Explore 17 February

Explore 17 February: the philosopher Giordano Bruno is burned in Rome, the House of Representatives breaks a deadlock to make Thomas Jefferson president, China invades Vietnam and Kosovo declares independence. Meet René Laennec, Michael Jordan and Ed Sheeran, born on 17 February.

This day through time →6 verified events across 4 eras

⌛6Full
Timeline ◈4Historic
Moments ♙7Born
Today ✦6Lives
Remembered ◉1Firsts &
Discoveries ♫1Culture
Stories

Ettore Ferrari’s bronze statue of Giordano Bruno, raised in 1889 on the Campo de’ Fiori in Rome where he was burned.

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Livioandronico2013 · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.

1600

The philosopher Giordano Bruno is burned in Rome

Giordano Bruno, a Dominican friar from near Naples, left his order and wandered Europe as a teacher and writer. Going further than Copernicus, he argued that the universe was infinite, with countless suns and worlds, and he held views on God and the soul that the Church judged heretical.

Lured to Venice in 1592, he was handed to the Inquisition and sent to Rome, where he was held and questioned for almost eight years. He refused to recant, and on 17 February 1600 he was taken to the Campo de’ Fiori, gagged and burned alive. In 1889 a statue of him was raised on the spot, and he became a symbol of free thought.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Giordano Bruno ↗

Thomas Jefferson, painted by Rembrandt Peale in 1800.

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Rembrandt Peale · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1801

The House of Representatives breaks a deadlock and makes Jefferson president

In the election of 1800, electors cast two votes each without saying which was for president. Thomas Jefferson and his running mate, Aaron Burr, tied with 73 votes each, so the choice passed to the House of Representatives, where each state delegation had one vote.

From 11 February 1801 the House voted again and again without either man winning the nine states needed. At last the Federalist James Bayard of Delaware and others cast blank ballots, and on 17 February, on the 36th ballot, Jefferson was elected with ten states. It was the first peaceful transfer of power between rival parties in the United States, and the Twelfth Amendment of 1804 gave president and vice-president separate votes.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: US House of Representatives, History, Art and Archives: Thomas Jefferson ↗

The Friendship Pass gate on the border between China and Vietnam.

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Viethavvh at vi.wikipedia · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1979

China invades Vietnam

China and Vietnam had been allies against the United States, but after 1975 they fell out. Vietnam drew close to the Soviet Union, ethnic Chinese were driven out of Vietnam, and in December 1978 Vietnam invaded Cambodia and overthrew the Khmer Rouge, China’s ally.

On 17 February 1979 Chinese forces, several hundred thousand strong, crossed the border to ‘teach Vietnam a lesson’. They took several provincial capitals and destroyed much of the frontier region but met fierce resistance, and in March they withdrew. Both sides claimed victory, many thousands died, and clashes along the border went on through the 1980s.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: history of Vietnam ↗

The NEWBORN monument in Pristina, unveiled on the day of independence, repainted with the flags of countries that recognise Kosovo, in February 2013.

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Arild Vågen · CC BY-SA 3.0Resized and cropped for display.

2008

Kosovo declares independence from Serbia

After the war of 1998-99 and NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia, Kosovo, a province of Serbia with an Albanian majority, was run by the United Nations. Years of talks on its future failed to bring Belgrade and Pristina to an agreement.

On 17 February 2008 the Kosovo Assembly declared independence, with the Serb members absent. The United States and most European Union countries recognised the new state, but Serbia, backed by Russia, rejected it, and the UN Security Council was divided. In 2010 the International Court of Justice advised that the declaration had not broken international law. Kosovo is recognised by many countries but not all.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: International Court of Justice: accordance with international law of the unilateral declaration of independence in respect of Kosovo ↗

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PEOPLE

Born Today

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Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1781

René Laennec

French physician who invented the stethoscope.

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Nobelprize.org · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1888

Otto Stern

German-American physicist who won the 1943 Nobel Prize for work on the magnetic properties of atoms.

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Johannes Kolfhaus, Gymn. Marienthal · CC BY-SA 3.0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1955

Mo Yan

Chinese novelist of Red Sorghum, Nobel laureate in 2012.

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DOD photo by D. Myles Cullen · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1963

Michael Jordan

American basketball player who won six NBA titles with the Chicago Bulls.

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Raph_PH · CC BY 2.0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1972

Billie Joe Armstrong

American singer and guitarist of Green Day.

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Colleen Sturtevant · CC BY 4.0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1981

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

American actor of Inception and 500 Days of Summer.

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Harald Krichel · CC BY-SA 3.0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1991

Ed Sheeran

English singer-songwriter of Shape of You.

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IDEAS THAT CHANGED THINGS

Firsts, Science & Discoveries

The submarine H. L. Hunley on a wharf at Charleston, painted by Conrad Wise Chapman in December 1863.

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Conrad Wise Chapman · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1864

A submarine sinks a warship for the first time

During the American Civil War, Union ships blockaded the Confederate port of Charleston, South Carolina. The Confederates tried a secret weapon: the H. L. Hunley, a narrow iron submarine driven by a hand crank turned by seven men, with an eighth to steer. It had sunk twice in trials, and the second accident killed its backer, Horace Hunley, and all his crew.

On the night of 17 February 1864 it crept up on the Union sloop Housatonic off Charleston and drove a charge of black powder on a long spar into its hull. The Housatonic sank with five of its crew, the first warship sunk by a submarine. The Hunley never returned; its wreck was found in 1995 and raised in 2000.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Naval History and Heritage Command: H. L. Hunley wreck (1864) ↗

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MUSIC • FILM • BOOKS • CULTURE

Culture Stories

Leopoldo Metlicovitz’s poster for Madama Butterfly, 1904.

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Leopoldo Metlicovitz · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1904

Madama Butterfly is jeered on its first night

Giacomo Puccini, the most successful Italian opera composer of his day after La Bohème and Tosca, based his new opera on a play about a young Japanese woman abandoned by an American naval officer, and worked on it with great care.

At its first performance at La Scala in Milan on 17 February 1904 the audience booed and hissed, mocking its Japanese setting and calling it a copy of his earlier works. Puccini withdrew it at once and revised it, splitting the long second act. The new version, staged at Brescia that May, was a triumph, and Madama Butterfly became one of the most performed operas in the world.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Madama Butterfly ↗

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LIVES REMEMBERED