📜 This Day in History
February 17
1621Myles Standish was elected the first commander of the militia of Plymouth Colony.- 1859Cochinchina campaign: French Navy forces captured the Citadel of Saigon, defended by 1,000 Vietnamese soldiers of the Nguyễn dynasty.
- 1904Italian composer Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly premiered at La Scala in Milan to poor reviews, forcing him to revise the opera.
- 1959Vanguard 2, the first weather satellite, was launched to measure cloud cover distribution.
- 1974A U.S. Army soldier stole a Bell UH-1 helicopter and landed it on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C.
- 2011Arab Spring: Bahraini security forces killed four protesters in a pre-dawn raid at the Pearl Roundabout in Manama, while the "Day of Rage" took place in Libya with nationwide protests against Muammar Gaddafi's government.
