - Otto Stern, German-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1890 - Ronald Fisher, English-Australian statistician, biologist, and geneticist
- 1891 - Abraham Fraenkel, German-Israeli mathematician and academic
- 1893 - Wally Pipp, American baseball player and journalist
- 1899 - Jibanananda Das, Bangladeshi-Indian poet and author
- 1900 - Ruth Clifford, American actress