August 17

Events
Up to 1900
310 Pope Eusebius is banished by Emperor Maxentius to Sicily, where he dies.
682 Pope Leo II is elected.
986 A Byzantine army is destroyed at the pass of Trajan by Bulgarians.
1386 Karl Topia, ruler of the Princedom of Albania, creates an alliance with the Republic of Venice.
1424 Hundred Years' War: Battle of Verneuil - English victory over the French.
1498 Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI, becomes the first cardinal to-date to resign from his post.
1560 Protestantism becomes the official religion of Scotland.
1585 Eighty Years' War: Siege of Antwerp - Antwerp is captured by Spanish forces under Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, who orders Protestants to leave the city.
1668 A magnitude 8.0 earthquake kills around 8,000 people in northern Anatolia, Ottoman Empire.
1740 Pope Benedict XIV is elected.
1771 Edinburgh botanist James Robertson makes the first recorded successful climb of Ben Nevis, the highest point in both Scotland and the whole of the present-day United Kingdom.
1786 Frederick II of Prussia dies, having been a very influential leader in Prussia. His son, Frederick William II of Prussia, succeeds him.
1807 Robert Fulton's North River Steamboat leaves New York City for Albany on the Hudson River.
1862 American Indian Wars: The Dakota War of 1862 begins in Minnesota.
1864 American Civil War: Battle of Gainesville - Confederate forces defeat Union forces near Gainesville, Florida.
1896 Bridget Driscoll becomes the first-recorded person to be killed in an automobile accident when she is run over in the grounds of London's Crystal Palace by a Benz car.
1901 2000
1908 Fantasmagorie, the first animated cartoon, created by Emil Cohl is shown in Paris.
1914 The first pilots are trained for the Royal Australian Air Force.
1915 A category 4 hurricane hits Galveston, Texas.
1918 Bolshevik revolutionary leader Moises Uritsky is assassinated.
1942 World War II: The first US bombing raid in Europe takes place.
1943 World War II: The US Seventh Army under George S. Patton and the British 8th Army under field marshal Bernard Montgomery enter Messina, Sicily, completing the allied conquest of Sicily.
1945 Indonesia declares independence from the Netherlands. The Netherlands only recognize Indonesian independence in 1949.
1947 The Radcliffe Line is set to mark the border between India and Pakistan.
1959 Quake Lake in Yellowstone National Park is formed by a magnitude 7.5 earthquake centred near Hebgen Lake, Montana.
1960 Gabon becomes independent from France.
1962 East German border guards kill 18-year-old Peter Fechter.
1969 Hurricane Camille kills 243 people in the Southern United States.
1970 The Soviet spacecraft Venera 7 is sent to the planet Venus.
1977 Soviet nuclear icebreaker Arktika becomes the first vessel to cross the North Pole overwater.
1978 US balloonists, Ben Abruzzo, Larry Newman and Max Anderson, become the first people to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a hot-air balloon.
1982 The first CDs are released to the public in Germany.
1987 At age 18, Steffi Graf becomes women's singles Number One in tennis. She goes on to hold this position for 377 weeks.
1987 Adolf Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess, dies aged 93, as the last prisoner at Spandau Prison.
1988 Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq is killed in a plane crash near Bahawalpur, Punjab.
1996 Claudie Andre-Deshays becomes the first Frenchwoman in space.
1998 US President Bill Clinton admits an "improper physical relationship" with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
1999 A magnitude 7.4 earthquake hits Izmit in northwestern Turkey, killing more than 17,000 people, and injuring around 44,000.
From 2001
2002 The water levels of the River Elbe reach their highest-recorded level. The city of Dresden is among the places flooded.
2004 New state symbols are adopted by Serbia.
2005 The first forced evacuation of settlers as part of the Israeli unilateral disengagement plan begins.
2005 Over 500 bombs are set off by terrorists at around 300 locations in 63 out of 64 districts in Bangladesh.
2008 Michael Phelps becomes the first person to win 8 individual gold medals at a single Olympic Games.
2009 An accident occurs at the Sayano-Shushenskaya dam in Khakassia, Russia, killing 75 people and shutting down the hydroelectric power station.
2015 A bomb explodes at the Ratchaprasong Intersection near the Erawan Shrine in Bangkok, Thailand, killing 23 people and injuring over 100.
2017 2017 Barcelona attack: A vehicle is driven at people on the street Las Ramblas in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, killing 13 people.
