June 17

Events

1462 - Vlad III the Impaler attempts to assassinate Mehmed II in The Night Attack, and the latter is forced to retreat from Wallachia.
1579 - Sir Francis Drake claims a land he calls Nova Albion (modern California) for England.
1775 - American Revolutionary War: Battle of Bunker Hill
1789 - In France, the Third Estate declares itself the national assembly.
1885 - The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor.
1939 - Last public guillotining in France. Eugen Weidmann, a convicted murderer, is guillotined in Versailles outside the prison Saint-Pierre.
1940 - World War II: Operation Ariel begins - Allied troops start to evacuate France, following Germany's takeover of Paris and most of the nation.
1940 - The three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania fall under the occupation of the Soviet Union.
1944 - Iceland becomes a republic
1953 - Workers Uprising: In East Germany, the Soviet Union orders a division of troops into East Berlin to quell a rebellion.
1961 - The New Democratic Party of Canada is founded with the merger of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and the Canadian Labour Congress.
1972 - Watergate scandal: Five White House operatives are arrested for burglarizing the offices of the Democratic National Committee located in the Watergate Hotel.
1994 - Following a televised low-speed highway chase and a failed attempt at suicide, O.J. Simpson is arrested for the murders of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.

1239 - King Edward I of England (d. 1307)
1882 - Igor Stravinsky, Russian composer (d. 1971)
1888 - Heinz Guderian, German General (d. 1954)
1900 - Martin Bormann, NSDAP official (d. 1945)
1910 - Diana Mitford, wife of Sir Oswald Mosley (d. 2003)
1933 - Harry Browne, Libertarian Party presidential candidate (d. 2006)
1942 - Mohamed ElBaradei, Egyptian IAEA director, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
1943 - Newt Gingrich, American politician
1945 - Tommy Franks, American General