17 August

The **17t o August** is the 229t day o the year (230t in lowp years) in the Gregorian Calendar, wi 136 days bidin.

## Events

* 1424 - Hunder Years' War: An Inglis airmy defeats a French airmy in the Battle o Vernieul in Normandy.
* 1560 - Protestantism becomes the offeecial releegion o Scotland.
* 1689 - A major yirdquauk hits Anatolie in present-day Turkey.
* 1740 - Pape Benedict XIV is electit.
* 1771 - Edinburgh chemist James Robertson becomes the first-recordit person tae climb Ben Nevis, the heichest peak in Scotland an the present-day Unitit Kinrick.
* 1786 - Frederick William II o Proushie ascends the throne on the daith o his faither.
* 1942 - Warld War II: The Unitit States' first firebombin raid in Europe taks place.
* 1943 - Warld War II: The Allied conquest o Sicily is completit.
* 1945 - Sukarno declares the unthirldom o Indonesie, which is nae recognisit bi the Netherlands until 1949.
* 1960 - Gabon gains unthirldom frae Fraunce.
* 1970 - The Soviet Union's Venera 7 spacecraft is sent tae the planet Venus.
* 1977 - The Soviet icebreaker "Arktika" becomes the first surface-ship tae reach the North Pole.
* 1982 - The first CDs are released tae the public in Wast Germany.
* 1987 - Rudolf Hess commits suicide at Spandau Prison.
* 1988 - Pakistani Preses Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq is kilt in a plane crash near Bahawalpur, Punjab, Pakistan.
* 1998 - US Preses Bill Clinton admits tae an affair wi White Hoose intern Monica Lewinsky.
* 1999 - Izmit, Northwastren Turkey, is strack bi a magnitude 7.4 yirdquauk, killin an estimatit ower 40,000 fowk.
* 2002 - The River Elbe reaches its heichest-recordit level durin the Central European floods o 2002.
* 2008 - Soummer Michael Phelps achieves a total o 8 gowd medals at a single Olympic Gemmes.
* 2015 - A bomb splodes at Ratchaprasong Intersection, near Bangkok's Erawan Shrine, killin 23 fowk.
* 2017 - 2017 Barcelona attack: A vehicle is driven at pedestrians in Las Ramblas, Barcelona, killin 13 fowk in a terrorist attack. A later attack in the nearby toun o Cambrils results in the daiths o ane bystander an 5 attackers.
* 2019 - A bomb attack on a weddin pairty in Kabul, Afghanistan, kills at least 63 fowk an wounds 180; the self-proclaimed Islamic State group claim responsibility.

## Births

* 1629 - John III Sobieski, King o Poland an Grand Duke o Lithuanie (d. 1696)
* 1786 - Davy Crockett, American poleetical figur (d. 1836)
* 1786 - Princess Victoria o Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (d. 1861)
* 1844 - Menelik II, Emperor o Ethiopie (d. 1913)
* 1887 - Charles I o Austrick (d. 1922)
* 1887 - Marcus Garvey, Jamaican-American poleetical activist (d. 1940)
* 1893 - Mae West, American actress (d. 1980)
* 1906 - Marcelo Caetano, Portuguese politeecian (d. 1980)
* 1911 - Mikhail Botvinnik, Roushie chess player (d. 1995)
* 1913 - Mark Felt, American FBI agent (d. 2008)
* 1920 - Maureen O'Hara, Erse-American actress (d. 2015)
* 1926 - Jiang Zemin, umwhile Preses o the Fowkrepublic o Cheenae
* 1932 - V. S. Naipaul, Trinidadian-Breetish writer (d. 2018)
* 1943 - Robert De Niro, American actor
* 1944 - Bobby Murdoch, Scots fitbawer (d. 2001)
* 1951 - Sandra White, Scots politeecian
* 1952 - Nelson Piquet, Brazilian racin driver
* 1953 - Herta Müller, Romanie-German writer
* 1960 - Sean Penn, American actor, filmmaker an activist
* 1970 - Jim Courier, American tennis player
* 1977 - Tarja Turunen, Finnish sangster
* 1977 - Thierry Henry, French fitbawer
* 1977 - William Gallas, French fitbawer
* 1979 - Simon Taylor, Scots rugby union player
* 1982 - Phil Jagielka, Inglis fitbawer
* 1986 - Marcus Berg, Swadish fitbawer
* 1989 - Rachel Corsie, Scots fitbawer

## Daiths
* 1424 - John Stewart, Yerl o Buchan, Scots nobleman (b. 1381)
* 1424 - Archibald Douglas, 4t Yerl o Douglas, Scots nobleman an warlaird (b. 1372)
* 1786 - Frederick the Great, King o Proushie (b. 1712)
* 1831 - Patrick Nasmyth, Scots penter (b. 1787)
* 1850 - José de San Martín, Argentine statesman (b. 1778)
* 1868 - Duncan Forbes, Scots linguist (b. 1798)
* 1899 - William Simpson, Scots airtist (b. 1823)
* 1916 - Umberto Boccioni, Italian penter (b. 1882)
* 1946 - Robert Younger, Baron Blanesburgh, Scots barrister an juidge (b. 1861)
* 1969 - Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, German-American airchitect (b. 1886)
* 1969 - Otto Stern, German pheesicist (b. 1888)
* 1987 - Rudolf Hess, Nazi politeecian (b. 1894)
* 1988 - Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, Preses o Pakistan (b. 1924)
* 2010 - Francesco Cossiga, Preses o Italy (b. 1928)
* 2010 - Edwin Morgan, Scots Makar (b. 1920)
* 2014 - Sammy Conn, Scots fitbawer (b. 1961)
* 2015 - Yvonne Craig, American actress (b. 1937)
* 2016 - Arthur Hiller, Canadian-American film director (b. 1923)

## Halidays

* Independence Day (Indonesie, Gabon)