What happened on April 17th?

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Year What happened?
1194 Richard I (the Lionheart) is crowned king of England for the second time, after earlier surrendering his kingdom to the Holy Roman emperor Henry VI Learn more..
  203 years
1397 Geoffrey Chaucer read his Canterbury Tales out loud for the first time in King Richard II's court. Learn more..
  124 years
1521 Martin Luther appears before the Diet of Worms to defend his ideas on church reform Learn more..
  269 years
1790 Benjamin Franklin dies Learn more..
  47 years
1837 American financier John Pierpont (J.P.) Morgan was born in Hartford, Connecticut. Learn more..
  23 years
1860 The first world heavyweight boxing championship is fought in England - the brutal bout continues for 42 rounds Learn more..
  35 years
1895 The Treaty of Shimonoseki concludes the first Sino-Japanese War - China is defeated Learn more..
  16 years
1911 Irving Berlin Alexander's Rag-time Band was probably given its first public performance by Emma Carus Learn more..
  40 years
1951 The Peak District becomes the Britain's first National Park Learn more..
1956 Premium Bonds first launched in the UK Learn more..
1961 A U.S.-backed attempt to overthrow Premier Fidel Castro of Cuba failed disastrously in what became known as the Bay of Pigs. Learn more..
1964 The debut album The Rolling Stones is released by Decca Records in the UK Learn more..
1969 The 21-year-old Bernadette Devlin is voted in as Britain's youngest ever female MP Learn more..
The voting age in the UK is lowered from 21 to 18 Learn more..
1970 The crew of Apollo 13 successfully returned to Earth after an oxygen tank explosion aborted their planned moon landing Learn more..
1975 Cambodia's ruling Lon Nol government collapses allowing the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, to enter Phnom Penh Learn more..
1978 Mir Akbar Khyber's assassination triggers a communist coup in Afghanistan Learn more..
1982 The Canada Act, also known as the Constitution Act, takes effect making Canada a wholly independent, fully sovereign state Learn more..
1984 Police Constable Yvonne Fletcher is killed by gunfire from the Libyan Embassy in London Learn more..
1986 The world's longest war (335 years) ends between the Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly, although some historians doubt that war had ever been declared Learn more..
1989 The Polish labour union Solidarity was granted legal status after nearly a decade of struggle. Learn more..
  14 years
2003 U.S. forces in Baghdad capture Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, a half-brother of Saddam Hussein Learn more..
2009 Regulators seize American Sterling Bank of Sugar Creek, and Great Basin Bank of Nevada, bringing to 25 the number of bank failures in the U.S. Learn more..
2011 The popular TV show Game of Thrones debuts on HBO Learn more..
  15 years
2026 Today

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