Historical Events on Tuesday, 17th June

17/06/2021

Juneteenth National Independence Day, was signed into law by President Joe Biden, to become the first federal holiday established since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983.

Juneteenth, officially Juneteenth National Independence Day, is a federal holiday in the United States. It is celebrated annually on June 19 to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States. The holiday's name, first used in the 1890s, is a portmanteau of June and nineteenth, referring to June 19, 1865, the day when Major General Gordon Granger ordered the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas at the end of the American Civil War.

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17/06/2017

A series of wildfires in central Portugal kill at least 64 people and injure 204 others.

A series of four initial deadly wildfires erupted across central Portugal in the afternoon of 17 June 2017 within minutes of each other, resulting in at least 66 deaths and 204 injured people.

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17/06/2015

Nine people are killed in a mass shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

On June 17, 2015, an anti-black mass shooting and hate crime occurred in Charleston, South Carolina. Nine people were killed and another injured during a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the oldest black church in the Southern United States. Among the fatalities was the senior pastor, state senator Clementa C. Pinckney. All ten victims were African Americans. At the time, it was one of the deadliest mass shootings at a place of worship in U.S. history, tied with the Waddell Buddhist temple shooting. Both incidents were surpassed by the Sutherland Springs church shooting in 2017.

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17/06/1994

Following a televised low-speed highway chase, O. J. Simpson is arrested for the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.

Orenthal James Simpson, also known by his nickname "the Juice", was an American professional football player, actor, and media personality who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 11 seasons, primarily with the Buffalo Bills. Simpson is regarded as one of the greatest running backs of all time, but his success was overshadowed by his criminal trial and contentious acquittal for the murders of his former wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ron Goldman in 1994.

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17/06/1992

A "joint understanding" agreement on arms reduction is signed by U.S. president George Bush and Russian president Boris Yeltsin (this would be later codified in START II).

George Herbert Walker Bush was the 41st president of the United States, serving from 1989 to 1993. He was the vice president under Ronald Reagan, and held various other positions. A member of the Republican Party, his presidency oversaw the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Gulf War. He was also the father of George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States.

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17/06/1991

Apartheid: The South African Parliament repeals the Population Registration Act which required racial classification of all South Africans at birth.

Apartheid was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an authoritarian political culture based on baasskap, which ensured that South Africa was dominated politically, socially, and economically by the nation's minority white population. Under this minoritarian system, white citizens held the highest status, followed by Indians, Coloureds and black Africans, in that order. The economic legacy and social effects of apartheid continue to the present day, particularly inequality.

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17/06/1989

Interflug Flight 102 crashes during a rejected takeoff from Berlin Schönefeld Airport, killing 21 people.

Interflug Flight 102 ended in a crash involving an Ilyushin Il-62M on 17 June 1989. The aircraft, while attempting to take off from Berlin Schönefeld Airport, East Germany, crashed into obstacles on the ground at the end of its takeoff, costing 21 lives.

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17/06/1987

With the death of the last individual of the species, the dusky seaside sparrow becomes extinct.

The dusky seaside sparrow is an extinct non-migratory subspecies of the seaside sparrow, found in Florida in the natural salt marshes of Merritt Island and along the St. Johns River. The last definite known individual died on Walt Disney World's Discovery Island in 1987, and the subspecies was officially declared extinct in December 1990.

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17/06/1985

Space Shuttle program: STS-51-G mission: Space Shuttle Discovery launches carrying Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the first Arab and first Muslim in space, as a payload specialist.

The Space Shuttle program was the fourth human spaceflight program carried out by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which accomplished routine transportation for Earth-to-orbit crew and cargo from 1981 to 2011. Its official program name was carried over from the 1969 plan for the Space Transportation System (STS) of reusable spacecraft. Only the shuttle and supporting rockets were funded for development; a proposed nuclear lunar shuttle in the plan was cancelled in 1972. It flew 135 missions and carried 355 astronauts from 16 countries, many on multiple trips.

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17/06/1972

Watergate scandal: Five White House operatives are arrested for burgling the offices of the Democratic National Committee during an attempt by members of the administration of President Richard M. Nixon to illegally wiretap the political opposition as part of a broader campaign to subvert the democratic process.

The Watergate scandal, or simply Watergate, was a political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon. On June 17, 1972, operatives associated with Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign were caught burglarizing and planting listening devices in the Democratic National Committee headquarters at Washington, D.C.'s Watergate complex. Nixon's efforts to conceal his administration's involvement led to an impeachment process and his resignation in August 1974.