2019 A bomb attack on a wedding party in Kabul, Afghanistan, kills at least 63 people and wounds 180.
Births
Up to 1900
1465 Philibert I, Duke of Savoy (d. 1482)
1473 Richard, Duke of York, one of the Princes in the Tower (d. 1483?)
1556 Alexander Briant, English martyr and saint (d. 1581)
1586 Johann Andreas Valentinus Andreae, German theologian, writer and mathematician (d. 1654)
1601 Pierre de Fermat, French mathematician (d. 1665)
1603 Lennart Torstensson, Swedish field marshal and military officer (d. 1651)
1629 John III of Poland (d. 1696)
1686 Nicola Porpora, Italian composer and teacher (d. 1768)
1699 Bernard Jussieu, French naturalist (d. 1777)
1735 Tobias Furneaux, British explorer (d. 1781)
1755 Thomas Stothard, British painter (d. 1834)
1761 William Carey, English botanist and missionary (d. 1824)
1768 Louis Charles Antoine Desaix, French general (d. 1800)
1786 Davy Crockett, American frontiersman, soldier (d. 1836)
1786 Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, mother of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom (d. 1861)
1798 Thomas Hodgkin, English physician (d. 1866)
1799 Robert von Mohl, German jurist (d. 1875)
1800 Charles Rogier, 4th, 10th and 13th Prime Minister of Belgium (d. 1885)
1801 Fredrika Bremer, Swedish writer (d. 1865)
1828 Jules Bernard Luys, French neurologist (d. 1897)
1844 Menelik II, Emperor of Ethiopia (d. 1913)
1863 Gene Stratton-Porter, American author and photographer (d. 1924)
1866 Julia Marlowe, nee Sarah Frost, Shakespearean actress (d. 1950)
1870 Liberato Marcial Rojas, President of Paraguay (d. 1922)
1877 Ralph McKittrick, American golfer and tennis player (d. 1923)
1877 Princess Mathilde of Bavaria (d. 1906)
1887 Marcus Garvey, Jamaican-born American black leader (d. 1940)
1887 Emperor Karl of Austria (d. 1922)
1887 Samuel Stritch, American cardinal (d. 1958)
1890 Harry Hopkins, American politician (d. 1946)
1890 Stefan Bastyr, Polish aviator (d. 1920)
1893 Mae West, American actress and playwright (d. 1980)
1893 Walter Noddack, German chemist (d. 1960)
1894 Otto Suhr, German politician (d. 1957)
1896 Johannes Kleiman, Dutch helper of Anne Frank (d. 1959)
1901 1950
1901 Hedin Bru, Faroese writer (d. 1987)
1904 Leopold Nowak, Austrian musicologist (d. 1991)
1906 Marcelo Caetano, Portuguese politician (d. 1980)
1907 Gustav Schwarzenegger, Austrian police chief and postal inspector, father of Arnold Schwarzenegger (d. 1972)
1909 Larry Clinton, American trumpeter and bandleader (d. 1985)
1910 Erkki Aaltonen, Finnish composer (d. 1990)
1911 Mikhail Botvinnik, world chess champion (d. 1995)
1911 Martin Sandberger, German military officer (d. 2010)
1913 Mark Felt, American agent, 'Deep Throat' in the Watergate scandal (d. 2008)
1913 Rudy York, American Major League Baseball All-Star (d. 1970)
1913 Oscar Alfredo Galvez, Argentine racing driver (d. 1989)
1914 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr., son of Franklin D. Roosevelt (d. 1988)
1919 Georgia Gibbs, American singer (d. 2006)
1920 Maureen O'Hara, Irish-American actress (d. 2015)
1922 Frederick B. Dent, American politician
1923 Larry Rivers, American artist, musician, filmmaker and actor (d. 2002)
1926 George Melly, British singer (d. 2007)
1926 Jiang Zemin, former General Secretary of the Communist Party of China
1926 Jean Poiret, French actor, director and screenwriter (d. 1992)
1929 Francis Gary Powers, American U-2 pilot (d. 1977)
1929 Jimmy Donley, American singer-songwriter (d. 1963)
1930 Glenn Corbett, actor (d. 1993)
1930 Ted Hughes, English poet (d. 1998)
1932 V. S. Naipaul, Trinidad and Tobago-born writer (d. 2018)
1932 Jean-Jacques Sempe, French cartoonist
1933 Tom Courtney, American athlete
1933 Gene Kranz, American NASA flight director and manager
1934 Carin Mannheimer, Swedish writer (d. 2014)
1936 Margaret Hamilton, American computer scientist
1937 Ronnie Butler, Bahamian singer
1938 Theodoros Pangalos, Greek politician
1939 Luther Allison, American blues musician, guitarist (d. 1997)
1940 Eduardo Mignona, Argentine director (d. 2006)
1941 Lothar Bisky, German politician (d. 2013)
1941 Fritz Wepper, German actor
