On this day in history

April 17

31 births · 16 deaths · 5 events

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Anniversary highlights

Event anniversary

131

Treaty of Shimonoseki

131 years ago

Born this day

1974

Victoria Beckham

Turns 52

Photo (modified): Owl Bridge Media · CC BY 3.0

Oldest record

1541st

Proclus

death anniversary

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Famous births31

AD 963 · 1063 yrs

Sweyn I of Denmark

Swein Forkbeard (died 3 February 1014) was King of Denmark from c. 986 and briefly King of England from December 1013. He was also overlord of Norway c. 986 – c. 994 and from c.

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RoyaltyDied aged 50

View profile Photo (modified): Ole Ryhl Olsson · Public domain

1497 · 529 yrs

Pedro de Valdivia

Pedro Gutiérrez de Valdivia or Valdiva (Spanish pronunciation:; April 17, 1497 – December 25, 1553) was a Spanish conquistador and the first Governor of Colonial Chile.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 56

View profile Photo (modified): Federico de Madrazo y Kuntz · Public domain

1676 · 350 yrs

Frederick I of Sweden

Frederick I (Swedish: Fredrik I; 28 April 1676 – 5 April 1751) was King of Sweden from 1720 until his death, having been prince consort of Sweden from 1718 to 1720, and was also Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel from 1730.

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RoyaltyDied aged 74

View profile Photo (modified): Georg Engelhard Schröder · Public domain

1837 · 189 yrs

J. P. Morgan

John Pierpont Morgan Sr. (April 17, 1837 – March 31, 1913) was an American financier and investment banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Street throughout the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.

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BusinessDied aged 75

View profile Photo (modified): Pach Brothers · Public domain

1885 · 141 yrs

Karen Blixen

Baroness Karen Christentze von Blixen-Finecke (born Dinesen; 17 April 1885 – 7 September 1962) was a Danish author who wrote in Danish and English. She is also known under her pen names Isak Dinesen, used in English-speaking countries; Tania Blixen, used in German-speaking countries; Osceola, and Pierre Andrézel.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureWould be 141

View profile Photo (modified): By SAS Scandinavian Airlines ( http://images.flysas.com ) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain

1897 · 129 yrs

Thornton Wilder

Thornton Niven Wilder (April 17, 1897 – December 7, 1975) was an American playwright and novelist. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, for the novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and for the plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, and a U.S. National Book Award for the novel The Eighth Day.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureWould be 129

View profile Photo (modified): Roger Sherman Studio · Public domain

1909 · 117 yrs

Alain Poher

Alain Émile Louis Marie Poher (French:; 17 April 1909 – 9 December 1996) was a French politician who served as president of the Senate from 1968 to 1992 and as acting president of France in 1969 and 1974.

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PoliticsWould be 117

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1916 · 110 yrs

Sirimavo Bandaranaike

Sirima Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike (née Ratwatte; 17 April 1916 – 10 October 2000), commonly known as Sirimavo Bandaranaike, was a Sri Lankan stateswoman who thrice served as Prime Minister of Sri Lanka from 1960 to 1965, from 1970 to 1977, and from 1994 to 2000.

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PoliticsWould be 110

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1918 · 108 yrs

William Holden

William Franklin Holden (né Beedle; April 17, 1918 – November 12, 1981) was an American actor. He was an Academy Award and Primetime Emmy Award winner, and one of the biggest box-office draws of the 1950s.

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FilmWould be 108

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1927 · 99 yrs

Chandra Shekhar

Chandra Shekhar (17 April 1927 – 8 July 2007) was an Indian politician and the prime minister of India, between 10 November 1990 and 21 June 1991. He headed a minority government of a breakaway faction of the Janata Dal with outside support from the Indian National Congress.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsWould be 99

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1942 · 84 yrs

David Bradley

David John Bradley (born 17 April 1942) is an English actor. He is best known for his screen roles, which include Argus Filch in the Harry Potter film series, Walder Frey in the HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones and Abraham Setrakian in the FX horror series The Strain.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

FilmAge 84

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1946 · 80 yrs

Georges J. F. Köhler

Georges Jean Franz Köhler (German pronunciation:; 17 April 1946 – 1 March 1995) was a German biologist and immunologist who shared the 1984 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with César Milstein and Niels Kaj Jerne "for theories concerning the specificity in development and control of the immune system and the…

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ScienceWould be 80

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Showing 12 of 31

Famous deaths16

AD 485 · 1541 yrs

Proclus

Proclus Lycius (8 February 412 CE – 17 April 485 CE), called Proclus the Successor (Ancient Greek: Πρόκλος ὁ Διάδοχος, Próklos ho Diádokhos), was a Greek Neoplatonic philosopher, one of the last major classical philosophers of late antiquity.

