Famous Events For June 17 – Today In History

June 17: Today in History – Historical Events

Early Centuries – June 17 Historic Events – Before the 1700s

1. 17th June 1497: Cornish Rebels led by Michael An Gof were defeated by the forces led by King Henry VII at the battle of Deptford Bridge.
2. 17th June 1579: Sir Francis Drake landed at Drakes Bay on the coast of California. He named it “New Albion”.
3. 17th June 1579: Anti-English uprising began in Ireland today.

4. 17th June 1580: Spanish troops beat the rebels in the battle of Hardenberg.
5. 17th June 1609: A 12-year Covenant was signed today by the Netherlands, England, and France.

18th Century – What Happened on June 17 – The 1700s

6. 17th June 1700: Massachusetts today ordered priests to leave the colony.
7. 17th June 1789: During the French Revolution, in the meeting of the Estates-General the Third Estate proclaimed itself as the “National Assembly”.

19th Century – June 17 This Day That Year – The 1800s

8. 17th June 1824: The US Bureau of Indian Affairs was established today.
9. 17th June 1837: Charles Goodyear got his first rubber patent today.
10. 17th June 1856: The first national convention of the Republic Party opened today in Philadelphia.
11. 17th June 1863: In the battle of Aldie, Confederates failed to drive back the Union in Virginia.

12. 17th June 1863: Travelers Insurance Company of Hartford, the first company to accident cover, was chartered today.
13. 17th June 1864: The 640-meter-long pontoon bridge across the James River was completed today.
14. 17th June 1882: A tornado struck Iowa killing 130 people.
15. 17th June 1885: The Statue of Liberty arrived today in New York City aboard the French ship “Isere”.
16. 17th June 1894: The first poliomyelitis epidemic broke out in Rutland, Vermont.
17. 17th June 1897: The New Jersey educator, William Frank Powell was named minister of Haiti.
18. 17th June 1898: The United States Navy Hospital Corps was established today.

20th Century – Important Events On This Day June 17th – The 1900s

19. 17th June 1901: As a forerunner to SAT, the College Board introduced its first standardized test today.
20. 17th June 1902: The New Lands Reclamation Act which established a fund from the sale of public lands to build irrigation dams to arid Western lands was passed today by the US Congress.

21. 17th June 1911: A government led by De Broqueville formed in Belgium today.
22. 17th June 1915: At the Independence Hall in Philadelphia, the League to Enforce Peace was organized with William Howard Taft as its president. The program of the league anticipates the League of Nations.
23. 17th June 1916: The first National Congress of Sarekat Islam convened at Bondoeng, Java.
24. 17th June 1916: General Pershing leads the march of the US troops into Mexico.
25. 17th June 1920: Anti-revolution law was today accepted by the Dutch 2nd Chamber.
26. 17th June 1928: Aviator Amelia Earhart left Newfoundland as a passenger in a plane piloted by Wilmer Stultz to become the first woman to fly the Atlantic (as a passenger).
27. 17th June 1930: President Herbert Hoover today signed the Smooth-Hawley Tariff bill, which raised import duties and made it difficult if not impossible for other countries to export goods to America, to protect and preserve the domestic market for American goods.
28. 17th June 1932: In Canada, the oil tanker “Cymbeline” exploded in Montreal.
29. 17th June 1933: A Mob in Kansas City killed an FBI agent, 4 cops, and one gangster today in what is called the Kansas City massacre.
30. 17th June 1938: Japan declared war on China.

31. 17th June 1939: A convicted murderer Eugen Weidmann was guillotined outside the prison Saint-Pierre in Versailles. This was the last public guillotining in France.
32. 17th June 1934: 30,000 marchers of the ABC Society marched through the streets of Havana. As they reached Prado Boulevard, the radical guerillas, in what appeared to be a carefully planned attack opened fire. ABC marchers returned fire but casualties could not be prevented leaving 12 dead and 51 injured.
33. 17th June 1940: France today asked Germany for the terms of surrender in World War II.
34. 17th June 1940: General De Gaulle departed Bordeaux to London.
35. 17th June 1940: USSR occupied Estonia.
36. 17th June 1940: France today surrendered to Germany. Thousands of people fled to England to continue the fight or join the French underground forces.
37. 17th June 1944: The island today declared independence from Denmark.
38. 17th June 1947: The first round-the-world civil air service left New York City today.

39. 17th June 1947: President Truman today declared that universal military training is necessary in the fight against totalitarian nations.
40. 17th June 1947: Pan Am Airways was chartered as the first worldwide passenger airline.
41. 17th June 1948: A United Airlines DC-6 plane flying from San Diego to New York, crashed in Pennsylvania while attempting an emergency landing.
42. 17th June 1950: Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia signed a security pact today.
43. 17th June 1950: Surgeons conducted the first-ever kidney transplant surgery in Chicago today.
44. 17th June 1951: American Lieutenant General James A. Van Fleet reported that his Army troops inflicted 215,989 casualties on Chinese and North Korean Communists since the spring.
45. 17th June 1953: Riots began in East Berlin when some construction workers took to the streets to protest against the communist government. The strength grew to 50,000, prompting Russia to send an entire armored division to East Germany to crush the rebellion.