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17/06/1971

U.S. president Richard Nixon in a televised press conference called drug abuse "America's public enemy number one", starting the war on drugs.

Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he represented California in both houses of the United States Congress before serving as the 36th vice president under President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1961. His presidency saw the reduction of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, détente with the Soviet Union and China, the Apollo 11 Moon landing, and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency and Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Nixon's second term ended early when he became the only U.S. president to resign from office, as a result of the Watergate scandal.

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17/06/1967

Nuclear weapons testing: China announces a successful test of its first thermonuclear weapon.

Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the performance of nuclear weapons and the effects of their explosion. Over 2,000 nuclear weapons tests have been carried out since 1945. Nuclear testing is a sensitive political issue. Governments have often performed tests to signal strength. Because of their destruction and fallout, testing has seen opposition by civilians as well as governments, with international bans having been agreed on. Thousands of tests have been performed, with most in the second half of the 20th century.

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17/06/1963

The United States Supreme Court rules 8–1 in Abington School District v. Schempp against requiring the reciting of Bible verses and the Lord's Prayer in public schools.

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on questions of U.S. constitutional or federal law. It also has original jurisdiction over a narrow range of cases, specifically "all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party". In 1803, the court asserted itself the power of judicial review, the ability to invalidate a statute for violating a provision of the Constitution. It is also able to strike down presidential directives for violating either the Constitution or statutory law.

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A day after South Vietnamese president Ngô Đình Diệm announced the Joint Communiqué to end the Buddhist crisis, a riot involving around 2,000 people breaks out. One person is killed.

This is a list of leaders of South Vietnam, since the establishment of the Autonomous Republic of Cochinchina in 1946, the establishment of the State of Vietnam in 1949, and the division of Vietnam in 1954 until the fall of the Republic of Vietnam in 1975, and the reunification of Vietnam in 1976.

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17/06/1960

The Nez Perce tribe is awarded $4 million for 7 million acres (28,000 km2) of land undervalued at four cents/acre in the 1863 treaty.

The Nez Perce are an Indigenous people of the Plateau who still live on a fraction of the lands on the southeastern Columbia River Plateau in the Pacific Northwest. This region has been occupied for at least 11,500 years.

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17/06/1958

The Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing, in the process of being built to connect Vancouver and North Vancouver (Canada), collapses into the Burrard Inlet killing 18 ironworkers and injuring others.

The Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing, also called the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge and Second Narrows Bridge, is the second bridge constructed at the Second (east) Narrows of Burrard Inlet in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Originally named the Second Narrows Bridge, it connects Vancouver to the North Shore of Burrard Inlet, which includes the District of North Vancouver, the City of North Vancouver, and West Vancouver. It was constructed adjacent to the older Second Narrows Bridge, which is now exclusively a rail bridge. Its construction, from 1956 to 1960, was marred by a multi-death collapse on June 17, 1958. The First Narrows Bridge, better known as Lions Gate Bridge, crosses Burrard Inlet about 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) west of the Second Narrows.

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17/06/1953

Cold War: East Germany Workers Uprising: In East Germany, the Soviet Union orders a division of troops into East Berlin to quell a rebellion.

The Cold War was a period of international geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc. It began in the aftermath of the Second World War and ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The term cold war is used because there was no direct fighting between the two superpowers, though each supported opposing sides in regional conflicts known as proxy wars. In addition to the struggle for ideological and economic influence and an arms race in both conventional and nuclear weapons, the Cold War was expressed through technological rivalries such as the Space Race, espionage, propaganda campaigns, embargoes, and sports diplomacy.

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17/06/1952

Guatemala passes Decree 900, ordering the redistribution of uncultivated land.

Decree 900, also known as the Agrarian Reform Law, was a Guatemalan land-reform law passed on June 17, 1952, during the Guatemalan Revolution. The law was introduced by President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán and passed by the Guatemalan Congress. It redistributed unused land greater than 90 hectares in area to local peasants, compensating landowners with government bonds. Land from at most 1,700 estates was redistributed to about 500,000 individuals—one-sixth of the country's population. The goal of the legislation was to move Guatemala's economy from pseudo-feudalism into capitalism. Although in force for only eighteen months, the law had a major effect on the Guatemalan land-reform movement.

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17/06/1948

United Airlines Flight 624, a Douglas DC-6, crashes near Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, killing all 43 people on board.

