Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/August 17

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 articleorpicture 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.

Use only ONE image at a time

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  Hurricane Camille
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  Robert Fulton
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  Soldiers lay flowers at the memorial for the Hill 303 massacre
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  Damage from the 1999 earthquake at İzmit, Turkey
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  Sukarno proclaiming Indonesian independence
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• 986 – Byzantine–Bulgarian wars: The Bulgarians defeated Byzantine forces at the Gate of Trajan near present-day Ihtiman, with Emperor Basil II barely escaping.
• 1676 – The Battle of Halmstad was fought at Fyllebro and was the last battle in Halland between Denmark and Sweden.
• 1907 – Pike Place Market, the most popular tourist destination in Seattle, Washington, U.S., opened for business.
• 1915 – American Jew Leo Frank was lynched by a mob of prominent citizens in Marietta, Georgia, for the alleged murder of a 13-year-old girl.
• 1915 – The Category 4 1915 Galveston hurricane made landfall in Galveston, Texas, and caused a great deal of destruction in its path, leaving 275-400 people dead and $50 million in damage.
• 1943 – Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt met in a highly secret military conference held in Quebec City.
• 1945 – Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta proclaimed the independence of Indonesia, igniting the Indonesian National Revolution against the Dutch Empire.
• 1950 – Korean War: A North Korean Army unit massacred 42 American prisoners of war so that they would not slow the North Koreans down.
• 1959 – Kind of BluebyMiles Davis, one of the best selling and most critically acclaimed jazz recordings of all time, was released.
• 1959 – A magnitude 7.3 M_L earthquake occurred in southwestern Montana, U.S., causing a huge landslide that caused over 28 fatalities and created Quake Lake.
• 1969 – Hurricane Camille struck the Mississippi coast of the United States, killing 259 people and causing $1.42 billion in damages.
• 1977 – The Soviet icebreaker NSArktika became the first surface ship to reach the North Pole.
• 1999 – A 7.5 M_w earthquake struck northwestern Turkey, killing over 17,000 people and leaving approximately half a million people homeless.
• 2009 – A turbine at Russia's Sayano–Shushenskaya DaminKhakassia broke apart violently, flooding the power station, causing widespread power failures, and killing 75 people.
• Born/died: Davy Crockett (b. 1786) · Tarja Turunen (b. 1977)

• Hurricane Charley appears on August 13 and Hurricane Andrew is on August 24, so Hurricane Camille should not appear in the same year
• Atlantic Charter appears on August 14, so Quebec Conference should not appear in the same year

August 17: Qixi Festival (Chinese calendar, 2018); Independence DayinIndonesia (1945)

Battle of Verneuil

• 1424 – Hundred Years' War: The allied English–Burgundian force gained a strategically important victory in the bloody Battle of Verneuil (pictured)inNormandy, France.
• 1560 – The Scottish Parliament approved a Protestant confession of faith to initiate the Scottish Reformation and disestablish Catholicism as the national religion.
• 1916 – World War I: Romania signed a secret treaty with the Entente Powers to enter the war in return for territorial considerations.
• 1945 – Animal Farm, George Orwell's satirical allegory of Soviet totalitarianism, was first published.
• 2008 – Michael Phelps won his eighth gold medal of the Beijing Summer Olympics, setting the record for the most golds won by an individual in a single games.

Matthew Boulton (d. 1809) · Gene Stratton-Porter (b. 1863) · Korrie Layun Rampan (b. 1953)