First Confidential

THIS DAY IN HISTORY - FEBRUARY 17th

Anonymous, Quote

“Treat a person as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat him as he could be, and he will become what he should be.” ~ Anonymous

Wikiquote (Anonymous derived from the Greek word ἀνωνυμία, anonymia, meaning “without a name” or “namelessness”. It commonly refers to the state of an individual's personal identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown.)

This Day in History

February 17th, 364

Roman Empire Decline and Fall of Rome

Roman Empire:
364 - Emperor Jovian dies after a reign of eight months. He is found dead in his tent at Tyana (Asia Minor) en route back to Constantinople in suspicious circumstances.

Wikipedia  Image: Relief from a 3rd-century sarcophagus depicting a battle between Romans and Germanic warriors; the central figure is perhaps the emperor Hostilian / Depiction of the Menorah on the Arch of Titus in Rome.


February 17th, 1600

Giordano Bruno: (Filippo Bruno, was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer - his cosmological theories went beyond the Copernican model in proposing that the Sun was essentially a star, and moreover, that the universe contained an infinite number of inhabited worlds populated by other intelligent being.

The philosopher Giordano Bruno is burned alive, for heresy, at Campo de' Fiori in Rome. (Filippo Bruno, was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer - his cosmological theories went beyond the Copernican model in proposing that the Sun was essentially a star, and moreover, that the universe contained an infinite number of inhabited worlds populated by other intelligent being.)

Wikipedia  Photo: Giordano Bruno; Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer.


February 17th, 1621

Mayflower Collage: departs from Southampton, England on its travel to North America

Plymouth Colony:
1621 - Myles Standish is appointed as first commander of Plymouth Colony.

Wikipedia  Painting: "Mayflower", The Granger Collection, New York 1905; Pilgrims landing on Cape Cod in November of 1620; The Pilgrims on the Speedwell; Mayflower arrived inside the tip of Cape Cod fishhook, November 1620 (satellite image, 1997); Landing of the Pilgrims by Michele Felice Cornè, circa 1805. Displayed in the White House.


February 17th, 1814

Napoleonic Wars: (1803–15) were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions French Revolutionary Wars, Battle of the Nile (Battle of Aboukir Bay): Battle begins when a British fleet engages the French Revolutionary Navy fleet in an unusual night action

French Revolutionary Wars / Napoleonic Wars:
1814 - War of the Sixth Coalition; Battle of Mormans (A coalition of Austria, Prussia, Russia, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Sweden, Spain and a number of German States finally defeated France and drove Napoleon into exile on Elba.)

Wikipedia  Painting: Battle of Trafalgar: The British HMS Sandwich fires to the French flagship Bucentaure (completely dismasted) in the battle of Trafalgar; Napoleon in Berlin (Meynier). After defeating Prussian forces at Jena, the French Army entered Berlin on 27 October 1806; Battle of the Bridge of Arcole Napoleon Bonaparte leading his troops over the bridge of Arcole, by Horace Vernet; Napoleon as King of Italy (Appiani); Napoleon Crossing the Alps (David). In 1800 Bonaparte took the French Army across the Alps, eventually defeating the Austrians at Marengo; Charge of the Russian Imperial Guard cavalry against French cuirassiers at the Battle of Friedland, 14 June 1807; Battle of Borodino as depicted by Louis Lejeune. The battle was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars; Napoleon's withdrawal from Russia, a painting by Adolph Northen; Wellington at Waterloo by Robert Alexander Hillingford; Napoleon is often represented in his green colonel uniform of the Chasseur à Cheval, with a large bicorne and a hand-in-waistcoat gesture.
Battle of the Nile (Battle of Aboukir Bay).


February 17th, 1819

Missouri Compromise Line (modern state boundaries shown) Blue = Free states / Red = Slave states

Missouri Compromise is passed by the United States House of Representatives.

Wikipedia  Image: Henry Clay, Stock Montage / Hulton Archive / Getty Images ● Sojourner Truth: A freed slave, Sojourner Truth (1797-1883) pioneered the abolitionist and women's rights movements, campaigning for both causes all over the United States (painting based on a photograph from 1864). (Bettmann / Corbis) ● Map of the Missouri Compromise Line, Red = Free states / Green = Slave states Map (Bowdoin.edu)


February 17th, 1838

David Livingstone becomes the first European to see the Victoria Falls in what is now present-day Zambia-Zimbabwe A n'anga (or faith healer) of the majority (70%) Shona people, holding a kudu horn trumpet; Matabele and Zulu warriors, traditions continue to this day in ceremonies for special events

Anglo-Zulu War:
1838 - Weenen massacre; Hundreds of Voortrekkers along the Blaukraans River, Natal are killed by Zulu warriors.

Wikipedia  Photo: Zambia Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe;
A n'anga (or faith healer) of the majority (70%) Shona people, holding a kudu horn trumpet; Matabele and Zulu warriors, traditions continue to this day in ceremonies for special events.