United Air Lines Flight 624 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from San Diego, California, to New York City, with stopovers in Los Angeles and Chicago. The four-engined, propeller-driven Douglas DC-6 crashed at 1:41 pm Eastern Daylight Time on June 17, 1948, outside Aristes, Pennsylvania, resulting in the deaths of all 4 crew members and 39 passengers on board. The crew had deployed the aircraft's CO2-based fire extinguisher system, without opening the pressure relief valves designed to ventilate CO2 out of the cabin. The part-incapacitated crew then began an emergency descent and subsequently crashed into a hillside.

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17/06/1944

Iceland declares independence from Denmark and becomes a republic.

Iceland is a Nordic island country between the Arctic Ocean and the North Atlantic Ocean, located on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between Europe and North America. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the region's westernmost and most sparsely populated country. Its capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which is home to about 35% of the country's roughly 395,000 residents. The official language of the country is Icelandic. Iceland is on a rift between tectonic plates, and its geologic activity includes geysers and frequent volcanic eruptions. The interior consists of a volcanic plateau with sand and lava fields, mountains and glaciers, and many glacial rivers flow to the sea through the lowlands. Iceland is warmed by the Gulf Stream and has a temperate climate, despite being at a latitude just south of the Arctic Circle. Its latitude and marine influence keep summers chilly, and most of its islands have a polar climate.

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17/06/1940

World War II: RMS Lancastria is attacked and sunk by the Luftwaffe near Saint-Nazaire, France. At least 3,000 are killed in Britain's worst maritime disaster.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

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World War II: The British Army's 11th Hussars assault and take Fort Capuzzo in Libya from Italian forces.

The 11th Hussars (Prince Albert's Own) was a cavalry regiment of the British Army established in 1715. It saw service for three centuries including the First World War and Second World War but then amalgamated with the 10th Royal Hussars (Prince of Wales' Own) to form the Royal Hussars in 1969.

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The three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania fall under the occupation of the Soviet Union.

The Baltic states or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term encompassing Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone, and the OECD. The three sovereign states on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea are sometimes referred to as the "Baltic nations", less often and in historical circumstances also as the "Baltic republics", the "Baltic lands", or simply the Baltics.

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17/06/1939

Last public guillotining in France: Eugen Weidmann, a convicted murderer, is executed in Versailles outside the Saint-Pierre prison.

Eugen Weidmann was a German criminal and serial killer who was executed by guillotine in France in June 1939, the last public execution in France.

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17/06/1933

Union Station massacre: In Kansas City, Missouri, four FBI agents and captured fugitive Frank Nash are gunned down by gangsters attempting to free Nash.

The Kansas City massacre was the shootout and murder of four law enforcement officers and a criminal fugitive at the Union Station railroad depot in Kansas City, Missouri, on the morning of June 17, 1933. It occurred as part of the attempt by a gang led by Vernon C. "Verne" Miller to free Frank "Jelly" Nash, a federal prisoner. At the time, Nash was in the custody of several law enforcement officers who were returning him to the U.S. Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, from which he had escaped three years earlier.

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17/06/1932

Bonus Army: Around a thousand World War I veterans amass at the United States Capitol as the U.S. Senate considers a bill that would give them certain benefits.

The Bonus Army, a group of 43,000 demonstrators—17,000 veterans of U.S. involvement in World War I, their families, and affiliated groups—gathered in Washington, D.C., in mid-1932 to demand early cash redemption of their service-bonus certificates. Organizers called the demonstrators the Bonus Expeditionary Force (B.E.F.), to echo the name of World War I's American Expeditionary Forces, while the media referred to them as the "Bonus Army" or as "Bonus Marchers". The demonstrators were led by Walter W. Waters, a former sergeant. Many of the war veterans had been out of work during the early years of the Great Depression. The World War Adjusted Compensation Act of 1924 had awarded all U.S. World War I veterans "bonuses" in the form of certificates which they could not redeem until 1945. Each certificate, issued to a qualified veteran soldier, bore a face value equal to the soldier's promised payment with compound interest. The principal demand of the Bonus Army was the immediate cash payment of their certificates.

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17/06/1930

U.S. president Herbert Hoover signs the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act into law.

Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st president of the United States, serving from 1929 to 1933. Before entering politics, Hoover worked as an engineer and businessman in the mining industry. After becoming involved in public service, he was appointed to lead several major humanitarian efforts, including serving as chairmen of the Commission for Relief in Belgium, which returned over 100,000 stranded Americans in Europe, director of the U.S. Food Administration, which provided rations for soldiers and food for starving citizens in Europe, director of the American Relief Administration, which lead post-war infrastructure and food relief in Europe, and established the Commission for Polish Relief. As a member of the Republican Party, he served as the third United States secretary of commerce from 1921 to 1928 before being elected president in 1928. His presidency was dominated by the Great Depression, and his policies and methods to combat it were seen as inadequate and overly conservative. Amid his unpopularity, he decisively lost reelection to Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932.

