How Many Days Until February 17?

This day in history: February 17

1. 1944

   World War II: The U.S. Navy began Operation Hailstone, a massive naval air and surface attack against the Japanese naval and air base at Chuuk Lagoon in the Caroline Islands.

2. 1959

   Vanguard 2, the first weather satellite, was launched to measure cloud cover distribution.

3. 1964

   Gabonese military officers overthrew President Léon M'ba, but French forces, honouring a 1960 treaty, forcibly reinstated him two days later.

4. 1974

   A 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.

5. 1978

   The Troubles: The Provisional Irish Republican Army carried out a bombing of a restaurant near Belfast, Northern Ireland, killing twelve people and injuring thirty others.

6. 1996

   An earthquake with a moment magnitude of 8.2 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent) occurred in the New Guinea Trench, which generated a tsunami that killed 108 people.

7. 2011

   Arab 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.

Source: Wikipedia, text available under CC BY-SA 4.0.