February 17

## Events
### Up to 1900 
* 364 &ndash; Roman Emperor Jovian dies under suspicious circumstances, after a short reign of eight months.
* 1164 &ndash; A major flood on what is now Germany's North Sea coast, kills 20,000 people.
* 1370 &ndash; The Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Teutonic Knights meet in the Battle of Rudau.
* 1400 &ndash; The body of Richard II of England is put on display at the Old St. Paul's Cathedral in London.
* 1600 &ndash; Philosopher Giordano Bruno is burned to death for heresy in Rome.
* 1621 &ndash; Myles Standish is appointed as the first commander of Plymouth Colony.
* 1753 &ndash; Sweden changes from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. February 17 is followed by March 1.
* 1801 &ndash; The United States House of Representatives chooses Thomas Jefferson to become the next President of the United States.
* 1854 &ndash; The United Kingdom recognises the independent Orange Free State.
* 1863 &ndash; A group of citizens from Geneva founds the International Committee for Relief of the Wounded, which later becomes the International Red Cross.
* 1864 &ndash; American Civil War: The *H. L. Hunley* becomes the first submarine to engage and sink a warship, the USS *Housatonic*.
* 1865 &ndash; American Civil War: Union troops capture Columbia, South Carolina. As this state is particularly seen as responsible for starting the war, the city is virtually flattened.
* 1867 &ndash; Gyula Andrassy is declared Prime Minister of Hungary after the creation of the co-operative monarchy of Austria-Hungary.
* 1871 &ndash; The victorious Prussian Army parades through Paris after the end of the Siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War.
* 1900 &ndash; Wilhelm II of Germany declares the Western Samoan Islands a "German Protectorate".

### 1901 &ndash; 2000 
* 1904 &ndash; *Madame Butterfly* premieres at La Scala opera house in Milan.
* 1913 &ndash; The Armory Art Show begin in New York City, showing works by artists who become influential later in the 20th century.
* 1917 &ndash; The French troop transporter *Athos* is sunk, killing 754 people.
* 1924 &ndash; Johnny Weissmuller sets a world record in the 100-metre freestyle swimming.
* 1933 &ndash; *Newsweek* magazine is published for the first time.
* 1944 &ndash; World War II: The Battle of Eniwetok Atoll begins, ending in an American victory over Japanese forces on February 22.
* 1949 &ndash; Chaim Weizmann becomes President of Israel.
* 1959 &ndash; Vanguard 2, the first weather satellite, is launched to measure cloud–cover distribution.
* 1962 &ndash; Parts of northern Germany are severely flooded in the night from February 16, causing 300 deaths in the city of Hamburg alone.
* 1964 &ndash; President of Gabon Leon M'ba is removed from office in a coup by his rival, Jean-Hilaire Aubame. M'ba is reinstated by France the next day.
* 1965 &ndash; Project Ranger: The Ranger 8 space probe is launched to the "Sea of Tranquility" on the Moon.
* 1968 &ndash; In Springfield, Massachusetts, the James Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame opens.
* 1972 &ndash; U.S. President Richard Nixon visits China.
* 1974 &ndash; Michele Catain, an American crew member and real estate agent, marries David Thomas Durboraw, an American businessman, in Los Angeles, California.
* 1979 &ndash; The Sino-Vietnamese War begins.
* 1980 &ndash; Krzyzstof Wielicki and Leszek Clichy becomes the first people to reach the top of Mount Everest during the winter season.
* 1992 &ndash; American serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is sentenced to life imprisonment.
* 1993 &ndash; The *Neptune* ferry sinks off Haiti. It is not known exactly how many people were killed, though it is thought to have been at least 1,500.
* 1995 &ndash; The Cenepa War between Peru and Ecuador is ended by a United Nations ceasefire.
* 1996 &ndash; An earthquake of magnitude 8.2 strikes Irian Jaya, the Indonesian part of the island of New Guinea, killing 166 people.
* 1996 &ndash; The NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft is launched to the asteroid 433 Eros.
* 1996 &ndash; After being defeated in a game of chess on February 10, Garry Kasparov wins a six-match series 4–2 against the computer Deep Blue.
* 1998 &ndash; Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: Armenian troops kill between 70 and 90 Azerbaijani civilians in the village of Qaradagli.

