June 17

Events

Pre-1600

• 653 - Pope Martin I is arrested and taken to Constantinople, due to his opposition to monothelitism.
• 1242 - Following the Disputation of Paris, twenty-four carriage loads of Jewish religious manuscripts were burnt in Paris.
• 1300 - Turku Cathedral is consecrated by Bishop Magnus I in the city of Turku.
• 1397 - The Kalmar Union is formed under the rule of Margaret I of Denmark.
• 1462 - Vlad the Impaler attempts to assassinate Mehmed II, forcing him to retreat from Wallachia.
• 1497 - Battle of Deptford Bridge: Forces under King Henry VII defeat troops led by Michael An Gof.
• 1579 - Sir Francis Drake claims a land he calls Nova Albion for England.
• 1596 - The Dutch explorer Willem Barentsz discovers the Arctic archipelago of Spitsbergen.

  1601–1900

• 1631 - Mumtaz Mahal dies during childbirth. Her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, will spend the next 17 years building her mausoleum, the Taj Mahal.
• 1665 - Battle of Montes Claros: Portugal definitively secured independence from Spain in the last battle of the Portuguese Restoration War.
• 1673 - French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet reach the Mississippi River and become the first Europeans to make a detailed account of its course.
• 1767 - Samuel Wallis, a British sea captain, sights Tahiti and is considered the first European to reach the island.
• 1773 - Cúcuta, Colombia, is founded by Juana Rangel de Cuéllar.
• 1775 - American Revolutionary War: Colonists inflict heavy casualties on British forces while losing the Battle of Bunker Hill.
• 1789 - In France, the Third Estate declares itself the National Assembly.
• 1794 - Foundation of Anglo-Corsican Kingdom.
• 1795 - The burghers of Swellendam expel the Dutch East India Company magistrate and declare a republic.
• 1831 - The steam locomotive Best Friend of Charleston causes the first boiler explosion caused by a steam locomotive.
• 1839 - In the Kingdom of Hawaii, Kamehameha III issues the edict of toleration which gives Roman Catholics the freedom to worship in the Hawaiian Islands. The Hawaii Catholic Church and the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace are established as a result.
• 1843 - The Wairau Affray, the first serious clash of arms between Māori and British settlers in the New Zealand Wars, takes place.
• 1861 - American Civil War: Battle of Vienna, Virginia.
• 1863 - American Civil War: Battle of Aldie in the Gettysburg campaign.
• 1876 - American Indian Wars: Battle of the Rosebud: One thousand five hundred Sioux and Cheyenne led by Crazy Horse beat back General George Crook's forces at Rosebud Creek in Montana Territory.
• 1877 - American Indian Wars: Battle of White Bird Canyon: The Nez Perce defeat the U.S. Cavalry at White Bird Canyon in the Idaho Territory.
• 1885 - The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor.
• 1898 - The United States Navy Hospital Corps is established.
• 1900 - Boxer Rebellion: Western Allied and Japanese forces capture the Taku Forts in Tianjin, China.

