On This Day (April 17)

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• 1397 - Geoffrey Chaucer tells the Canterbury Tales for the first time at the court of Richard II. Chaucer scholars have also identified this date (in 1387) as when the book's pilgrimage to Canterbury starts.
• 1790 - Benjamin Franklin, American inventor, diplomat, and printer died. (b. 1706) (Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author and printer, satirist, political theorist, politician, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman and diplomat. As a scientist he was a major figure in the Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. He invented the lightning rod, bifocals, the Franklin stove, a carriage odometer, and a musical instrument. He formed both the first public lending library in America and first fire department in Pennsylvania. He was an early proponent of colonial unity and as a political writer and activist he, more than anyone, invented the idea of an American nation and as a diplomat during the American Revolution, he secured the French alliance that helped to make independence possible.)
  
  
  Benjamin Franklin by Jean-Baptist Greuze, 1777
  
  
• 1797 – French Revolutionary Wars: British Lieutenant General Ralph Abercromby and a force of over 6,000 men invaded Spanish-controlled Puerto Rico.
• 1837 - J.P. Morgan, American financier born. (d. 1913) (Morgan was an American financier, banker, philanthropist, and art collector who dominated corporate finance and industrial consolidation during his time. In 1892 Morgan arranged the merger of Edison General Electric and Thompson-Houston Electric Company to form General Electric. After financing the creation of the Federal Steel Company he merged the Carnegie Steel Company and several other steel and iron businesses to form the United States Steel Corporation in 1901. He bequeathed much of his large art collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and to the Wadsworth Atheneum of Hartford, Connecticut.)
  
  
  John Pierpont Morgan
  
  
• 1885 - Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen), Danish author born. (d. 1962) (Blixen was a Danish author also known under her pen name Isak Dinesen. Blixen wrote works both in Danish and in English. She is best known, at least in English, for Out of Africa, her account of living in Kenya, and one of her stories, Babette's Feast, both of which have been adapted into highly acclaimed motion pictures.)
• 1895 – The Empire of Japan and the Chinese Qing Empire signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki, an unequal treaty that ended the First Sino-Japanese War.
• 1942 – World War II: Captured French General Henri Giraud escaped from German captivity in the Königstein Castle.
• 1961 – Armed Cuban exiles backed by the CIA invaded Cuba, landing in the Bay of Pigs, with the aim of ousting Fidel Castro.
• 1975 – The Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot captured Phnom Penh, ending the Cambodian Civil War, and established the Democratic Kampuchea.
• 1982 – A new "patriated" Constitution of Canada, including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, was signed into law.
• 1986 – The Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly declared peace, ending the Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years' War.