Monday, February 18, 2013

February 17 in history


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FEB 16      INDEX      FEB 18
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Events


364 – Roman Emperor Jovian dies after a reign of eight months. He is found dead in his tent at Tyana (Asia Minor) en route back to Constantinople in suspicious circumstances.

1370 – Northern Crusades: Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Teutonic Knights meet in the Battle of Rudau.

1411 – Following the successful campaigns during the Ottoman Interregnum, Musa Çelebi, one of the sons of Bayezid I, becomes Sultan with the support of Mircea I of Wallachia.

1500 – Duke Friedrich and Duke Johann attempt to subdue the peasantry of Dithmarschen, Denmark, in the Battle of Hemmingstedt.

1600 – The philosopher Giordano Bruno is burned alive, for heresy, at Campo de' Fiori in Rome

1621 – Myles Standish is appointed as first commander of the English Plymouth Colony in North America.

1753 – In Sweden February 17 is followed by March 1 as the country moves from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar.

1782:  The worldwide implications of the American War for Independence were made clear as the American-allied French navy began a 14-month-long series of five battles with the British navy in the Indian Ocean.

1801 – After a tie vote in the Electoral College and 35 indecisive ballot votes in the United States House of Representatives, an electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr is resolved when Vice President Thomas Jefferson is elected the third president of the United States over Aaron Burr, who is elected Vice President.

1814 – War of the Sixth Coalition: The Battle of Mormans.

1819 – The U.S. House of Representatives passes the Missouri Compromise for the first time.  The Senate refuses to concur with an amendment, and the whole measure is lost.

1820 – The U.S. Senate passes the Missouri Compromise, prohibiting slavery anywhere north of the 36°30′ parallel extending west from the northern border of Arkansas, an attempt to deal with the dangerously divisive issue of extending slavery into the western territories.

1838 – Weenen massacre: Hundreds of Voortrekkers along the Blaukraans River, Natal are killed by Zulus.

1854 – The United Kingdom recognizes the independence of the Orange Free State.

1863 – A group of citizens of Geneva founded an International Committee for Relief to the Wounded, which later became known as the International Committee of the Red Cross.

1864 – American Civil War: The hand-cranked Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley torpedoes the mighty USS Housatonic in Charleston Harbor, becoming the first combat submarine to engage and sink an enemy warship.

1865 – American Civil War: Columbia, South Carolina, is captured by soldiers from Union General William Tecumseh Sherman's army, and burned leaving a charred city in their wake, as Confederate forces flee from advancing Union forces, although it's unclear who caused the fires.

1871 – The victorious Prussian Army parades through Paris, France, after the end of the Siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War.

1878 – The first telephone exchange opens in San Francisco with 18 phones.

1904 – Madama Butterfly receives its première at La Scala in Milan.

1906:  Union leaders Bill Hayward, Charles Moyer, and George Pettibone were taken into custody by Idaho authorities and the Pinkerton Detective Agency.

1913 – The Armory Show opens in New York City, displaying works of artists who are to become some of the most influential painters of the early 20th century.

1915:  After encountering a severe snowstorm that evening, the German zeppelin L-4 crash-landed in the North Sea near the Danish coastal town of Varde.

1919 – The Ukrainian People's Republic asks Entente and the US for help fighting the Bolsheviks.

1933 – The Blaine Act ends Prohibition in the United States.

1933 – Newsweek magazine is first published under the title News-Week.

1944 – World War II: Operation Catchpole: The Battle of Eniwetok Atoll begins, ending in an American victory on February 22. American troops devastated the Japanese defenders of Eniwetok and took control of the atoll in the northwestern part of the Marshall Islands.

1944 – World War II: Operation Hailstone: A U.S. naval air, surface, and submarine attack against Truk Lagoon, Japan's main base in the central Pacific, in support of the Eniwetok invasion, begins.

1947:  With the words, "Hello! This is New York calling," the Voice of America began broadcasting to the Soviet Union.

1949 – Chaim Weizmann begins his term as the first President of Israel.

1959 – Project Vanguard: Vanguard 2, the first weather satellite, is launched to measure cloud-cover distribution.

1964 – In Wesberry v. Sanders the Supreme Court of the United States rules that congressional districts have to be approximately equal in population.

1964 – Gabonese president Léon M'ba is toppled by a coup and his rival, Jean-Hilaire Aubame, is installed in his place.

1965 – Project Ranger: The Ranger 8 probe launches on its mission to photograph the Mare Tranquillitatis region of the Moon in preparation for the manned Apollo missions. Mare Tranquillitatis or the "Sea of Tranquility" would become the site chosen for the Apollo 11 lunar landing.

1966:  In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Gen. Maxwell Taylor stated that a major U.S. objective in Vietnam was to demonstrate that "wars of liberation" are "costly, dangerous and doomed to failure." Discussing Operation Rolling Thunder, the American air campaign against North Vietnam, Taylor declared that its primary purpose was "to change the will of the enemy leadership."

1968:  American officials in Saigon reported an all-time high weekly rate of U.S. casualties--543 killed in action and 2,547 wounded in the previous seven days. These losses were a result of the heavy fighting during the communist Tet Offensive.

1968 – In Springfield, Massachusetts, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame opens.

1972 – The 15,007,034th Volkswagen Beetle came off the assembly line, breaking a world car production record held for more than four decades by the Ford Motor Company's iconic Model T, which was in production from 1908 and 1927.

1974 – Robert K. Preston, a disgruntled U.S. Army private, buzzes the White House in a stolen helicopter.

1978 – The Troubles: The Provisional IRA detonates an incendiary bomb at the La Mon restaurant, near Belfast, killing 12 and seriously injuring 30.

