On This Day: 17 April

Harald III of Denmark dies and is succeeded by Canute		1080
Chaucer's fictional pilgrims begin their journey to Canterbury (date identified by scholars)		1387
Geoffrey Chaucer tells the Canterbury Tales for the first time at the court of Richard II		1397
100,000 drown when the sea bursts the dyke at Dordrecht (Dort), Holland		1421
Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain sign their grant to Columbus		1492
The trial of Martin Luther as a heretic begins at the Diet of Worms		1521
Act of Supremacy partially re–enacted in England		1559
Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor, dies		1711
Humphrey Davy inhales a gallon of nitrous oxide and is astounded by the effect		1799
Republic of Guatemala founded		1839
Virginia becomes the eighth state to secede from the Union and join the Confederacy		1861
The Football League is formally inaugurated, at a meeting at the Royal Hotel, Manchester		1888
Treaty of Shimonoseki ends the First Sino–Japanese War; the Qing empire renounces its claim on Korea and concedes territory to Japan		1895
Turkey declared war on Greece		1897
Russian troops open fire on striking goldfield workers in northeast Siberia, killing at least 150		1912
United Artists formed by Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and D. W. Griffith		1919
Mussolini's Fascist party wins the Italian elections		1924
Daffy Duck makes his first appearance, in Porky's Duck Hunt		1937
149,547 people watch Scotland play England at Hampden Park – a British record		1937
Yugoslavia surrenders to Germany		1941
The Republic of Ireland is declared (at midnight)		1949
The Peak District is designated Britain's first national park		1951
Charlie Chaplin, under scrutiny from the McCarthy campaign, announces that he will never return to the USA		1953
Chancellor Harold Macmillan, in his budget speech, announces the launch of Premium Bonds		1956
Archbishop Makarios returns to Cyprus after over a year in exile in the Seychelles		1957
Pandit Nehru founds the New India Congress movement		1957
South Africa's Nationalist Party wins its third general election		1958
Junior army officers launch an unsuccessful coup in Ghana		1959
'Bay of Pigs' invasion of Cuba, by US troops and Cuban exiles, fails		1961
Greville Wynne charged with espionage in Moscow		1963
The Rolling Stones' first LP released		1964
Surveyor 3 – the second US spacecraft to make a soft landing on the moon – launched		1967
Dr. Gustav Havak replaces Alexander Dubcek as First Secretary of the Czechoslovakian Communist Party		1969
The voting age in Britain is lowered from 21 to 18 (HME)		1969
Sirhan Sirhan found guilty of the murder of Senator Robert Kennedy		1969
Bernardette Devlin, Irish Nationalist candidate, wins the Mid-Ulster by-election to become Britain's youngest woman MP (six days short of her 21^st birthday)		1969
Johnny Cash performs for President Nixon at the White House		1970
Apollo 13 splashes down safely after its abortive lunar mission		1970
The People's Republic of Bangladesh is formed		1971
Cambodian Civil War ends as Phnom Penh surrenders to the Khmer Rouge		1975
Rhodesia's first one–man–one–vote elections		1979
Rhodesia becomes independent as Zimbabwe		1980
Solidarity made legal in Poland, ten years after its foundation		1982
WPC Yvonne Fletcher shot dead outside the Libyan Embassy, London		1984
Svetlana Alliluyeva, daughter of Josef Stalin, settles in the USA		1986
British journalist John McCarthy captured in Beirut		1986
Moscow blockades Lithuania in an attempt to contain demands for independence		1990
Prince Andrew, Duke of York, granted a decree nisi in respect of his marriage to Sarah Ferguson		1996
40 people injured by a bomb in Brixton market		1999
US Secretary of State Colin Powell leaves Jerusalem, having failed to secure a ceasefire, as international fury grows over events in Jenin where evidence of Israeli atrocities grows		2002
Dr. Abdel Aziz Rantissi, newly–appointed leader of Hamas, killed by an Israeli missile strike in Gaza City		2004
11 people killed and 70 injured by a Palestinian suicide bomber in a restaurant in Tel Aviv		2006
NASA's Kepler space telescope confirms the discovery of the first Earth–sized planet in the habitable zone of another star		2014

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On This Day: 17 April