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17/06/1929

The town of Murchison, New Zealand is rocked by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake killing 17. At the time it was New Zealand's worst natural disaster.

Murchison is a town in the Tasman Region of the South Island of New Zealand. It is near the western end of the "Four Rivers Plain", at the confluence of the Buller River and the Mātakitaki River. The other two rivers are the Mangles River, and the Matiri River. It is a rural service town for the surrounding mixed farming district, approximately halfway between Westport and Nelson. Murchison was named after the Scottish geologist Roderick Murchison, one of the founders of the Royal Geographical Society.

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17/06/1922

Portuguese naval aviators Gago Coutinho and Sacadura Cabral complete the first aerial crossing of the South Atlantic.

The Portuguese Naval Aviation constituted the air component of the Portuguese Navy, from 1917 to 1957. The Portuguese Air Force maritime patrol units and the Navy's Helicopter Squadron are the present successors of the former Portuguese Naval Aviation.

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17/06/1910

Aurel Vlaicu pilots an A. Vlaicu nr. 1 on its first flight.

Aurel Vlaicu was a Romanian engineer, inventor, airplane constructor, and early pilot.

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17/06/1901

The College Board introduces its first standardized test, the forerunner to the SAT.

The College Board, styled as CollegeBoard, is an American not-for-profit organization. It was formed in December 1899 as the College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB) to expand access to higher education. While the College Board is not an association of colleges, it runs a membership association of institutions, including over 6,000 schools, colleges, universities, and other educational organizations.

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17/06/1900

Boxer Rebellion: Western Allied and Japanese forces capture the Taku Forts in Tianjin, China.

The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, Boxer Movement, or Yihetuan Movement, was an anti-foreign, anti-imperialist, and anti-Christian uprising in North China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists. Its members were known as the "Boxers" in English, owing to many of them practicing Chinese martial arts, which at the time were referred to as "Chinese boxing". It was defeated by the Eight-Nation Alliance of foreign powers.

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17/06/1898

The United States Navy Hospital Corps is established.

A hospital corpsman (HM) or corpsman is an enlisted medical specialist of the United States Navy, who may also serve in a U.S. Marine Corps unit. The corresponding rating within the United States Coast Guard is Health Services Technician (HS). The U.S. Navy Hospital Corps was created on 17 June 1898, with hospital corpsman used as a generic name for the applicable personnel while various other official names were used for the rating; after World War II, hospital corpsman became the official name for the rating.

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17/06/1885

The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor.

The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture of a robed and crowned woman on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, within New York City, U.S. The copper-clad statue, a gift to the United States from the people of France, was designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, and its metal framework built by Gustave Eiffel. The statue was dedicated on October 28, 1886.

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17/06/1877

American Indian Wars: Battle of White Bird Canyon: The Nez Perce defeat the U.S. Cavalry at White Bird Canyon in the Idaho Territory.

The Battle of White Bird Canyon was fought on June 17, 1877, in Idaho Territory. White Bird Canyon was the opening battle of the Nez Perce War between the Nez Perce Indians and the United States. The battle was a significant defeat of the U.S. Army. It took place in the western part of present-day Idaho County, southwest of the city of Grangeville.

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17/06/1876

American Indian Wars: Battle of the Rosebud: One thousand five hundred Sioux and Cheyenne led by Crazy Horse beat back General George Crook's forces at Rosebud Creek in Montana Territory.

The American Indian Wars, also known as the American Frontier Wars, and the Indian Wars, were initially fought by European colonial empires, the United States, and briefly the Confederate States of America and Republic of Texas against various American Indian tribes in North America. These conflicts occurred from the time of the earliest colonial settlements in the 17th century until the end of the 19th century. The various wars resulted from a wide variety of factors, the most common being the desire of settlers and governments for Indian tribes' lands. The European powers and their colonies enlisted allied Indian tribes to help them conduct warfare against each other's colonial settlements. After the American Revolution, many conflicts were local to specific states or regions and frequently involved disputes over land use; some entailed cycles of violent reprisal.

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17/06/1863

American Civil War: Battle of Aldie in the Gettysburg campaign.

