This Day in History On April 17

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1492 Christopher Columbus signed a contract with Spain to find a passage to Asia and the Indies.

1521 Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church.

1524 New York Harbor was discovered by Giovanni Verrazano.

1704 John Campbell published what would eventually become the first successful American newspaper. It was known as the Boston "News-Letter".

1810 Pineapple cheese was patented by Lewis M. Norton.

1861 Virginia became the eighth state to secede from the Union.

1961 About 1,400 Cuban exiles attacked the Bay of Pigs in an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro. They were unsuccessful.

1964 Jerrie Mock became first woman to fly an airplane solo around the world.

1964 The Ford Motor Company unveiled its new Mustang model.
1969 In Los Angeles, Sirhan Sirhan was convicted of assassinating U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

1970 Apollo 13 returned to Earth safely after an on-board accident with an oxygen tank.

1975 Khmer Rouge forces capture the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. It was the end of the five-year war.

1984 In London, gunmen from the Libyan Embassy fired into an anti-Libya protest. One policewoman was killed and 10 others were wounded.

1993 A federal jury in Los Angeles convicted two former police officers of violating the civil rights of beaten motorist Rodney King. Two other officers were acquitted.

1996 Erik and Lyle Menendez were sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing their parents.

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1775 American revolutionaries Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott rode though the towns of Massachusetts giving the warning that "the British are coming."

1791 National Guardsmen prevented Louis XVI and his family from leaving Paris.

1834 William Lamb became prime minister of England.

1853 The first train in Asia began running from Bombay to Tanna.

1906 San Francisco, CA, was hit with an earthquake at 5:13 a.m. The quake was responsible for about 700 deaths.

1923 Yankee Stadium opened in the Bronx, New York.

1937 Leon Trotsky called for the overthrow of Soviet leader Josef Stalin.

1946 The League of Nations was dissolved.

1949 The Republic of Ireland was established.

1950 The first transatlantic jet passenger trip was completed.

1955 Albert Einstein died.

1978 The U.S. Senate approved the transfer of the Panama Canal to Panama.

1983 The U.S. Embassy in Beirut was blown up by a suicide car-bomber. 17 Americans were killed in the bombing.

1989 Thousands of Chinese students demanding democracy tried to storm Communist Party headquarters in Beijing.

1999 Wayne Gretsky played in his last NHL game. He held 61 NHL records at the time.

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1509 Henry VIII ascended to the throne of England upon the death of his father, Henry VII.


1792 U.S. President George Washington proclaimed American neutrality in the war in Europe.


1864 The U.S. Congress mandated that all coins minted as U.S. currency bear the inscription "In God We Trust".


1889 At noon, the Oklahoma land rush officially started as thousands of Americans race for new, unclaimed land.

1898 The first shot of the Spanish-American war was fired when the USS Nashville captured a Spanish merchant ship.


1914 Babe Ruth made his pitching debut with the Baltimore Orioles
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1931 Egypt signed the treaty of friendship with Iraq.


1944 During World War II, the Allies launched a major attack against the Japanese in Hollandia, New Guinea.


1952 An atomic test conducted in Nevada was the first nuclear explosion shown on live network television.

1954 The U.S. Senate Army-McCarthy televised hearings began.

1993 The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum was dedicated in Washington, DC.

1997 In Lima, Peru government commandos storm and capture the residence of the Japanese ambassador ending a 126-day hostage crisis. In the rescue 71 hostages were saved. Those killed: one hostage (of a heart attack), two soldiers, and all 14 rebels.


1997 93 people are killed in the insurgency of extremist Muslims that continued in Algeria in a town south of Algiers.

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1789 U.S. President George Washington moved into Franklin House, New York. It was the first executive mansion.

1856 Pro-slavery sheriff Samuel Jones was shot in the back by Free Stater J.N. Mace in Westport, Kansas.

1872 Charlotte E. Ray became the first black woman lawyer.

1908 U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt signed an act creating the U.S. Army Reserve.

1945 The Soviet Army fought its way into Berlin.

1950 Chaing evacuated Hainan, leaving mainland China to Mao and the communists.

1954 Hank Aaron of the Milwaukee Braves hit his first major-league home run on this day.

1963 Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds got his first hit in the major leagues.

1967 The Soyuz 1 was launched by Russia.


1969 Sirhan Sirhan was sentenced to death for killing U.S. Senator Robert Kennedy. The sentence was later reduced to life in prison.

1985 The Coca-Cola Company announced that it was changing its 99-year-old secret formula. New Coke was not successful, which resulted in the resumption of selling the original version.

1996 A New York civil-court jury ordered Bernhard Goetz to pay $43 million to Darrell Cabey. Cabey was paralyzed when he was shot in subway car in 1984.

1998 James Earl Ray died at the age of 70 whiile serving a life sentence for the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Ray had confessed to the crime and then later insisted he had been framed.