On This Day

What Happened on February 17 in History

9 events that happened on February 17, oldest first. Every entry is written in our own words and links to its source.

The Early 1900s and the World Wars

1904
Giacomo Puccini's opera Madama Butterfly premieres at La Scala in Milan.
The first performance was poorly received by the audience. Puccini revised the work, and the new version won success a few months later, making it one of the most performed operas in the world.
Source: history.com
1913
The Armory Show opens in New York and introduces Americans to modern European art.
The International Exhibition of Modern Art filled the 69th Regiment Armory with works by artists such as Matisse, Picasso and Marcel Duchamp. Many visitors and critics were shocked, but the show changed the course of American art.
Source: npr.org

1959
The U.S. Navy launches Vanguard 2, an early satellite built to observe cloud cover.
The small sphere carried photocells meant to measure sunlight reflected by clouds below. Its wobbling spin made the data hard to use, but it was an early step toward weather satellites.
Source: nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov
1964
The Supreme Court rules in Wesberry v. Sanders that congressional districts must have roughly equal populations.
The case came from Georgia, where one district held far more voters than others. The ruling helped establish the principle of one person, one vote for elections to the House of Representatives.
Source: law.cornell.edu
1965
NASA launches Ranger 8 to photograph possible Apollo landing sites on the Moon.
The probe was aimed at the Sea of Tranquility, an area under study for future crewed landings. It sent back thousands of close-up pictures before its planned impact on the lunar surface three days later.
Source: science.nasa.gov
1979
Chinese troops invade northern Vietnam in a brief border war.
China said the attack was punishment for Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia and its close ties with the Soviet Union. Both sides suffered heavy losses, and Chinese forces withdrew within a few weeks.
Source: history.com

1996
NASA launches NEAR Shoemaker, the first spacecraft designed to orbit an asteroid.
The probe was the first mission of NASA's Discovery Program of lower cost science missions. It reached the asteroid Eros in 2000 and later touched down on its surface.
Source: science.nasa.gov
1998
Voyager 1 passes Pioneer 10 to become the most distant human-made object in space.
Launched in 1977, the probe had flown past Jupiter and Saturn before heading out of the solar system. Moving faster than Pioneer 10, it overtook the older spacecraft about 69 times as far from the Sun as Earth is, and it has held the distance record ever since.
Source: science.nasa.gov; nasa.gov
2008
Kosovo declares its independence from Serbia.
The Kosovo assembly approved the declaration nearly a decade after the war of 1998 and 1999. The United States and many European countries recognized the new state, while Serbia and Russia rejected it.
Source: history.state.gov