Here’s a chronological timetable of events that occurred on this day in history. Let’s find out what happened today in history.

February 17

1720       Spain signs the Treaty of the Hague

1919       Germany signs an armistice giving up territory in Poland.

1925       The first issue of Harold Ross’ magazine, The New Yorker.

1933       The League of Nations censures Japan in a worldwide broadcast.

1935       Thirty-one prisoners escape an Oklahoma prison after murdering a guard.

1938       The first color television is demonstrated at the Dominion Theatre in London.

1944       U.S forces land on Eniewetok Atoll in the South Pacific.

1945       Gen. MacArthur’s troops land on Corregidor in the Philippines.

1951       Packard introduces its “250” Chassis Convertible.

1955       Britain announces its ability to make hydrogen bombs.

1959       The United States launches its first weather station in space, Vanguard II.

1960       Martin Luther King Jr. is arrested in the Alabama bus boycott.

1963       Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev visits the Berlin Wall.

1969       Russia and Peru sign their first trade accord.

1973       President Richard Nixon names Patrick Gray director of the FBI.

1979       China begins a “pedagogical” war against Vietnam. It will last until March.

1985       Murray Haydon becomes the third person to receive an artificial heart.

Born on February 17

1774       Raphaelle Peale, U.S. painter

1864       A(ndrew) B(arton) “Banjo” Paterson, Australian poet and journalist.

1874       Thomas J. Watson Sr., U.S. industrialist.

1902       Marian Anderson, American singer.

1929       Chaim Potok, novelist (The Chosen, The Promise).

1963       Michael Jordan, basketball player for the Chicago Bulls.

Source: History Net