TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – AUG 17
1743 By the Treaty of Abo, Sweden cedes southeast Finland to Russia, ending Sweden’s failed war with Russia.
1790 The capital city of the U.S. moved to Philadelphia from New York City.
1863 Union gunboats attack Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, for the first time.
1896 Prospectors found gold in Alaska, a discovery that set off the Klondike gold rush.
1903 Joe Pulitzer donates $1 million to Columbia University & begins the Pulitzer Prizes in America
1943 Allied forces complete the conquest of Sicily.
1945 Korea is divided into North and South Korea along the 38th parallel
1960 American Francis Gary Powers pleads guilty at his Moscow trial for spying over the Soviet Union in a U-2 plane.
1962 18-year-old Peter Fechter was shot and killed by guards at the Berlin Wall, spurring riots.
1970 Venera 7 launched by the Soviet Union
Launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Venera 7 became the first spacecraft to land on another planet, Venus, and send data back to Earth. It entered Venus’ atmosphere in December 1970.
1982 The U.S. Senate approved an immigration bill that granted permanent resident status to illegal aliens who had arrived in the United States before 1977.
1987 93-year-old Rudolf Hess, former Nazi leader and deputy of Adolf Hitler, is found hanged to death in Spandau Prison.
1988 Pakistani President Zia-ul-Haq is killed in an airplane crash suspected of being an assassination.
1990 One hundred and seventy South Africans were hacked to death in tribal fighting over five days. Police broke up Zulus who were brandishing axes and spears. The Zulus were fighting with the Xhosases led by Nelson Mandela.
1996 A military cargo plane crashed in Wyoming killing eight crewmembers and a Secret Service employee. The plane was carrying gear for U.S. President Clinton.
1998 Monica Lewinsky scandal: US President Bill Clinton admits in taped testimony he had an “improper physical relationship” with the intern and on the same day admits before the nation he “misled people” about the relationship
2005 Israel begins the first forced evacuation of Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank, as part of a unilateral disengagement plan.
2006 In Baghdad twenty-one persons were killed in a bomb blast and the governor’s office was attacked. The violence was caused by Sunni-Shiite animosity to the current regime.
2012 Moscow’s top court upholds ban of gay pride events in Russia’s capital city for 100 years.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
