Previous Day - Next Day
“I leave this rule for others when I'm dead - Be always sure you're right - THEN GO AHEAD!”
~ Davy Crockett
Wikiquote (Davy Crockett (August 17, 1786 – March 6, 1836) was a 19th-century American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier and politician. He is commonly referred to in popular culture by the epithet "King of the Wild Frontier". He represented Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives, served in the Texas Revolution, and died at the Battle of the Alamo.)
August 17th, 986
Battle of the Gates of Trajan: the Byzantine army is destroyed in the pass of Byzantine Trajan's Gate by the Bulgarians under the Comitopuli Samuel and Aron of Bulgaria. The Byzantine emperor Basil II narrowly escaped.
Wikipedia Photo: Trajan's Temple
August 17th, 1807
Robert Fulton's North River Steamboat leaves New York City for Albany, New York on the Hudson River, inaugurating the first commercial steamboat service in the world.
Wikipedia Painting: Robert Fulton's Steamboat - North River Steamboat
August 17th, 1862
American Indian Wars:
1862 - Dakota War of 1862: begins in Minnesota as Lakota warriors attack white settlements along the Minnesota River.
Wikipedia Photos: American Indians - Chief Crazy Horse, Tashunca-uitco (1849 - 1877) ● Geronimo Apache Chief (1829 - 1909) ● Indian Chief 'Two Eagles'; Crow Indian Chief ● Snake Cheif ● Band of Chiricahua Apache Indians, followers of legendary renegade Geronimo, attending a peace negotiation after a long struggle against U.S. government attempts to force them onto reservations - Tombstone, Arizona (1886), Life Magazine ● American Horse - Oglala ● Native American Arapaho Indian ● Washakie, Shoshone leader ● Arapaho American Indian Chief.
● Photo: Commemorating the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862. Blue Mounds State Park, southwest Minnesota. Photo courtesy Jim Brandenburg, Minnesota Historical Society.: Trail of Tears, American Indian Wars © Christine Chzasz.
August 17th, 1862
American Civil War:
1862 - Charleston, South Carolina; Union batteries and ships bombard Confederate-held Fort Sumter.
1863 - Major General J.E.B. Stuart is assigned command of all the cavalry of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.
1864 - Battle of Gainesville; Confederate forces defeat Union troops near Gainesville, Florida.
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.
August 17th, 1908
Fantasmagorie, the first animated cartoon, created by Émile Cohl, is shown in Paris.
Wikipedia Photo: Émile Cohl's Fantasmagorie
August 17th, 1914
World War I: Battle of Stalluponen; the Battle of Stalluponen; the German army of General Hermann von François defeats the Russian force commanded by Pavel Rennenkampf near modern-day Nesterov, Russia.
Wikipedia Painting: Supreme Commander East (Ober-Ost) Paul von Hindenburg and his military advisor Ludendorff comprised a very formidable foe to the Russian allies in the German army.
August 17th, 1915
1955 - Category 4 hurricane hits Galveston, Texas with winds at 135 miles per hour (217 km/h).
Wikipedia Image: Hurricane Andrew sequence, NASA ● Hurricane Mitch at peak intensity (formed October 22, 1998 - Dissipated November 5, 1998) ● Hurricane Katrina taken on August 28, 2005, at 11:45 AM EDT by NOAA when the storm was a Category Five hurricane ● Hurricane Jeanne September 23, 2004, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ● PDC Global Hazards Atlas displaying 3 hour precipitation accumulation, typhoon Evan (04P), with JTWC positions, segments, and winds...over the South Pacific Ocean ● Satellite imagery provided by NOAA and taken by the Japan Meteorological Agency's MTSAT weather satellite shows Typhoon Roke as it approaches Japan, September 20, 2011. Over 1.3 million ordered to evacuate in Japan ahead of Typhoon Roke. ● The Galveston Hurricane of 1900.
August 17th, 1918
Bolshevik revolutionary leader Moisei Uritsky is assassinated.
Wikipedia Photo: Second Congress of Soviets of the Nothern region presidium. In the front row: Moisei Uritsky, Lev Trotsky, Yakov Sverdlov, Grigory Zinoviev, Mikhail Lashevich. In the 2nd row: M.Kharitonov, M.Lisovsky, Korsak, S.Zarin, S.Voskov, S.Gusev, S.Ravich, I.Bakayev, N.Kuzmin
August 17th, 1942
World War II:
1942 - Makin Island raid; U.S. Marines raid the Japanese-held Pacific island of Makin (Butaritari).
1943 - Schweinfurt–Regensburg mission; the U.S. Eighth Air Force suffers the loss of 60 bombers.
1943 - Conquest of Sicily; the U.S. Seventh Army under General George S. Patton arrives in Messina, Italy, followed several hours later by the British 8th Army under Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery, thus completing the Allied conquest of Sicily.