February 17th, 1864

Lincoln Memorial: an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln - located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. across from the Washington Monument American Civil War: Battle of Antietam; Stone Bridge at Antietam Battlefield - Sharpsburg, Maryland American Civil War, Battle of Mobile Bay: at Mobile Bay near Mobile, Alabama, Admiral David Farragut leads a Union flotilla through Confederate defenses and seals one of the last major Southern ports

American Civil War:
1864 - The H. L. Hunley becomes the first submarine to engage and sink a warship, the USS Housatonic.
1865 - The Columbia, South Carolina is burned as Confederate forces flee from advancing Union forces.

Wikipedia  Image: ● Lincoln Memorial; an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln - located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. across from the Washington Monument.
● The northern army led by George McClellan and the southern army led by Robert E. Lee met at Antietam Creek, Maryland in September, 1862. It was a bloody battle where 13,000 Confederates and 12,000 Union troops died in just one day. McClellan had hesitated to attack before the battle thus letting the southern troops regroup. Also, he had saved reserves and refused to use them at the end of the battle thinking that Lee was holding reserves for a counterattack, even though those reserves didn't exist. The Union victory stopped Lee's northward advance and was a turning point in the war.
Battle of Antietam / Stone Bridge at Antietam Battlefield - Sharpsburg, Maryland
Battle of Mobile Bay (1890) by Xanthus Russell Smith.
Although photography was still in its infancy, war correspondents produced thousands of images, bringing the harsh realities of the frontlines to those on the home front in a new and visceral way. The Atlantic.


February 17th, 1904

Giacomo Puccini ● Madama Butterfly receives its première at La Scala in Milan, credit East Carolina University

Madama Butterfly receives its première at La Scala in Milan.

Wikipedi  Image: Giacomo Puccini ● Madama Butterfly receives its première at La Scala in Milan, credit East Carolina University.


February 17th, 1944

World War II: Second firestorm raid on Germany, the Royal Air Force conducts an air raid on the town of Kassel, killing 10,000 and rendering 150,000 homeless World War II: Battle of Leyte Gulf; Battle of Leyte Gulf; The first kamikaze attack: A Japanese plane carrying a 200-kilogram (440 lb) bomb attacks HMAS Australia off Leyte Island World War II: German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944) World War II: Eastern Front (World War II); was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945 World War II: United States forces land in the Philippines

World War II:
1944 - Battle of Eniwetok Atoll; begins. The battle ends in an American victory on February 22.
1944 - Eniwetok invasion; Operation Hailstone begins. U.S. naval air, surface, and submarine attack against Truk Lagoon, Japan's main base in the central Pacific.

Wikipedia  Photo: Bombing of Dresden in World War II; August Schreitmüller's sculpture 'Goodness' surveys Dresden after a firestorm started by Allied bombers in 1945. USS Bunker Hill was hit by kamikazes piloted by Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa and another airman on 11 May 1945. 389 personnel were killed or missing from a crew of 2,600; Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, who flew his aircraft into the USS Bunker Hill during a Kamikaze mission on 11 May 1945; Kamikaze Missions - Lt Yoshinori Yamaguchi's Yokosuka D4Y3 (Type 33 Suisei) "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the non-self-sealing port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and/or smoke 25 November 1944.
German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944), credit German History in Documents and Images GHDI.

Eastern Front (World War II); Germans race towards Stalingrad. August 1942; Soviet children during a German air raid in the first days of the war, June 1941, by RIA Novosti archive; Soviet sniper Roza Shanina in 1944. About 400,000 Soviet women served in front-line duty units Caucasus Mountains, winter 1942/43; Finnish ski patrol: the invisible enemy of the Soviet Army with an unlimited supply of skis; Men of the German Engineers Corps cross a river which is swollen after the first autumn rains, to strengthen bridges linking the German positions on the central front in Russia. by Keystone / Getty Images. October 1942; Russian snipers fighting on the Leningrad front during a blizzard. Photo by Hulton Archive / Getty Images, 1943; German soldiers surrendering to the Russians in Stalingrad, the soldier holding the white flag of surrender is dressed in white so that there could be no doubt of his intentions, a Russian soldier is on the right of the photograph. by Keystone / Getty Images, January 1943;
Invasion of Leyte, October 1944 - General Douglas MacArthur (right) and Philippine President Sergio Osmeña (center) on board a landing craft en route to the Leyte landing beaches, October 20-23, 1944. credit History.navy.mil


February 17th, 1965

Apollo Program: Apollo 11 first manned Moon landing and the first walk on the surface on the moon. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin walks on the surface of the moon near the leg of the lunar module Eagle. Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong took this photograph with a 70mm lunar surface camera. Armstrong and Aldrin explored the Sea of Tranquility for two and a half hours while crewmate Michael Collins orbited above in the command module Columbia. The Blue Marble is a famous photograph of the Earth, taken on December 7, 1972, by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft, at a distance of about 45,000 kilometres (28,000 mi)

Apollo Program: Project Ranger; Ranger 8 probe launches on its mission to photograph the Mare Tranquillitatis region of the Moon in preparation for the manned Apollo missions. Mare Tranquillitatis or the "Sea of Tranquility" would become the site chosen for the Apollo 11 lunar landing.