The Battle of Aldie took place on June 17, 1863, in Loudoun County, Virginia, as part of the Gettysburg campaign of the American Civil War.

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17/06/1861

American Civil War: Battle of Vienna, Virginia.

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States, which they saw as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war lasted a little over four years, ending with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans.

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17/06/1843

The Wairau Affray, the first serious clash of arms between Māori and British settlers in the New Zealand Wars, takes place.

The Wairau Affray of 17 June 1843, also called the Wairau Massacre and the Wairau Incident, was the first serious clash of arms between British settlers and Māori in New Zealand after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi and the only one to take place in the South Island. The incident was sparked when a magistrate and a representative of the New Zealand Company, who held a deed to land in the Wairau Valley in Marlborough in the north of the South Island, led a group of European settlers to attempt to arrest Ngāti Toa chiefs Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata. Fighting broke out and 22 British settlers were killed, nine after their surrender. Four Māori were killed, including Te Rongo, who was Te Rangihaeata's wife.

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17/06/1839

In the Kingdom of Hawaii, Kamehameha III issues the edict of toleration which gives Roman Catholics the freedom to worship in the Hawaiian Islands. The Hawaii Catholic Church and the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace are established as a result.

The Hawaiian Kingdom, also known as the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, was an archipelagic country from 1795 to 1893, which eventually encompassed all of the inhabited Hawaiian Islands. It was established in 1795 when Kamehameha I, then Aliʻi nui of Hawaii, conquered the islands of Oʻahu, Maui, Molokaʻi, and Lānaʻi, and unified them under one government. In 1810, the Hawaiian Islands were fully unified when the islands of Kauaʻi and Niʻihau voluntarily joined the Hawaiian Kingdom. Two major dynastic families ruled the kingdom, the House of Kamehameha and the House of Kalākaua.

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17/06/1831

The steam locomotive Best Friend of Charleston causes the first boiler explosion caused by a steam locomotive.

The Best Friend of Charleston was a steam-powered railroad locomotive widely considered the first locomotive to be built entirely within the United States for revenue service. It was also the first locomotive to suffer a boiler explosion in the United States.

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17/06/1795

The burghers of Swellendam expel the Dutch East India Company magistrate and declare a republic.

Swellendam is the third oldest town in South Africa, a town with 17,537 inhabitants situated in the Western Cape province. The town has over 50 provincial heritage sites, most of them buildings of Cape Dutch architecture. Swellendam is situated on the N2, approximately 220 km from both Cape Town and George.

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17/06/1794

Foundation of Anglo-Corsican Kingdom.

The Anglo-Corsican Kingdom, also known officially as the Kingdom of Corsica, was a client state of the Kingdom of Great Britain that existed on the island of Corsica from 1794 to 1796, during the French Revolutionary Wars.

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17/06/1789

In France, the Third Estate declares itself the National Assembly.

France, officially the French Republic, is a country primarily located in Western Europe. Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the North Atlantic, the French West Indies, and many islands in Oceania and the Indian Ocean. Metropolitan France shares borders with Belgium and Luxembourg to the north; Germany to the northeast; Switzerland to the east; Italy and Monaco to the southeast; Andorra and Spain to the south; and a maritime border with the United Kingdom to the northwest. Its metropolitan area extends from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea. Its 18 integral regions—five of which are overseas—span a combined area of 632,702 km2 (244,288 sq mi), with a total population estimated at over 69.1 million in 2026. Its capital, largest city and main cultural and economic centre is Paris.

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17/06/1775

American Revolutionary War: Colonists inflict heavy casualties on British forces while losing the Battle of Bunker Hill.

The American Revolutionary War, also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which American Patriot forces organized as the Continental Army and commanded by George Washington defeated the British Army. The conflict was fought in North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean. The war's outcome seemed uncertain for most of the war, but Washington and the Continental Army's decisive victory in the Siege of Yorktown in 1781 led King George III and the Kingdom of Great Britain to negotiate an end to the war. In 1783, in the Treaty of Paris, the British monarchy acknowledged the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, leading to the establishment of the United States as an independent and sovereign nation.

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17/06/1773

Cúcuta, Colombia, is founded by Juana Rangel de Cuéllar.

Cúcuta, officially San José de Cúcuta, is a Colombian municipality, capital of the department of Norte de Santander and nucleus of the Metropolitan Area of Cúcuta. The city is located in the homonymous valley, beneath the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes, on the border with Venezuela.

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17/06/1767

Samuel Wallis, a British sea captain, sights Tahiti and is considered the first European to reach the island.