### From 2001 
* 2003 &ndash; London's Congestion charging system begins.
* 2006 &ndash; A massive mudslide in Southern Leyte, Philippines, kills 1,126 people.
* 2008 &ndash; Kosovo declares independence from Serbia. However, Serbia does not recognise Kosovo as an independent state, and its status is still in dispute as of 2014.
* 2011 &ndash; Bahraini security forces launch a pre-dawn raid on protesters at the Pearl Roundabout in Manama.
* 2011 &ndash; Protests begin in Libya against Muammar al-Gaddafi. Soon after, Libya enters into a state of civil war between pro– and anti-Gaddafi fighters. Gaddafi is killed in October.
* 2012 &ndash; President of Germany Christian Wulff resigns over a home-loan scandal, becoming the shortest-serving President ever of the Federal Republic of Germany. Horst Seehofer becomes interim-President until a successor can be found. Joachim Gauck becomes President just over a month later.
* 2014 &ndash; A building collapse in Geongju, South Korea, kills at least 10 people, most of them students.

## Births
### Up to 1800 
* 624 &ndash; Wu Zetian, Chinese Empress of the Zhou Dynasty (d. 705)
* 1192 &ndash; Minamoto no Sanetomo, Japanese shogun (d. 1219)
* 1490 &ndash; Charles III, Duke of Bourbon (d. 1527)
* 1519 &ndash; Francis, Duke of Guise, French soldier and politician (d. 1563)
* 1524 &ndash; Charles of Guise, French cardinal (d. 1574)
* 1581 &ndash; Fausto Poli, Italian cardinal (d. 1653)
* 1653 &ndash; Arcangelo Corelli, Italian composer (d. 1713)
* 1699 &ndash; Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff, Prussian soldier, painter and architect (d. 1753)
* 1718 &ndash; Matthew Tilgh, American Continental Congressman (d. 1790)
* 1723 &ndash; Tobias Mayer, German astronomer (d. 1762)
* 1740 &ndash; John Sullivan, American general, politician and Governor of New Hampshire (d. 1795)
* 1752 &ndash; Friedrich Maximilian Klinger, German writer (d. 1831)
* 1754 &ndash; Nicolas Baudin, French explorer (d. 1803)
* 1781 &ndash; René Laennec, French physician (d. 1826)
* 1782 &ndash; Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy, Russian aristocrat (d. 1846)
* 1792 &ndash; Karl Ernst von Baer, German biologist (d. 1876)
* 1796 &ndash; Giovanni Pacini, Italian opera composer (d. 1867)
* 1796 &ndash; Philipp Franz von Siebold, German physician (d. 1886)

### 1801 &ndash; 1900 
* 1817 &ndash; Edouard Thilges, 7th Prime Minister of Luxembourg (d. 1904)
* 1820 &ndash; Elzear-Alexandre Taschereau, French cardinal (d. 1898)
* 1820 &ndash; Henri Vieutemps, Belgian composer (d. 1881)
* 1821 &ndash; Lola Montez, Irish dancer (d. 1861)
* 1836 &ndash; Gustavo Adolfo Becquer, Spanish poet (d. 1870)
* 1848 &ndash; Louisa Lawson, Australian writer and feminist (d. 1920)
* 1848 &ndash; Albert Gustaf Dahlman, Swedish executioner (d. 1920)
* 1854 &ndash; Friedrich Alfred Krupp, German industrialist (d. 1902)
* 1861 &ndash; Princess Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont (d. 1922)
* 1862 &ndash; Mori Ogai, Japanese novelist and poet (d. 1922)
* 1862 &ndash; Eugen Schmidt, Danish athlete (d. 1931)
* 1863 &ndash; Fyodor Sologub, Russian writer (d. 1927)
* 1864 &ndash; Banjo Paterson, Australian poet (d. 1941)
* 1866 &ndash; Henry Hollis Horton, 40th Governor of Tennessee (d. 1934)
* 1877 &ndash; Isidora Sekulic, Serbian writer (d. 1958)
* 1877 &ndash; Andre Maginot, French politician (d. 1932)
* 1885 &ndash; Romano Guardini, German theologian (d. 1968)
* 1887 &ndash; Joseph Bech, Prime Minister of Luxembourg (d. 1975)
* 1888 &ndash; Otto Stern, German physicist (d. 1969)
* 1890 &ndash; Ronald Fisher, English statistician, biologist and geneticist (d. 1962)
* 1891 &ndash; Abraham Fraenkel, German-Israeli mathematician (d. 1965)
* 1892 &ndash; Marjorie Fielding, British actress (d. 1956)
* 1893 &ndash; Wally Pipp, American baseball player (d. 1965)
* 1894 &ndash; Hendrik Kramers, Dutch physicist (d. 1952)