Wikipedia  Photo: Apollo Program: Apollo 11 first manned Moon landing and the first walk on the surface on the moon. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin walks on the surface of the moon near the leg of the lunar module Eagle. Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong took this photograph with a 70mm lunar surface camera. Armstrong and Aldrin explored the Sea of Tranquility for two and a half hours while crewmate Michael Collins orbited above in the command module Columbia.
The Blue Marble is a famous photograph of the Earth, taken on December 7, 1972, by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft, at a distance of about 45,000 kilometres (28,000 mi).


February 17th, 1972

Sales of the Volkswagen Beetle exceed those of the Ford Model-T

The Volkswagen Beetle exceed those of the Ford Model-T.

Wikipedia  Photo: Volkswagen Beetle, officially called the Volkswagen Type 1 (informally the Volkswagen Bug), is an economy car produced by the German auto maker Volkswagen (VW) from 1938 until 2003.


February 17th, 1980

Krzysztof Wielicki and Leszek Cichy made the first winter ascent of Mount Everest (Picture of the team - The expedition was led by Polish climbing legend Andrzej Zawada, the driving force behind the idea of winter 8000-meter climbing) Photo by Bogdan Jankowski

Mount Everest: First Winter Ascent by Krzysztof Wielicki and Leszek Cichy.

Wikipedia  Photo: Krzysztof Wielicki and Leszek Cichy made the first winter ascent of Mount Everest. (Picture of the team - The expedition was led by Polish climbing legend Andrzej Zawada, the driving force behind the idea of winter 8000-meter climbing) Photo by Bogdan Jankowski.


February 17th, 1996

NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touchdown in the 'saddle' region of 433 Eros becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid

NASA's Discovery Program begins as the NEAR Shoemaker (Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous) spacecraft lifts off on the first mission ever to orbit and land on an asteroid, 433 Eros.

Wikipedia  Image: NEAR Shoemaker (Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous - Shoemaker), renamed after its 1996 launch in honor of planetary scientist Eugene M. Shoemaker, was a robotic space probe designed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory for NASA to study the near-Earth asteroid Eros from close orbit over a period of a year.


February 17th, 2003

Close-Up of the Clock Face of Big Ben Houses of Parliament Westminster London England Westminster's Big Ben rang for the first time in London

London congestion charge scheme begins.

Wikipedia  Photo: Close-Up of the Clock Face of Big Ben Houses of Parliament Westminster London England; The Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament


February 17th, 2008

Kingdom of Yugoslavia: (Serbo-Croatian: Kraljevina Jugoslavija, Краљевина Југославија) was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941

Kosovo declares independence.

Wikipedia  Map: Kingdom of Yugoslavia; Belgrade, Yugoslavia; A twilight moon rises above the Kamniske mountains and Slovenia’s Sava River Valley, Slovenia, credit National Geographic; Yugoslavia, November 1977, credit National Geographic.


February 17th, 2016

List of modern conflicts in the Middle East

Modern conflicts in the Middle East, social unrest and terrorist attacks:
2016 - Ankara bombing; Military vehicles explode outside a Turkish Armed Forces barracks in Ankara, Turkey killing at least 29 people and injuring 61 others.
2015 - QuHaiti Carnival stampede; Eighteen people are killed and 78 injured in a stampede at a Mardi Gras parade in Haiti.

Wikipedia  Photo: Middle East satellite image, NASA. ● Camels are seen early morning on a beach in the Marina area of Dubai October 16, 2008. (Steve Crisp, Reuters) ● A portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad burns during clashes between rebels and Syrian troops in Selehattin, near Aleppo, on July 23, 2012. (Bulent Kilic, AFP / GettyImages) ● Egyptians gather in their thousands in Tahrir Square to mark the one year anniversary of the revolution on Jan. 25, 2012 in Cairo Egypt. Tens of thousands have gathered in the square on the first anniversary of the Arab uprising which toppled President Hosni Mubarak. (Jeff J Mitchell, Getty Images) ● Black smoke rises above the Tehran skyline as supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi burn tires and other material in the streets as they fight running battles with police to protest the declared results of the Iranian presidential election in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 13, 2009. (Ben Curtis, AP) ● The Iron Dome defense system fires to interecpt incoming missiles from Gaza in the port town of Ashdod, Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012. (Tsafrir Abayov, AP)