About August 17
August 17, 2025 is the 229th day of the year 2025 in the Gregorian calendar. There are 136 days remaining until the end of this year. The day of the week is Sunday.
You can browse the full year calendar in case you need it.
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Leo is the sun sign of a person born on this day. Peridot is the modern birthstone for this month. Diamond is the mystical birthstone from Tibetan origin that dates back over a thousand years.
According to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, there are 184 days remaining before the start of the next Chinese New Year.
What Happened On August 17
- 986 –A Byzantine army is destroyed in the pass of Trajan’s Gate by the Bulgarians under the Comitopuli Samuel and Aron. The Byzantine emperor Basil II narrowly escaped.
- 1807 –Robert Fulton’s North River Steamboat leaves New York City for Albany, New York on the Hudson River, inaugurating the first commercial steamboat service in the world.
- 1863 –American Civil War: In Charleston, South Carolina, Union batteries and ships bombard Confederate-held Fort Sumter.
- 1883 –The first public performance of the Dominican Republic’s national anthem, Himno Nacional.
- 1914 –World War I: Battle of Stalluponen – The German army of General Hermann von François defeats the Russian force commanded by Pavel Rennenkampf near modern-day Nesterov, Russia.
- 1918 –Bolshevik revolutionary leader Moisei Uritsky is assassinated.
- 1942 –World War II: U.S. Marines raid the Japanese-held Pacific island of Makin (Butaritari).
- 1943 –World War II: The Royal Air Force begins Operation Hydra, the first air raid of the Operation Crossbow strategic bombing campaign against Germany’s V-weapon programme.
- 1943 –World War II: The U.S. Seventh Army under General George S. Patton arrives in Messina, Italy, followed several hours later by the British 8th Army under Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery, thus completing the Allied conquest of Sicily.
- 1945 –Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta proclaim the independence of Indonesia, igniting the Indonesian National Revolution against the Dutch Empire.
- 1950 –Hill 303 massacre: American POWs were massacred by North Korean Army.
- 1953 –Addiction: First meeting of Narcotics Anonymous in Southern California.
- 1959 –Quake Lake is formed by the magnitude 7.5 1959 Yellowstone earthquake near Hebgen Lake in Montana.
- 1960 –Decolonization: Gabon gains independence from France.
- 1962 –East German border guards kill 18-year-old Peter Fechter as he attempts to cross the Berlin Wall into West Berlin becoming one of the first victims of the wall.
- 1969 –Category 5 Hurricane Camille hits the Mississippi coast, killing 248 people and causing $1.5 billion in damage.
- 1979 –Two Soviet Aeroflot jetliners collide in mid-air over Ukraine, killing 156.
- 1980 –Azaria Chamberlain disappears, probably taken by a dingo, leading to what was then the most publicised trial in Australian history.
- 1988 –Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and U.S. Ambassador Arnold Raphel are killed in a plane crash.
- 2005 –The first forced evacuation of settlers, as part of the Israel unilateral disengagement plan, starts.
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