What is today history February 17

Today in History : February 17

1454 : At a grand feast, Philip the Good of Burgundy takes the “vow of the pheasant,” by which he swears to fight the Turks.

1598 : Boris Godunov, the boyar of Tarar origin, is elected czar in succession to his brother-in-law Fydor.

1720 : Spain signs the Treaty of the Hague with the Quadruple Alliance ending a war that was begun in 1718.

1801 : The House of Representatives breaks an electoral college tie and chooses Thomas Jefferson over Aaron Burr.

1864 : The Confederate submarine Hunley sinks the USS Housatonic in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina.

1865 : The South Carolina capital city, Columbia, is destroyed by fire as Major General William Tecumseh Sherman marches through.

1909 : Apache chief Geronimo dies of pneumonia at age 80, while still in captivity at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

1919 : Germany signs an armistice giving up territory in Poland.

1925 : The first issue of Harold Ross’ magazine, The New Yorker, hits the stands, selling for 15 cents a copy.

1933 : The League of Nations censures Japan in a worldwide broadcast.

1935 : Thirty-one prisoners escape an Oklahoma prison after murdering a guard.

1938 : The first color television is demonstrated at the Dominion Theatre in London.

1944 : U.S forces land on Eniwetok atoll in the South Pacific.

1945 : Gen. MacArthur’s troops land on Corregidor in the Philippines.

1951 : Packard introduces its “250” Chassis Convertible.

1955 : Britain announces its ability to make hydrogen bombs.

1959 : The United States launches its first weather station in space, Vanguard II.

1960 : Martin Luther King Jr. is arrested in the Alabama bus boycott.

1963 : Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev visits the Berlin Wall.

1969 : Russia and Peru sign their first trade accord.

1973 : President Richard Nixon names Patrick Gray director of the FBI.

1975 : Art by Cezanne, Gauguin, Renoir, and van Gogh, valued at $5 million, is stolen from the Municipal Museum in Milan.

1979 : China begins a “pedagogical” war against Vietnam. It will last until March.

1985 : Murray Haydon becomes the third person to receive an artificial heart.

Born on February 17

1774 : Raphaelle Peale, U.S. painter

1864 : A(ndrew) B(arton) “Banjo” Paterson, Australian poet and journalist.

1874 : Thomas J. Watson Sr., U.S. industrialist.

1902 : Marian Anderson, American singer.

1908 : Walter Lanier “Red” Barber, baseball announcer for the Cincinnati Reds, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Yankees.

1929 : Chaim Potok, novelist (The Chosen, The Promise).

1963 : Michael Jordan, basketball player for the Chicago Bulls.