ON THIS DAY FEBRUARY 17
364 Roman Emperor Jovian dies after a reign of just eight months. He is found dead in his tent in suspicious circumstances in Asia Minor. 1370 The Battle of Rudau, in Lithuania, takes place during the Northern Crusades (a series of religious wars against the pagan peoples around the Baltic Sea).
1510 Portuguese admiral Afonso de Albuquerque first conquers the city of Goa, entering it with little conflict.
1600 Martyr for science, friar Giordano Bruno is burned alive for heresy, in Rome, after challenging the Church’s core beliefs and proposing radical beliefs that were just too much to stomach back then. Among his views was the idea that stars were distant suns surrounded by planets, which might foster life. 1795 Thomas Seddal harvests an 8.3kg potato from his garden in Chester, England.
1801 US House of Representatives breaks electoral college tie by electing Thomas Jefferson as President over Aaron Burr.
1838 Weenen massacre: Hundreds are killed after Dingane orders his forces to wipe out the remaining Voortrekkers following the murder of Piet Retief and his companions.
1854 Britain recognises the independence of the Orange Free State.
1883 Arthur Ashwell patents ‘vacant/engaged’ toilet lock in London, England.
1867 The first ship navigates the Suez Canal. 1876 Sardines first canned by Julius Wolff in Eastport, Maine.
1924 American swimmer Johnny Weissmuller sets 100m world freestyle record 57.4s at Miami, Florida. He’s remembered for acting in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan movies.
1933 First issue of American news magazine Newsweek is published.
1947 The British Royal Family arrives for their visit to South Africa.
1972 Cumulative sales of the Volkswagen Beetle exceed those of the Ford Model T. The world’s best selling car is the Toyota Corolla. 1972 Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti receives a record 17 curtain calls after his performance in La fille du régiment at New York’s Metropolitan Opera.
1996 Garry Kasparov defeats chess-playing computer Deep Blue 4-2.
2006 A Philippines mudslide kills 1 126.
2016 Germany’s Max Planck Institute reveals the oldest-known case of human-Neanderthal sex, with a 50 000-year-old Neanderthal showing traces of Homo Sapiens DNA.
2017 A mostly underwater continent, Zealandia, in the South Pacific, is announced in the research journal GSA Today as having been discovered. Also known as the New Zealand continent or Tasmantis, it is an almost entirely submerged mass of continental crust that sank after breaking away from Australia 60–85 million years ago.
2021 South Africa, Africa’s worst-affected country, begins Covid-19 vaccinations with the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine in Cape Town.
2022 28 000 women apply for 30 jobs driving trains after they are advertised for women in Saudi Arabia for the first time | The Historian