TODAY IN HISTORY

the 46th day of 2017. There are 319 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:

On this date in 1867, “On the Beautiful Blue Danube,” a waltz by Johann Strauss (the Younger), was publicly performed for the first time by the Vienna Men’s Choral Society, garnering a polite, if decidedly less than enthusiastic, audience response. (A revised orchestral version proved much more successful.)

In 1898,

the U.S. battleship Maine mysteriously blew up in Havana Harbor, killing more than 260 crew members and bringing the United States closer to war with Spain.

In 1933,

President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt escaped an assassination attempt in Miami that mortally wounded Chicago Mayor Anton J. Cermak; gunman Giuseppe Zangara was executed more than four weeks later.

In 1942,

the British colony Singapore surrendered to Japanese forces during World War II.

In 1952,

a funeral was held at Windsor Castle for Britain’s King George VI, who had died nine days earlier.

In 1961,

73 people, including an 18-member U.S. figure skating team en route to the World Championships in Czechoslovakia, were killed in the crash of a Sabena Airlines Boeing 707 in Belgium.

In 1967,

the rock band Chicago was founded by Walter Parazaider, Terry Kath, Danny Seraphine, Lee Loughnane, James Pankow and Robert Lamm; the group originally called itself The Big Thing.

In 1989,

the Soviet Union announced that the last of its troops had left Afghanistan after more than nine years of military intervention.

In 1992,

a Milwaukee jury found that Jeffrey Dahmer was sane when he killed and mutilated 15 men and boys. (The decision meant that Dahmer, who had already pleaded guilty to the murders, would receive a mandatory life sentence for each count; Dahmer was beaten to death in prison in 1994.)

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:

Former Illinois Congressman John Anderson is 95. Actress Claire Bloom is 86. Songwriter Brian Holland is 76. Rock musician Mick Avory (The Kinks) and jazz musician Henry Threadgill are 73.