46. 17th June 1953: Justice William O. Douglass of the US Supreme Court stayed the execution of spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg which was to happen the next day which happened to be their 14th anniversary.
47. 17th June 1954: Heavyweight boxing champion Rocky Marciano beat world heavyweight champion Ezzard Charles in 15 rounds.
48. 17th June 1956: In Israel, Golda Meir began her term as foreign minister of Israel.
49. 17th June 1958: The execution of Hungarian ex-prime minister Imre Nagy was reported by Radio Moscow.
50. 17th June 1958: In Canada, the Second Narrows Bridge which was being built to connect eastern and northern Vancouver collapsed, killing 59 workers.
51. 17th June 1958: The wooden roller coaster at Playland, the Pacific National Exhibition was opened in Canada which is open even to this day.
52. 17th June 1959: Ireland today elected Eamon de Valera as President of Ireland.
53. 17th June 1963: The Profumo-Christine Keeler affair was today debated in the British House of Commons.

54. 17th June 1963: The Supreme Court today ruled against Bible reading/prayer in public schools.
55. 17th June 1967: Scientists in China successfully launched the country’s first Hydrogen Bomb today.
56. 17th June 1970: The Polaroid camera was patented by Edwin Land.
57. 17th June 1972: Five men with burglary tools, camera, and film, were arrested today for breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office, hotel, and apartment complex in Washington. They were later identified as part of Nixon’s re-election team.
58. 17th June 1972: In Chile President Salvador Allende today formed a new Socialist government.
59. 17th June 1972: While fighting a fire in Hotel Vendome in Boston, 9 firefighters were killed.
60. 17th June 1974: The Austrian government reported that the French had detonated an atomic bomb over the Pacific as part of a series of nuclear tests that France was supposed to conduct in 1974. It expressed concerns that its territory would suffer radioactive fallout from the test. The French did not respond.

61. 17th June 1974: The IRA had planted a bomb in the British House of Parliament. 11 people were injured.
62. 17th June 1976: Portuguese East-Timor was annexed by Indonesia today.
63. 17th June 1980: The Secretary of State for Defense Francis Pym announced that 160 US nuclear cruise missiles were being located at RAF Greenham Common, Berkshire, and the disused RAF Molesworth in Cambridgeshire. The weapons were removed after the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty with the Soviet Union. A women’s peace camp was set up at Greenham Common which remained there in protest against the basing of American weapons in the UK.
64. 17th June 1981: In a battle between Muslims and Christians in Cairo, 14 people were killed.
65. 17th June 1982: After the defeat of Argentina in Falkland Island, President Galtieri of Argentina resigned.
66. 17th June 1984: John Turner succeeded Pierre Trudeau as Prime Minister of Canada today.
67. 17th June 1986: Due to the recent outbreak of unrest in the nation, reporters and the media were censored by the South African government. The country was in a state of emergency but the leaders claimed that there was no unrest.
68. 17th June 1988: Microsoft today released their new operating system MS-DOS 4.0.
69. 17th June 1994: O. J. Simpson who was wanted by the police for the questioning in the double murder case of June 12th of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald L. Goldman, surrendered to the Los Angeles police today outside his Rockingham Estate.

70. 17th June 1999: After 100 children fell ill in Belgium after drinking Coca-Cola with a blood disorder destroying red blood cells, many Coca-Cola products were taken off the shelves in four European countries. France withdrew drinks bottled at the Dunkirk plant and the Coca-Cola Company withdrew all the Belgian-produced beverages.

21st Century – June 17 This Day In History – The 2000s

71. 17th June 2002: The CIA leak says President George Bush was determined to succeed where his father failed and considers the removal of his adversary Saddam Hussain as a major goal of his term of office and of his telling the CIA to overthrow or capture Saddam Hussain. An Invasion of Iraq code-named “Operation Iraqi Freedom” was launched in March 2003.
72. 17th June 2005: A Ugandan-born cleric John Sentamu was named by the Church of England as the Archbishop of York, making him the first black to be appointed in the Church of England.
73. 17th June 2008: The police today found a severed foot on the Vancouver beach. This was the fifth such case. The first two were washed on the beach in Aug 2007, and the third and fourth were found in May 2008. At least 10 feet have been found between Vancouver in Canada and Washington State in the US. All of them had running shoes on them.
74. 17th June 2012: France’s Socialist Party won a majority in the legislative election.
75. 17th June 2012: The face of the 1991 Los Angeles riots Rodney King, after being subjected to Police brutality was found dead. He was 47. His body was found by his fiancé at the bottom of a pool. No foul play is suspected.

76. 17th June 2013: “Tianhe-2”, China’s supercomputer has reclaimed its title as the fastest and the most powerful computer in the world. It was developed by the University of Defense Technology in China. Its performance is almost double that of the next computer in the list.
77. 17th June 2015: A 21-year-old gunman opened fire inside Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, killing 9 people.
78. 17th June 2017: The trial of actor and comedian Bill Cosby, who was being tried for aggravated incent assault was declared a mistrial as the jurors could not reach a verdict.
79. 17th June 2018: Greece and Macedonia signed a historic deal ending a dispute over Macedonia’s name, changing it to North Macedonia.
80. 17th June 2018: Ivan Duque was today elected President of Columbia.

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