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PhilosophyDied aged 73

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1695 · 331 yrs

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

Juana Inés de Asbaje y Ramírez de Santillana, better known as Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (12 November 1648 – 17 April 1695), was a Hieronymite nun and a Novohispanic writer, philosopher, composer and poet of the Baroque period, nicknamed "The Tenth Muse", "The Mexican Phoenix", and "The Phoenix of America" by her…

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LiteratureDied aged 46

View profile Photo (modified): Fray Miguel de Herrera · Public domain

1696 · 330 yrs

Madame de Sévigné

Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné (French:; 5 February 1626 – 17 April 1696), also widely known as Madame de Sévigné or Mme de Sévigné, was a French aristocrat, remembered for her letter-writing.

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LiteratureDied aged 70

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1711 · 315 yrs

Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor

Joseph I (Joseph Jacob Ignaz Johann Anton Eustachius; 26 July 1678 – 17 April 1711) was Holy Roman Emperor and ruler of the Habsburg monarchy from 1705 until his death in 1711. He was the eldest son of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor from his third wife, Eleonor Magdalene of Neuburg.

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RoyaltyDied aged 32

View profile Photo (modified): Frans van Stampart · Public domain

1790 · 236 yrs

Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 – April 17, 1790) was an American polymath active as a physicist, philosopher, statesman and inventor who was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He was a drafter and signer of the Declaration of Independence, and the first postmaster general.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 84

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1942 · 84 yrs

Jean-Baptiste Perrin

Jean Baptiste Perrin (French:; 30 September 1870 – 17 April 1942) was a French physicist who, in his studies of the Brownian motion of minute particles suspended in liquids (sedimentation equilibrium), verified Albert Einstein's explanation of this phenomenon and thereby confirmed the atomic nature of matter.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 71

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1975 · 51 yrs

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (5 September 1888 – 17 April 1975) was an Indian academic, philosopher and statesman who served as the Vice President of India from 1952 to 1962 and President of India from 1962 to 1967. He was the ambassador of India to the Soviet Union from 1949 to 1952.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsWould be 138

View profile Photo (modified): Government of India · Public domain

1976 · 50 yrs

Henrik Dam

Carl Peter Henrik Dam (21 February 1895 – 17 April 1976) was a Danish biochemist and physiologist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1943 for joint work with Edward Doisy in discovering vitamin K and its role in human physiology.

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ScienceWould be 131

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1993 · 33 yrs

Turgut Özal

Halil Turgut Özal (13 October 1927 – 17 April 1993) was a Turkish politician, bureaucrat, engineer and statesman who served as the president of Turkey from 1989 to 1993. He previously served as the prime minister of Turkey from 1983 to 1989 as the leader of the Motherland Party.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsWould be 99

View profile Photo (modified): European Communities / Christian Lambiotte · CC BY 4.0

1994 · 32 yrs

Roger Sperry

Roger Wolcott Sperry (August 20, 1913 – April 17, 1994) was an American neuropsychologist, neurobiologist, cognitive neuroscientist, who, together with David H. Hubel and Torsten Nils Wiesel, won the 1981 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work with split-brain research.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 113

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1997 · 29 yrs

Chaim Herzog

Chaim Herzog (Hebrew: חַיִּים הֶרְצוֹג‎; 17 September 1918 – 17 April 1997) was an Irish-Israeli politician, military officer, lawyer and author who served as President of Israel from 1983 to 1993.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsWould be 108

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1998 · 28 yrs

Linda McCartney

Linda Louise, Lady McCartney (née Eastman; September 24, 1941 – April 17, 1998) was an American photographer, musician, cookbook author, and activist. She was the keyboardist and harmony vocalist in the band Wings, which she had formed with her husband Paul McCartney of the Beatles.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MusicWould be 85

View profile Photo (modified): Kurt Schollenberger, Comet Photo AG Zürich · CC BY-SA 4.0

Showing 12 of 16

Events5

1895 · 131 yrs

Treaty of Shimonoseki

The Treaty of Shimonoseki (Japanese: 下関条約, Hepburn: Shimonoseki Jōyaku), also known as the Treaty of Maguan in China or the Treaty of Bakan (馬關條約, Bakan Jōyaku) in Japan, was signed in Shimonoseki, Japan, on April 17, 1895, between the Empire of Japan and the Qing dynasty.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Politics

1897 · 129 yrs

Greco-Turkish War of 1897

The Greco-Turkish War of 1897 or the Ottoman-Greek War of 1897 was fought between the Kingdom of Greece and the Ottoman Empire. Its immediate cause involved the status of the Ottoman province of Crete, whose Greek-majority population had long desired union with Greece.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1961 · 65 yrs

Bay of Pigs invasion

The Bay of Pigs Invasion, also known as Playa Girón in Cuba, after the beach where the battle took place, was a failed military landing operation on the southwestern coast of Cuba in April 1961 by the United States and the Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front (DRF), consisting of Cuban exiles who opposed Fidel…

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1961 · 65 yrs

33rd Academy Awards

The 33rd Academy Awards, honoring the best in film for 1960, were held on April 17, 1961, hosted by Bob Hope at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, California.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Culture

1975 · 51 yrs

Cambodian genocide

The Cambodian genocide was the systematic persecution and killing of Cambodian citizens by the Khmer Rouge under the general secretaryship of Pol Pot. It resulted in the deaths of approximately 2 million people from 1975 to 1979, around 25% of Cambodia's population in 1975 (c.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Tragedy

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