Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/February 17

This is a list of selected February 17 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.

Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article, featured list or picture of the day.

To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.

← February 16	February 18 →

Staging area

Images

Use only ONE image at a time

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  Giordano Bruno—See Giordano Bruno#A note on the Bruno "portraits": "Its authenticity is doubtful".
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  London congestion charging, outbound sign
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  Thomas Jefferson
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  Mariano Gómez, José Burgos, and Jacinto Zamora, collectively known as Gomburza
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  Geraldine Farrar as Madama Butterfly
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  Chaim Weizmann
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  Damage caused by the 2006 Southern Leyte landslide
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  Armory Show poster
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  Ruins of the Citadel of Saigon
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  United States bombers fly over Param Island in Chuuk Lagoon during Operation Hailstone.

Ineligible

Blurb	Reason
Tanis Diena	Tanis Diena and date not mentioned in article
1600 – Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno, best-known as a proponent of heliocentrism and the infinity of the universe, was burned at the stake as a heretic for his denial of several core Catholic doctrines by the Roman Inquisition.	lots of CN tags (9)
1801 – The U.S. House of Representatives elected Thomas Jefferson as President and Aaron Burr as Vice President, resolving an electoral tie in the 1800 presidential election.	bare URLS, lots of CN tags (5, mostly in one section)
1865 – American Civil War: The Union Army captured Columbia, South Carolina, from the Confederacy, while a large fire of unknown origin destroyed much of the city.	See this WP:ERRORS report
1872 – Three priests collectively known as Gomburza were executed in Manila, Philippines, by Spanish colonial authorities on charges of subversion arising from the Cavite mutiny.	refimprove
1933 – The American weekly news magazine Newsweek was first published.	refimprove section
1936 – The Phantom, one of the first modern comic book superheroes with the hallmark skintight costume and a mask with no visible pupils, made his first appearance in a daily newspaper comic strip.	refimprove section
1949 – Chaim Weizmann began his term as the first president of Israel.	lots of CN tags (21)
1979 – About 120,000 troops of the People's Liberation Army of China crossed into northern Vietnam, starting the Sino-Vietnamese War.	unreferenced section, refimprove section
1995 – In the presence of the four guarantor countries of the Rio Protocol, Ecuador and Peru signed a peace declaration confirming a ceasefire, leading to the official end of the Cenepa War eleven days later.	refimprove section
2003 – The London congestion charge, a fee that is levied on motorists travelling within designated parts of Central London, came into effect.	outdated
2008 – The declaration of independence of the Republic of Kosovo was adopted by the Kosovan parliament in Pristina.	refimprove section
Lola Montez |b|1821|	tagged with {ref improve} & {In popular culture}
Billie Joe Armstrong |b|1972	refimprove

Eligible

• 1621 – Myles Standish was elected the first commander of the militia of Plymouth Colony.
• 1815 – The United States ratifies the Treaty of Ghent – signed in late 1814 – formally ending the War of 1812.
• 1838 – Zulu impis massacred about 532 Voortrekkers, Khoekhoe, and Basuto near present-day Weenen, South Africa.
• 1894 – Rudolf Diesel's first working diesel engine ran for one minute.
• 1913 – The Armory Show, the first large modern-art exhibition in the United States, opened at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York City.
• 1944 – World War II: The U.S. Navy began Operation Hailstone, a massive naval air and surface attack against the Japanese naval and air base at Chuuk Lagoon in the Caroline Islands.
• 1959 – Vanguard 2 (model pictured), the first weather satellite, was launched to measure cloud cover distribution.
• 1978 – The Troubles: The Provisional Irish Republican Army carried out a bombing of a restaurant near Belfast, Northern Ireland, killing twelve people and injuring thirty others.

• Born/died this day: | Al-Tabari |d|923| Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria |d|1371| Denzil Holles, 1st Baron Holles |d|1680| Mary Carson Breckinridge |b|1881| Wally Pipp |b|1893| Margot Heuman |b|1928| Karen O'Connor |b|1958| Harisu|b|1975| Nestor Chylak |d|1982| Ed Sheeran |b|1991| Amber Merritt |b|1993

Notes

• Bahraini uprising of 2011 appears on February 14 and March of loyalty to martyrs appears on February 22, so Bloody Thursday should not be used in the same year.

February 17: Presidents' Day in the United States (2025)

Helicopter stolen in the 1974 White House incident

• 1859 – Cochinchina campaign: French Navy forces captured the Citadel of Saigon, defended by 1,000 Vietnamese soldiers of the Nguyễn dynasty.
• 1904 – Italian composer Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly premiered at La Scala in Milan to poor reviews, forcing him to revise the opera.
• 1964 – Gabonese military officers overthrew President Léon M'ba, but French forces, honouring a 1960 treaty, forcibly reinstated him two days later.
• 1974 – A U.S. Army soldier stole a Bell UH-1 helicopter (pictured) and landed it on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C.
• 2011 – Arab Spring: Bahraini security forces killed four protesters in a pre-dawn raid at the Pearl Roundabout in Manama, while the "Day of Rage" took place in Libya with nationwide protests against Muammar Gaddafi's government.

• Hung Liu (b. 1948)
• Joseph Favre (b. 1849)
• María de las Mercedes Barbudo (d. 1849)
• Don Tallon (b. 1916)

More anniversaries:

• February 16
• February 17
• February 18