### 1901 &ndash; 1950 
* 1901 &ndash; Philotheus Boehner, German monk and medieval scholar (d. 1955)
* 1903 &ndash; Sadeq Hedayat, Iranian writer (d. 1951)
* 1904 &ndash; Hans Morgenthau, German political philosopher (d. 1980)
* 1908 &ndash; Bo Yibo, Chinese politician (d. 2005)
* 1908 &ndash; Jacobus van Egmond, Dutch cyclist (d. 1969)
* 1910 &ndash; Arthur Hunnicutt, American actor (d. 1979)
* 1916 &ndash; Alexander Obolensky, Russian prince and England rugby player (d. 1940)
* 1917 &ndash; Abdur Rahman Badawi, Egyptian philosopher (d. 2002)
* 1917 &ndash; Guillermo Gonzalez Camarena, Mexican inventor (d. 1965)
* 1918 &ndash; Volodymyr Shcherbytsky, Prime Minister of Ukraine (d. 1990)
* 1919 &ndash; Kathleen Freeman, American actress (d. 2001)
* 1920 &ndash; Ivo Caprino, Norwegian animated movie director (d. 2001)
* 1920 &ndash; Annie Glenn, American activist (d. 2020)
* 1923 &ndash; Buddy DeFranco, American jazz musician (d. 2014)
* 1923 &ndash; John M. Allegro, English archaeologist and author (d. 1988)
* 1923 &ndash; Alden W. Clausen, American banker (d. 2013)
* 1924 &ndash; Margaret Truman, American writer (d. 2008)
* 1925 &ndash; Hal Holbrook, American actor
* 1925 &ndash; Ron Goodwin, English composer and conductor
* 1927 &ndash; Juan Almeida Bosque, Cuban Communist revolutionary (d. 2009)
* 1929 &ndash; Alejandro Jodorowsky, Chilean writer
* 1929 &ndash; Patricia Routledge, British actress
* 1930 &ndash; Ruth Rendell, British writer (d. 2015)
* 1931 &ndash; Buddy Ryan, American football coach (d. 2016)
* 1931 &ndash; Jirina Jiraskova, Czech actress (d. 2013)
* 1933 &ndash; Craig L. Thomas, American politician (d. 2007)
* 1933 &ndash; Larry Jennings, American magician (d. 1997)
* 1934 &ndash; Barry Humphries, Australian actor and comedian
* 1934 &ndash; Alan Bates, British actor (d. 2003)
* 1935 &ndash; Christina Pickles, British actress
* 1937 &ndash; Willi Koslowski, German footballer
* 1937 &ndash; Rita Süssmuth, German politician
* 1937 &ndash; Mary Ann Mobley, American actress and beauty queen (d. 2014)
* 1939 &ndash; Clement Richard, Canadian businessman and politician
* 1940 &ndash; Gene Pitney, American singer (d. 2006)
* 1941 &ndash; Julia McKenzie, English actress and theatre director
* 1942 &ndash; Huey Newton, American political activist (d. 1989)
* 1943 &ndash; Costas Azariadis, Greek economist
* 1944 &ndash; Bruce Fogle, Canadian-born British veterinarian and writer
* 1944 &ndash; Karl Jenkins, Welsh saxophonist, keyboardist and composer
* 1945 &ndash; Brenda Fricker, Irish actress
* 1946 &ndash; André Dussollier, French actor
* 1948 &ndash; Rick Majerus, American basketball player
* 1948 &ndash; Don Scardino, American television director and actor
* 1948 &ndash; José José, Mexican singer-songwriter, producer and actor
* 1949 &ndash; Fred Frith, English musician and composer
* 1949 &ndash; Dennis Green, American football coach (d. 2016)
* 1950 &ndash; Rickey Medlocke, American guitarist
* 1950 &ndash; Graham Stringer, English politician

