#TodayInHistory – February 17

February 17 – Some important events on this day

1510 👉🏼 Portuguese admiral Afonso de Albuquerque first conquers the city of Goa, entering it with little conflict
1568 👉🏼 Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II agrees to pay tribute to the Ottoman Empire for peace

1815 👉🏼 Treaty of Ghent ratified by the US Senate and signed by President James Madison ending War of 1812, over a month after it was signed in Europe.
The Treaty of Ghent, signed in the city of Ghent, Belgium, ended the War of 1812 between the United States and the United Kingdom. Relations were restored to “status quo ante bellum”, the situation which exited before the war, which mean there were no boundary changes.
Although signed into law on the British side on the 30th December, news of the treaty took a month to reach the US. Two major battles were fought during this period, the Battle of New Orleans won by America and the Second Battle of Fort Bowyer won by the British. The US ratified the treaty in February of 1815 under President James Madison.

1859 👉🏼 Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Un Ballo in maschera” premieres in Napoli
1865 👉🏼 Columbia, South Carolina, burns down during American Civil War
1876 👉🏼 Sardines first canned by Julius Wolff in Eastport, Maine
1904 👉🏼 Giacomo Puccini’s opera “Madama Butterfly” premieres in Milan
1936 👉🏼 The world’s first superhero, The Phantom, a cartoon strip by Lee Falk, makes his first appearance in comics.

1944 👉🏼 Battle of Eniwetok begins with US forces landing on Canna and Camelia islets.
The long thin atoll of Eniwetock in the Marshall Islands, under control by the Japanese during WW2 was invaded by American forces as Operation Catchpole 18th-21st February 1944. It was part of a campaign to secure three islands in the Enewetak Atoll aiming to gain a base with an airfield for future campaigns.
American naval warships began an initial bombardment on the 18th before landing their forces. The island was declared secured by American command on the 21st. 37 American lives were lost with 94 injured while Japanese forces counted 800 dead with just 23 prisoners.

1955 👉🏼 Ice Dance Championship at Vienna Austria won by J Westwood/Demmy GRB
1972 👉🏼 British Parliament votes to join the European Common Market
2016 👉🏼 Oldest known case of human-Neanderthal sex (100,000 yrs ago) revealed by Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig), 50,000 yr old Neanderthal woman’s remains from Altai mountains show traces of Homo Sapiens DNA
2017 👉🏼 Discovery of a new mostly underwater continent Zealandia in the South Pacific announced in research journal “GSA Today”