1462 Forces led by Vlad III Dracula of Wallachia (pictured) attacked an Ottoman camp at night in an attempt to assassinate Mehmed II.
Vlad III, the Impaler
1775 American Revolutionary War: British forces took Bunker Hill outside of Boston.
1789 French Revolution: The Third Estate of France declared itself the National Assembly.
1818 - Charles Gounod, French composer born. (d. 1893) (Gounod was a French composer, best known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Romιo et Juliette.)
Waltz for Faust
1867 - John Robert Gregg, inventor of shorthand system born. (d. 1948)
1882 - Igor Stravinsky, Russian composer born. (d. 1971) (Stravinsky was a Russian composer, considered by many in both the West and his native land to be the most influential composer of 20th century music.)
Finale of the ballet Firebird by Igor Stravinsky. Berliner Philharmoniker. Claudio Abbado, conductor.
1898 - M. C. Escher, Dutch artist born. (d. 1972) (Escher was a Dutch graphic artist. He is known for his often mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs and mezzotints. These feature impossible constructions, explorations of infinity, architecture and tessellations.)
Belvedere
1901 - The College Board introduces its first standardized test, the forerunner to the SAT.
1953 The Group of Soviet Forces in Germany and the Volkspolizei violently suppressed an uprising in Berlin against the East German government.
1972 The Watergate scandal began after five men were arrested for stealing from the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C..
1982 The body of Italian banker Roberto Calvi, known as "God's Banker" due to his close association with the Vatican, was found hanging from scaffolding beneath London's Blackfriars Bridge.
Picture of the Day
The 71st plate from German biologist Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur, showing radiolarians of the order Stephoidea. Radiolarians form intricate mineral skeletons, usually with a central capsule dividing the cell into inner and outer portions. Radiolarians are found as zooplankton throughout the ocean and are important diagnostic fossils, found from the Cambrian period onwards.
06-16-2008, 09:28 PM
On This Day (June 17) 