1941 Ibrahim Babangida, Nigerian military leader
1943 Robert De Niro, American actor
1943 John Humphrys, British broadcaster
1943 Yukio Kasaya, Japanese ski jumper
1943 Dave "Snaker" Ray, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1944 Rexhep Meidani, former President of Albania
1944 Bobby Murdoch, Scottish footballer (d. 2001)
1946 Patrick Manning, former Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago (d. 2016)
1946 Angel Romero, Spanish guitarist and conductor
1947 Mohamed Abdelaziz, Western Sahara politician (d. 2016)
1948 Chico Maki, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 2015)
1949 Julian Fellowes, English actor, producer and director
1949 Mitsunori Fujiguchi, Japanese footballer
1949 Norm Coleman, American lawyer and politician
1951 1975
1951 Robert Joy, Canadian actor
1951 Alan Minter, boxer
1951 Elba Ramalho, Brazilian singer-songwriter
1952 Nelson Piquet, Brazilian racing driver
1952 Mario Theissen, German Formula 1 team principal
1952 Guillermo Vilas, Argentine tennis player
1953 Herta Muller, Romanian-German writer, Nobel Prize winner
1953 Kevin Rowland, British musician
1954 Andres Pastrana Arango, former President of Colombia
1956 Fabio Armiliato, Italian tenor
1957 Robin Cousins, British figure skater
1958 Michael Brooks, American basketball player
1958 Belinda Carlisle, American singer, guitarist
1958 Kirk Stevens, Canadian snooker player
1958 Fred Goodwin, Scottish banker, former head of the Royal Bank of Scotland
1959 Jonathan Franzen, American writer
1959 David Koresh, American cult leader (d. 1993)
1960 Sean Penn, American actor, director
1962 Gilby Clarke, American musician (Guns N'Roses)
1963 Maritza Marben, Cuban discus thrower
1963 Shankar, Indian director and producer
1964 Colin James, American blues musician
1965 Sergio Vargas, Chilean footballer
1966 Rodney Mullen, American skateboarder
1968 Helen McCrory, British actress
1968 Ed McCaffrey, American football player
1968 Anthony E. Zuiker, American television producer
1968 Andriy Kuzmenko, Ukrainian singer, writer, presenter, producer and actor (d. 2015)
1968 Andrew Koenig, American actor (d. 2010)
1969 Christian Laettner, American basketball player
1969 Donnie Wahlberg, American actor and singer
1970 Jim Courier, American tennis player
1970 Rupert Degas, Australian voice actor
1971 Uhm Jung-hwa, South Korean singer and actress
1971 Jorge Posada, American Major League Baseball All-Star
1972 Habibul Bashar, Bangladeshi cricketer
1974 Tomomi Kahala, Japanese singer
From 1976
1976 Serhiy Zakarlyuka, Ukrainian footballer (d. 2014)
1977 William Gallas, French footballer
1977 Thierry Henry, French footballer
1977 Tarja Turunen, Finnish lead singer of Nightwish
1977 Mike Lewis, Welsh guitarist
1977 Claire Richards, English singer (Steps)
1980 Jan Kromkamp, Dutch footballer
1980 Lene Marlin, Norwegian singer
1980 Daniel Guiza, Spanish footballer
1982 Phil Jagielka, English footballer
1982 Karim Ziani, French-Algerian footballer
1982 Mark Salling, American actor (d. 2018)
1983 Dustin Pedroia, American baseball player
1984 Dee Brown, American basketball player
1985 Troy Brouwer, Canadian ice hockey player
1986 Marcus Berg, Swedish footballer
1986 Denis Kornilov, Russian ski jumper
1986 Rudy Gay, American basketball player
1989 Rachel Corsie, Scottish footballer
1989 Elena Hight, American snowboarder
1990 Rachel Hurd-Wood, English actress
1991 Austin Butler, American actor
1993 Cinta Laura, Indonesian actress and singer
1993 Sarah Sjostrom, Swedish swimmer
1994 Taissa Farmiga, American actress
Deaths
Up to 1900
1153 Eustace IV, Count of Boulogne, son of King Stephen of England (b. 1130)
1304 Emperor Go-Fukakusa of Japan (b. 1243)
1324 Irene of Brunswick, Empress of Constantinople (b. 1293)
1338 Nitta Yoshisada, Japanese samurai (b. 1301)
1510 Edmund Dudley, English statesman (b. 1462)
1657 Robert Blake, English admiral (b. 1599)
1673 Regnier de Graaf, Dutch physician and anatomist (b. 1641)
1769 Vasily Trediakovsky, Russian poet and writer (b. 1703)
1785 Jonathan Trumbull, Governor of Connecticut (b. 1710)
1786 Frederick II of Prussia (b. 1712)