1943 - First Québec Conference; of Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and William Lyon Mackenzie King begins.
1943 - the Royal Air Force begins Operation Hydra, the first air raid of the Operation Crossbow strategic bombing campaign against Germany's V-weapon programme.
Post World War II:
1945 - Indonesian National Revolution: Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta proclaim the independence of Indonesia, igniting the Indonesian National Revolution against the Dutch Empire.
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.
August 17th, 1950
Korean War:
1950 - Hill 303 massacre; American POWs were massacred by North Korean Army.
Wikipedia Photo: Korean War Collage credit, The Big Picture, Boston Globe - (Associated Press; U.S. Department of Defense / SGT. F.C. Kerr; AP Photo; U.S. Department of Defense / TSGT. Charles B. Tyler; U.S. Department of Defense / TSGT. Charles B. Tyler; U.S. Department of Defense / TSGT. Robert H. Mosier; AP Photo / Max Desfor; U.S. Department of Defense / CPL. P. McDonald; AP Photo / Max Desfor; AP Photo/George Sweers; U.S. Navy / Maj. R.V. Spencer, UAF; AP Photo / Max Desfor).
August 17th, 1962
Berlin Wall: East German border guards kill 18-year-old Peter Fechter as he attempts to cross the Berlin Wall into West Berlin becoming one of the first victims of the wall.
Wikipedia Photo: The August 17, 1962 photo shows dying Peter Fechter carried away by East German border guards who shot him down when he tried to flee to the west. credit Associated Press
August 17th, 1969
Hurricane Camille Category 5 hurricane, hits the Mississippi coast, killing 248 people and causing $1.5 billion in damage.
Wikipedia Photo: Hurricane Isabel (2003) as seen from orbit during Expedition 7 of the International Space Station. The eye, eyewall and surrounding rainbands that are characteristics of tropical cyclones are clearly visible in this view from space.
August 17th, 1970
Venera Program: Venera 7; launched - it will later become the first spacecraft to successfully transmit data from the surface of another planet (Venus).
Wikipedia Photo: Venus, Global radar view of the surface from Magellan radar imaging between 1990-1994 / Impact craters on the surface of Venus.
August 17th, 1982
Compact Discs (CDs) are first released to the public in Germany.
Wikipedia Photo: Compact_Disc, The readable surface of a Compact Disc includes a spiral track wound tightly enough to cause light to diffract into a full visible spectrum
August 17th, 1998
Monica Lewinsky scandal: United States President Bill Clinton admits in taped testimony that he had an "improper physical relationship" with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. On the same day he admits before the nation that he "misled people" about the relationship.
Wikipedia Photo: Monica Lewinsky scandal, Time Cover Story "If it were not for Monica Lewinsky, I think we would have Social Security ..."
August 17th, 1999
Earthquake:
1999 - İzmit earthquake (1999); a 7.4-magnitude earthquake strikes İzmit, Turkey, killing more than 17,000 and injuring 44,000.
Wikipedia Image: Preliminary Determination of Epicenters / Aleppo Syria; Anchorage, Alaska - March 28, 1964 Prince William Sound USA earthquake and tsunami; 8.9 Mega Earthquake Strikes Japan; Tsunami Swirls Japan's Ibaraki Prefecture March 12 2011. credit NOAA / NGDC, NOAA National Geophysical Data Center, USGS, National Geographics.
August 17th, 2005
2005 - Israel's unilateral disengagement plan; The first forced evacuation of Israeli settlements as part of Israel's unilateral disengagement plan, starts.
Wikipedia Image: Middle East satellite image; World satellite image.
August 17th, 2005
Modern conflicts in the Middle East, social unrest and terrorist attacks:
2005 - Bangladesh bombings; Over 500 bombs are set off by terrorists at 300 locations in 63 out of the 64 districts of Bangladesh.
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)
August 17th, 2008
Michael Phelps American swimmer Michael Phelps becomes the first person to win eight gold medals in one Olympic Games.
Wikipedia Photo: Michael Phelps American Swimmer - 2012 Olympic Games, Associated Press
August 17th, 2009
Sayano–Shushenskaya power station accident: the Sayano–Shushenskaya Dam in Khakassia, Russia, kills 75 and shuts down the hydroelectric power station, leading to widespread power failure in the local area.
Wikipedia Photo: Sayano–Shushenskaya power station accident: the Sayano–Shushenskaya Dam in Khakassia, Russia, kills 75 and shuts down the hydroelectric power station, leading to widespread power failure in the local area.
August 17th, 2017
Modern conflicts in the Middle East, social unrest and terrorist attacks:
2017 - Barcelona attacks; A van is driven into pedestrians in La Rambla, Barcelona.
2015 - Bangkok bombing; A bomb explodes near the Erawan Shrine in Bangkok, Thailand, killing at least 19 people and injuring 123 others.
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)