### 1951 &ndash; 1975 
* 1954 &ndash; Rene Russo, American actress
* 1955 &ndash; Mo Yan, Chinese novelist and Nobel Prize winner
* 1957 &ndash; Loreena McKennitt, Canadian singer-songwriter, harpist and pianist
* 1959 &ndash; Aryeh Deri, Israeli rabbi and politician 
* 1959 &ndash; Rowdy Gaines, American swimmer
* 1961 &ndash; Andrey Korotayev, Russian anthropologist and economic historian
* 1961 &ndash; Panna Rittikrai, Thai actor, director and screenwriter (d. 2014)
* 1961 &ndash; Angela Eagle, English politician
* 1961 &ndash; Maria Eagle, English politician
* 1962 &ndash; Sarah Wollaston, English politician
* 1962 &ndash; Lou Diamond Phillips, American actor
* 1963 &ndash; Michael Jordan, American basketball player
* 1963 &ndash; Alison Hargreaves, British mountain climber (d. 1995)
* 1963 &ndash; Larry the Cable Guy, American comedian and actor
* 1964 &ndash; Jim Jordan, American politician
* 1965 &ndash; Michael Bay, American director and producer
* 1966 &ndash; Luc Robitaille, Canadian ice hockey player
* 1968 &ndash; Giuseppe Signori, Italian footballer
* 1969 &ndash; Tuesday Knight, American actress
* 1970 &ndash; Dominic Purcell, English-Australian actor
* 1971 &ndash; Denise Richards, American actress
* 1971 &ndash; Carlos Gamarra, Paraguayan footballer
* 1972 &ndash; Billie Joe Armstrong, American lead singer of Green Day
* 1972 &ndash; Philippe Candeloro, French figure skater
* 1972 &ndash; Taylor Hawkins, American musician
* 1973 &ndash; Shirley Clamp, Swedish singer

### From 1976 
* 1976 &ndash; Kelly Carlson, American actress
* 1979 &ndash; Cara Black, Zimbabwean tennis player
* 1981 &ndash; Paris Hilton, American socialite and heiress
* 1981 &ndash; Joseph Gordon-Levitt, American actor
* 1981 &ndash; Pontus Segerström, Swedish footballer (d. 2014)
* 1981 &ndash; Andrew Stephenson, English politician
* 1982 &ndash; Daniel Merriwether, Australian singer
* 1982 &ndash; Adriano Leite Ribeiro, Brazilian footballer
* 1983 &ndash; Nguyen Tien Minh, Vietnamese badminton player
* 1984 &ndash; AB de Villiers, South African cricketer
* 1984 &ndash; Drew Miller, American ice hockey player
* 1985 &ndash; Anders Jacobsen, Norwegian ski jumper
* 1985 &ndash; Mario Bolatti, Argentine footballer
* 1988 &ndash; Natascha Kampusch, Austrian kidnapping victim
* 1989 &ndash; Rebecca Adlington, British swimmer
* 1989 &ndash; Stacey McClean, British singer
* 1989 &ndash; Chord Overstreet, American actor
* 1991 &ndash; Ed Sheeran, British singer-songwriter
* 1991 &ndash; Bonnie Wright, British actress
* 1992 &ndash; Meaghan Jette Martin, American actress
* 1993 &ndash; Marc Marquez, Spanish racing driver
* 1993 &ndash; Nicola Leali, Italian footballer
* 1993 &ndash; Philip Wiegratz, German actor
* 1996 &ndash; Sasha Pieterse, South African-born American actress

## Deaths
### Up to 1900 
* 197 &ndash; Clodius Albinus, would-be Roman emperor (killed in battle)
* 306 &ndash; Theodore of Amasea, Roman soldier and Christian martyr
* 364 &ndash; Jovian, Roman emperor (b. *ca.* 332)
* 1339 &ndash; Otto the Merry, Duke of Austria
* 1371 &ndash; Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria
* 1600 &ndash; Giordano Bruno, Italian religious reformer (burned at the stake) (b. 1548)
* 1609 &ndash; Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (b. 1549)
* 1652 &ndash; Gregorio Allegri, Italian composer (b. 1582)
* 1673 &ndash; Molière, French playwright (b. 1622)
* 1680 &ndash; Jan Swammerdam, Dutch scientist (b. 1637)
* 1768 &ndash; Arthur Onslow, English lawyer and politician (b. 1691)
* 1827 &ndash; Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Swiss educator and reformer (b. 1746)
* 1848 &ndash; George W. Campbell, Scottish-born 5th United States Secretary of the Treasury (b. 1769)
* 1854 &ndash; John Martin, English painter (b. 1789)
* 1856 &ndash; Heinrich Heine, German writer (b. 1797)
* 1883 &ndash; Vasudeo Balwant Phadke, Indian revolutionary (b. 1855)
* 1883 &ndash; Napoleon Coste, French guitarist, composer (b. 1806)
* 1890 &ndash; Christopher Latham Sholes, American inventor (b. 1819)
* 1891 &ndash; Theophil Hansen, Danish-Austrian educator and architect (b. 1813)