1838 Lorenzo Da Ponte, Italian poet (b. 1749)
1850 Jose de San Martin, Argentine revolutionary (b. 1778)
1870 Perucho Figueredo, Cuban poet, musician and freedom fighter (b. 1818)
1880 Ole Bull, Norwegian violinist (b. 1810)
1886 Alexander Butlerov, Russian chemist (b. 1828)
1896 Bridget Driscoll, English automobile accident victim (b. 1851)
1897 William Jervois, British Governor-General of New Zealand (b. 1821)
1898 Carl Zeller, Austrian jurist and composer (b. 1842)
1900 Raimundo Andueza Palacio, 24th President of Venezuela (b. 1846)
1901 2000
1903 Hans Gude, Norwegian painter (b. 1825)
1918 Moisei Uritsky, Russian revolutionary (b. 1873)
1925 Ioan Slavici, Romanian journalist (b. 1848)
1935 Charlotte Perkins Gilman, American writer and feminist (b. 1860)
1935 Adam Gunn, American athlete (b. 1860)
1939 Wojciech Korfanty, Polish journalist and politician (b. 1873)
1942 Herman Auerbach, Polish mathematician (b. 1901)
1954 Billy Murray, American singer (b. 1877)
1962 Peter Fechter, shooting victim at the Berlin Wall (b. 1944)
1969 Otto Stern, German physicist (b. 1888)
1969 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, German architect (b. 1886)
1971 Maedayama Eigoro, Japanese sumo wrestler (b. 1914)
1973 Conrad Aiken, American author and poet (b. 1889)
1974 Aldo Palozzeschi, Italian poet and writer (b. 1885)
1979 Vivian Vance, American actress (b. 1909)
1979 John C. Allen, American rollercoaster designer (b. 1907)
1983 Ira Gershwin, American lyricist (b. 1896)
1987 Rudolf Hess, Nazi leader (b. 1894)
1988 Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, President of Pakistan (b. 1924)
1988 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr., son of Franklin D. Roosevelt (b. 1914)
1990 Pearl Bailey, American singer and actress (b. 1918)
1994 Luigi Chinetti, Italian-American racing driver (b. 1901)
1995 Howard E. Koch, American screenwriter (b. 1902)
1995 Ted Whitten, Australian footballer and coach (b. 1933)
1998 Wladyslaw Komar, Polish athlete (b. 1940)
1998 Tadeusz Slusarski, Polish athlete (b. 1950)
1998 Tameo Ide, Japanese footballer (b. 1908)
1999 Reiner Klimke, German equestrian (b. 1936)
From 2001
2003 Mazen Dana, Palestinian journalist (b. 1962)
2005 John N. Bahcall, American astrophysicist (b. 1934)
2006 Shamsur Rahman, Bangladeshi poet, columnist and writer (b. 1929)
2007 Eddie Griffin, American basketball player (b. 1982)
2010 Francesco Cossiga, 8th President of Italy (b. 1928)
2011 Pierre Quinon, French pole vaulter (b. 1962)
2013 Claus Jacobi, German journalist (b. 1927)
2014 Wolfgang Leonhard, German political author and historian (b. 1921)
2014 Sophie Masloff, American politician, 56th Mayor of Pittsburgh (b. 1917)
2014 Pierre Vassiliu, French singer (b. 1937)
2014 Ger van Elk, Dutch artist (b. 1941)
2015 Eduardo Guerrero, Argentine rower (b. 1928)
2015 Laszlo Paskai, Hungarian cardinal (b. 1927)
2015 Arsen Dedic, Croatian poet (b. 1938)
2015 Jacob Bekenstein, Mexican-Israeli theoretical physicist (b. 1947)
2015 Yvonne Craig, American actress (b. 1937)
2015 Gerhard Mayer-Vorfelder, German football executive (b. 1933)
2016 Arthur Hiller, Canadian-American film director (b. 1923)
2017 Sonny Landham, American actor and politician (b. 1941)
2017 M. T. Liggett, American sculptor (b. 1930)
2017 Sirkka Selja, Finnish poet (b. 1920)
2017 Fadwa Soliman, Syrian actress and activist (b. 1970)
2017 Mohamed Refaat El-Saeed, Egyptian politician and scholar (b. 1932)
2018 Leonard Boswell, American politician (b. 1934)
2018 Ezzatolah Entezami, Iranian actor (b. 1924)
2018 David McReynolds, American political activist and politician (b. 1929)
2018 Linton Freeman, American sociologist (b. 1927)
2019 Cedric Benson, American football player (b. 1982)
2019 Walter Buser, Swiss Federal Chancellor (b. 1926)
2019 Jacques Diouf, Senegalese diplomat (b. 1938)
2019 Donald A. B. Lindberg, American physician (b. 1933)
2019 Jose A. Martinez Suarez, Argentine film director and screenwriter (b. 1925)
2019 Bill McDonagh, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1928)
Observances
Independence Day (Indonesia, Gabon)
Days of the year