  1901–present

• 1901 - The College Board introduces its first standardized test, the forerunner to the SAT.
• 1910 - Aurel Vlaicu pilots an A. Vlaicu nr. 1 on its first flight.
• 1922 - Portuguese naval aviators Gago Coutinho and Sacadura Cabral complete the first aerial crossing of the South Atlantic.
• 1929 - The town of Murchison, New Zealand is rocked by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake killing 17. At the time it was New Zealand's worst natural disaster.
• 1930 - U.S. president Herbert Hoover signs the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act into law.
• 1932 - Bonus Army: Around a thousand World War I veterans amass at the United States Capitol as the U.S. Senate considers a bill that would give them certain benefits.
• 1933 - Union Station massacre: In Kansas City, Missouri, four FBI agents and captured fugitive Frank Nash are gunned down by gangsters attempting to free Nash.
• 1939 - Last public guillotining in France: Eugen Weidmann, a convicted murderer, is executed in Versailles outside the Saint-Pierre prison.
• 1940 - World War II: is attacked and sunk by the Luftwaffe near Saint-Nazaire, France. At least 3,000 are killed in Britain's worst maritime disaster.
• 1940 - World War II: The British Army's 11th Hussars assault and take Fort Capuzzo in Libya from Italian forces.
• 1940 - The three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania fall under the occupation of the Soviet Union.
• 1944 - Iceland declares independence from Denmark and becomes a republic.
• 1948 - United Airlines Flight 624, a Douglas DC-6, crashes near Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, killing all 43 people on board.
• 1952 - Guatemala passes Decree 900, ordering the redistribution of uncultivated land.
• 1953 - Cold War: East Germany Workers Uprising: In East Germany, the Soviet Union orders a division of troops into East Berlin to quell a rebellion.
• 1958 - The Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing, in the process of being built to connect Vancouver and North Vancouver, collapses into the Burrard Inlet killing 18 ironworkers and injuring others.
• 1960 - The Nez Perce tribe is awarded $4 million for of land undervalued at four cents/acre in the 1863 treaty.
• 1963 - The United States Supreme Court rules 8–1 in Abington School District v. Schempp against requiring the reciting of Bible verses and the Lord's Prayer in public schools.
• 1963 - A day after South Vietnamese president Ngô Đình Diệm announced the Joint Communiqué to end the Buddhist crisis, a riot involving around 2,000 people breaks out. One person is killed.
• 1967 - Nuclear weapons testing: China announces a successful test of its first thermonuclear weapon.
• 1971 - U.S. president Richard Nixon in a televised press conference called drug abuse "America's public enemy number one", starting the war on drugs.
• 1972 - Watergate scandal: Five White House operatives are arrested for burgling the offices of the Democratic National Committee during an attempt by members of the administration of President Richard M. Nixon to illegally wiretap the political opposition as part of a broader campaign to subvert the democratic process.
• 1985 - Space Shuttle program: STS-51-G mission: Space Shuttle Discovery launches carrying Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the first Arab and first Muslim in space, as a payload specialist.
• 1987 - With the death of the last individual of the species, the dusky seaside sparrow becomes extinct.
• 1989 - Interflug Flight 102 crashes during a rejected takeoff from Berlin Schönefeld Airport, killing 21 people.
• 1991 - Apartheid: The South African Parliament repeals the Population Registration Act which required racial classification of all South Africans at birth.
• 1992 - A "joint understanding" agreement on arms reduction is signed by U.S. president George Bush and Russian president Boris Yeltsin.
• 1994 - Following a televised low-speed highway chase, O. J. Simpson is arrested for the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.
• 2015 - Nine people are killed in a mass shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
• 2017 - A series of wildfires in central Portugal kill at least 64 people and injure 204 others.
• 2021 - Juneteenth National Independence Day, was signed into law by President Joe Biden, to become the first federal holiday established since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983.

  Births

Pre-1600

• 801 - Drogo of Metz, Frankish bishop
• 1239 - Edward I, English king
• 1530 - François de Montmorency, French nobleman
• 1571 - Thomas Mun, English writer on economics

  1601–1900

• 1603 - Joseph of Cupertino, Italian mystic and saint
• 1604 - John Maurice, Dutch nobleman
• 1610 - Birgitte Thott, Danish scholar, writer and translator
• 1631 - Gauharara Begum, Mughal princess
• 1682 - Charles XII, Swedish king
• 1691 - Giovanni Paolo Panini, Italian painter and architect
• 1693 - Johann Georg Walch, German theologian and author
• 1704 - John Kay, English engineer, invented the Flying shuttle
• 1714 - César-François Cassini de Thury, French astronomer and cartographer
• 1718 - George Howard, English field marshal and politician, Governor of Minorca
• 1778 - Gregory Blaxland, English-Australian explorer
• 1800 - William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, English-Irish astronomer and politician
• 1808 - Henrik Wergeland, Norwegian poet, playwright, and linguist
• 1810 - Ferdinand Freiligrath, German poet and translator
• 1811 - Jón Sigurðsson, Icelandic scholar and politician
• 1818 - Charles Gounod, French composer and academic
• 1818 - Sophie of Württemberg, queen of the Netherlands
• 1821 - E. G. Squier, American archaeologist and journalist
• 1832 - William Crookes, English chemist and physicist
• 1833 - Manuel González Flores, Mexican general and president
• 1858 - Eben Sumner Draper, American businessman and politician, 44th Governor of Massachusetts
• 1861 - Pete Browning, American baseball player
• 1861 - Omar Bundy, American general
• 1863 - Charles Michael, duke of Mecklenburg
• 1865 - Susan La Flesche Picotte, Native American physician
• 1867 - Flora Finch, English-American actress
• 1867 - John Robert Gregg, Irish-born American educator, publisher, and humanitarian
• 1867 - Henry Lawson, Australian poet and author
• 1871 - James Weldon Johnson, American author, journalist, and activist
• 1876 - William Carr, American rower
• 1876 - Edward Anthony Spitzka, American anatomist and author
• 1880 - Carl Van Vechten, American author and photographer
• 1881 - Tommy Burns, Canadian boxer and promoter
• 1882 - Adolphus Frederick VI, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
• 1882 - Igor Stravinsky, Russian pianist, composer, and conductor
• 1888 - Heinz Guderian, German general
• 1897 - Maria Izilda de Castro Ribeiro, Brazilian girl, popular saint
• 1898 - M. C. Escher, Dutch illustrator
• 1898 - Carl Hermann, German physicist and academic
• 1898 - Joe McKelvey, Executed Irish republican
• 1898 - Harry Patch, English soldier and firefighter
• 1900 - Martin Bormann, German politician
• 1900 - Evelyn Irons, Scottish journalist and war correspondent