### 1901 &ndash; 2000 
* 1901 &ndash; Ethelbert Nevin, American pianist and composer (b. 1862)
* 1905 &ndash; William Bickerton, English-American religious leader (b. 1815)
* 1909 &ndash; Geronimo, Apache leader (b. 1829)
* 1912 &ndash; Edgar Evans, Welsh navy officer (b. 1876)
* 1919 &ndash; Wilfrid Laurier, seventh Prime Minister of Canada (b. 1841)
* 1924 &ndash; Oskar Merikanto, Finnish composer (b. 1868)
* 1934 &ndash; King Albert I of Belgium (b. 1875)
* 1934 &ndash; Siegbert Tarrasch, German chess player (b. 1862)
* 1939 &ndash; Willy Hess, German violinist (b. 1859)
* 1943 &ndash; Konstantin Bogaevsky, Russian painter (b. 1872)
* 1943 &ndash; Armand J. Piron, American jazz musician (b. 1888)
* 1946 &ndash; Dorothy Gibson, American actress and singer (b. 1889)
* 1961 &ndash; Nita Noldi, American actress (b. 1894)
* 1962 &ndash; Joseph Kearns, American actor (b. 1907)
* 1962 &ndash; Bruno Walter, German conductor (b. 1876)
* 1970 &ndash; Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Israeli writer (b. 1888)
* 1970 &ndash; Alfred Newman, American movie composer (b. 1900)
* 1982 &ndash; Thelonious Monk, American jazz pianist (b. 1917)
* 1982 &ndash; Lee Strasberg, American acting teacher, actor (b. 1901)
* 1986 &ndash; Jiddu Krishnamurti, Indian philosopher (b. 1895)
* 1988 &ndash; Karpoori Thakur, Indian politician, 1st Chief Minister of Bihar (b. 1924)
* 1988 &ndash; John M. Allegro, English archaeologist and scholar (b. 1923)
* 1989 &ndash; Lefty Gomez, American baseball player (b. 1908)
* 1990 &ndash; Jean-Marc Bolvin, French mountaineer (b. 1951)
* 1994 &ndash; Gretchen Fraser, American ski racer (b. 1919)
* 1994 &ndash; Randy Shilts, writer, AIDS activist (b. 1951)
* 1998 &ndash; Ernst Jünger, militaristic German writer (b. 1895)

### From 2001 
* 2001 &ndash; Khalid Abdul Muhammed, Nation of Islam spokesman (b. 1948)
* 2004 &ndash; José López Portillo, former President of Mexico (b. 1920)
* 2005 &ndash; Dan O'Herlihy, Irish movie actor (b. 1919)
* 2005 &ndash; Omar Sivori, Argentine footballer (b. 1935)
* 2007 &ndash; Maurice Papon, French Nazi collaborator (b. 1910)
* 2010 &ndash; Kathryn Grayson, American singer and actress (b. 1922)
* 2011 &ndash; Perry Moore, American writer and movie producer (b. 1971)
* 2012 &ndash; Ulric Neisser, German-born American psychologist (b. 1928)
* 2013 &ndash; Richard Briers, British actor (b. 1934)
* 2013 &ndash; Mindy McCready, American country music singer (b. 1975)
* 2014 &ndash; Frankie Kao, Taiwanese singer (b. 1950)
* 2014 &ndash; Loni Nest, German-American actress (b. 1915)
* 2014 &ndash; Joe Bell, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1923)
* 2015 &ndash; Andrzej Koszewski, Polish composer (b. 1922)
* 2015 &ndash; Cathy Ubels-Veen, Dutch politician (b. 1928)
* 2016 &ndash; Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, Egyptian journalist (b. 1923)
* 2016 &ndash; Alexander Gutman, Russian film director (b. 1945)
* 2016 &ndash; Akbar Kakkattil, Indian writer (b. 1954)
* 2016 &ndash; Andrzej Zulawski, Polish film director and writer (b. 1940)
* 2017 &ndash; Nicole Bass, American bodybuilder and professional wrestler (b. 1964)
* 2017 &ndash; Warren Frost, American actor (b. 1925)
* 2017 &ndash; Börge Hellström, Swedish writer (b. 1957)
* 2017 &ndash; Erland Kops, Danish badminton player (b. 1937)
* 2017 &ndash; Robert H. Michel, American politician (b. 1923)
* 2017 &ndash; Michael Novak, American theologian and writer (b. 1933)
* 2017 &ndash; Tom Regan, American philosopher (b. 1938)
* 2017 &ndash; Peter Skellern, English singer-songwriter (b. 1947)

## Observances
* Celebrated as Independence Day in Kosovo
* Revolution Day (Libya)