1979 – Sino-Vietnamese War: In response to the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, China launches an invasion of Vietnam. Tensions between Vietnam and China increased dramatically after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. Attempting to expand its influence, Vietnam established a military presence in Laos; strengthened its ties with China's rival, the Soviet Union; and toppled the Cambodian regime of Pol Pot in 1979. Just over a month later, Chinese forces invaded, but were repulsed in nine days of bloody and bitter fighting. Tensions between China and Vietnam remained high throughout the next decade, and much of Vietnam's scarce resources were allocated to protecting its border with China and its interests in Cambodia.

1980 – First winter ascent of Mount Everest by Krzysztof Wielicki and Leszek Cichy.

1992 – Nagorno-Karabakh War: Armenian troops massacre more than 20 Azerbaijani civilians in the village of Qaradağlı.

1993:  Neptune ferry disaster: Approximately 900 people drowned when a passenger ferry, the Neptune, overturned near Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The ferry was dangerously overloaded, and carried no lifeboats or emergency gear.

1995 – The Cenepa War between Peru and Ecuador ends on a ceasefire brokered by the UN.

1996 – In Philadelphia, world champion Garry Kasparov beats the Deep Blue supercomputer in a chess match.

1996 – NASA's Discovery Program begins as the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft lifts off on the first mission ever to orbit and land on an asteroid, 433 Eros.

1996 – The 8.2 Mw Biak earthquake shakes the Papua province of eastern Indonesia with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). A large tsunami follwed, leaving one-hundred sixty-six people dead or missing and 423 injured.

2003 – The London congestion charge is introduced.

2006 – A massive mudslide occurs in Southern Leyte, Philippines; the official death toll is set at 1,126.

2008 – Kosovo declares independence as the Republic of Kosovo.

2011 – Libyan protests begin. In Bahrain, security forces launched a deadly pre-dawn raid on protesters in Pearl Roundabout in Manama, the day is locally known as Bloody Thursday.

2015 – 18 people are killed and 78 injured in a stampede at a Mardi Gras parade in Haiti.



Saints' Days and Holy Days

Traditional Western

The Flight of our Lord Jesus Christ into Egypt.     Greater Double.


Contemporary Western

Seven Founders of the Servite Order
      Alexis Falconieri
Constabilis
Fintan of Clonenagh
Lommán of Trim


Anglican, Episcopal, Lutheran

Janani Luwum (Anglican Communion)


Eastern Orthodox

February 17 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)

Saints

Saint Mariamne, Equal to the Apostles, sister of Apostle Philip (1st c.)
Saint Auxibius of Soli, Bishop of Soli in Cyprus (102)
Martyrs Donatus, Romulus, Secundian, and 86 Companions, at Concordia
      (Porto Gruaro), near Venice (304)
Great-martyr Theodore the Tyro (c. 306)
Martyr Theodoulos, at Caesarea Palestina (308)
Holy Emperor Marcian (457) and St. Pulcheria, his wife (453)
Venerable Martyr Theocteristus, Abbot of Pelecete Monastery near Prusa (8th c.)

Pre-Schism Western Saints

Martyrs Faustinus and Companions, a group of forty-five martyrs
      honoured in Rome
Saint Lommán of Trim (Luman), a nephew of St Patrick and the first
      Bishop of Trim in Meath in Ireland (c. 450)
Saint Habet-Deus, Bishop of Luna in Tuscany in Italy, probably
     martyred by the Arian Vandals (c. 500)
Saint Fortchern, Bishop of Trim in Ireland, he later lived
      as a hermit (6th c.)
Saint Guevrock (Gueroc; Kerric), Abbot of Loc-Kirec,
      he also helped St Paul of Léon (6th c.)
Saint Fintan of Clonenagh, a disciple of St Columba, he led the life
      of a hermit in Clonenagh in Leix in Ireland, Confessor (603)
Saint Finan of Lindisfarne, Bishop of Lindisfarne (661)
Saint Silvinus of Auchy, enlightener of the area near Thérouanne, then
      a monastic in the Benedictine abbey of Auchy-les-Moines (c. 718)

Post-Schism Orthodox Saints

Saint Theodore, monk of the Kievan Zverynetsky Monastery (1096)
St. Euxiphius I, Bishop and Wonderworker, listed in some synaxaria
      as one of the "300 Allemagne Saints" in Cyprus (late 12th c.)
Venerable Theodore the Silent, of the Kiev Caves Monastery (13th c.)
Venerable Theodosius, monastic founder at Mt. Kelifarevo (1363),
      and his disciple St. Romanus (c. 1370), of Turnovo, Bulgaria
New Martyr Michael Mavroeidis of Adrianopolis (1490 or 1544)
Saint Hermogenes of Moscow, Patriarch and Wonderworker of Moscow
      and all Russia (1612)
New Martyr Theodore of Byzantium, at Mytilene (1795)
New Hieromartyr Theodore of Adjara, Hieromonk, at Mt. Athos (1822)
Venerable Barnabas, Elder of Gethsemane Skete, of St. Sergius Lavra (1906)
Saint Nicholas Planas, Priest, of Athens (1932)

New Martyrs and Confessors

New Hieromartyrs Michael Nikologorsky and Paul Kosminkov, Priests (1938)
Martyr Anna Chetverikov (1940)

Other commemorations

Uncovering of the relics (867-869) of Martyr Menas the Most Eloquent,
      of Alexandria (ca. 313)
Weeping "Tikhvin" Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos, at the Kozak Skete
      of St. Elias on Mt. Athos
Repose of Elder Agapitus of the Kiev Caves (1887)
Repose of Schemamonk John (Shova) of Kolitsou Skete, Mt. Athos (2009)



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