Captain Samuel Wallis was a Royal Navy officer and explorer who made the first recorded visit by a European navigator to Tahiti.

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17/06/1673

French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet reach the Mississippi River and become the first Europeans to make a detailed account of its course.

French people are the individuals who are identified with the country of France, or more broadly, a global sociolinguistic group that share a common connection through the French language, culture, and history that originated in Western Europe. The Francophone world is one of the most geographically widespread linguistic communities.

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17/06/1665

Battle of Montes Claros: Portugal definitively secured independence from Spain in the last battle of the Portuguese Restoration War.

The Battle of Montes Claros was fought on 17 June 1665, near Borba, between Spanish and a combined Anglo-Portuguese force as the last major battle in the Portuguese Restoration War. The battle resulted in a decisive Portuguese victory and is considered one of the most important battles in the country's history.

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17/06/1631

Mumtaz Mahal dies during childbirth. Her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, will spend the next 17 years building her mausoleum, the Taj Mahal.

Mumtaz Mahal was the empress consort of Mughal Empire from 1628 to 1631 as the chief consort of the fifth Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan. The Taj Mahal in Agra, often cited as one of the Wonders of the World, was commissioned by her husband to act as her tomb.

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17/06/1596

The Dutch explorer Willem Barentsz discovers the Arctic archipelago of Spitsbergen.

Willem Barentsz, anglicized as William Barents or Barentz, was a Dutch navigator, cartographer, and Arctic explorer.

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17/06/1579

Sir Francis Drake claims a land he calls Nova Albion (modern California) for England.

Sir Francis Drake was an English explorer and privateer best known for making the second circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition between 1577 and 1580. He is also known for participating in the early English slaving voyages of his cousin, John Hawkins, and John Lovell. Having started as a simple seaman, in 1588 he was part of the fight against the Spanish Armada as a vice admiral.

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17/06/1497

Battle of Deptford Bridge: Forces under King Henry VII defeat troops led by Michael An Gof.

The Cornish rebellion of 1497, also known as the First Cornish rebellion, was a popular uprising in the Kingdom of England, which began in Cornwall and culminated with the Battle of Deptford Bridge near London on 17 June 1497.

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17/06/1462

Vlad the Impaler attempts to assassinate Mehmed II (The Night Attack at Târgovişte), forcing him to retreat from Wallachia.

Vlad III, commonly known as Vlad the Impaler or Vlad Dracula, was Voivode of Wallachia three times between 1448 and his death. He is regarded as a Christian hero in Romania due to his opposition to the Ottoman Empire and he is considered an important ruler in Wallachian history.

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17/06/1397

The Kalmar Union is formed under the rule of Margaret I of Denmark.

The Kalmar Union was a personal union in Scandinavia, agreed at Kalmar in Sweden as designed by Queen Margaret of Denmark. From 1397 to 1523, it joined under a single monarch the three kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, together with Norway's maritime colonies.

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17/06/1300

Turku Cathedral is consecrated by Bishop Magnus I in the city of Turku (Swedish: Åbo).

Turku Cathedral is the only medieval basilica in Finland and the Mother Church of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. It is the central church of the Lutheran Archdiocese of Turku and the seat of the Lutheran Archbishop of Finland, Tapio Luoma. It is also regarded as one of the major records of Finnish architectural history.

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17/06/1242

Following the Disputation of Paris, twenty-four carriage loads of Jewish religious manuscripts were burnt in Paris.

The Disputation of Paris, also known as the Trial of the Talmud, took place in 1240 at the court of King Louis IX of France. It followed the work of Nicholas Donin, a Jewish convert to Christianity who translated the Talmud and pressed 35 charges against it to Pope Gregory IX by quoting a series of blasphemous passages about Jesus, Mary, or Christianity. Four rabbis defended the Talmud against Donin's accusations.

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17/06/0653

Pope Martin I is arrested and taken to Constantinople, due to his opposition to monothelitism.

Pope Martin I, also known as Martin the Confessor, was the bishop of Rome from 21 July 649 to his death 16 September 655. He had served as Pope Theodore I's ambassador to Constantinople, and was elected to succeed him as pope. He was the only pope when Constantinople controlled the papacy whose election had not awaited imperial mandate. For his strong opposition to Monothelitism, Pope Martin I was arrested by Emperor Constans II, carried off to Constantinople, and ultimately banished to Cherson. He is considered a saint by both the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, as well as the last pope recognised as a martyr.

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