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Today in History: July 17

1453
France defeats England at Castillon, France, ending the Hundred Years' War.

1762
Peter III of Russia is murdered and his wife, Catherine II, takes the throne.

1785
France limits the importation of goods from Britain.

1791
National Guard troops open fire on a crowd of demonstrators in Paris.

1799
Ottoman forces, supported by the British, capture Aboukir, Egypt from the French.

801
The U.S. fleet arrives in Tripoli.

1815
Napoleon Bonaparte surrenders to the British at Rochefort, France.

1821
Andrew Jackson becomes the governor of Florida.

1864
Confederate President Jefferson Davis replaces General Joseph E. Johnston with General John Bell Hood in hopes of defeating Union General William T. Sherman outside Atlanta.

1898
U.S. troops under General William R. Shafter take Santiago de Cuba during the Spanish-American War.

1944
Field Marshall Erwin Rommel is wounded when an Allied fighter strafes his staff car in France.

1946
Chinese communists attack the Nationalist army on the Yangtze River.

1960
American pilot Francis Gary Powers pleads guilty to spying charges in a Moscow court.

1966
Ho Chi Minh orders a partial mobilization of North Vietnam to defend against American airstrikes.

1987
Lt. Col. Oliver North and Rear Adm. John Poindexter begin testifying to Congress regarding the Iran-Contra scandal.

Today in History: Born on July 17
1674
Isaac Watts, English minister and hymn writer.

1763
John Jacob Astor, American fur trader and entrepreneur.

1888
S.Y. Agnon, Israeli writer (The Day Before Yesterday).

1889
Erle Stanley Gardner, detective writer, creator of Perry Mason.

1894
Georges Lemaitre, Belgian astronomer.


1898
Bernice Abbott, photographer.

1899
James Cagney, American actor (Yankee Doodle Dandy, Mister Roberts).

1902
Christina E. Stead, novelist and screenwriter.

1912
Art Linkletter, radio and television personality.

1922
Donald Davie, English poet and literary critic.

JOTD
A couple of Italian guys are discussing who, if they could choose any woman in the world, they'd rather bang
One of them says some big name actress, the other says "Virginia Pippilini."

The first guy's like, "Who's that? Is she a model?"

"I don't know"

"Actress?"

"I don't know."

"Singer?"

"I don't know."

"Well if you don't know, why choose her?"

The guy pulls out a newspaper and points to the headline. "Virginia Pipeline blows 50 men dead."