April 17

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 begins.

1492 – Christopher Columbus signs contract with Spain to find Indies

1524 – Giovanni Verrazano, a Florentine navigator, discovers New York Bay

1534 – Sir Thomas Moore confined in London Tower

1824 – Russia abandons all North American claims south of 54° 40’N

1865 – Mary Surratt is arrested as a conspirator in Lincoln’s assassination

1907 – Ellis Island 11,745 immigrants arrive

1932 – Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia ends slavery

1937 – Cartoon characters Daffy Duck, Elmer J Fudd debut

1951 – NY Yankee Mickey Mantle’s first game, he goes 1 for 4

1961 – 1,400 Cuban exiles land in Bay of Pigs in a doomed attempt to overthrow Castro

1964 – First game at Shea Stadium, NY Mets lose to Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-3

1964 – Ford Mustang formally introduced ($2,368 base)

1969 – Sirhan Sirhan is convicted of assassinating Sen Robert F Kennedy

1983 – India entered space age launching SLV-3 rocket

1986 – IBM produces first megabit-chip

1598 – Giovanni Riccioli, a Jesuit astronomer born in Ferrara, Italy studied philosophy and theology at the College of Parma.His studies included the pendulum as a means of measuring precise time and the study of falling bodies. One of the first to study the moon through the earliest telescopes, he was the one who gave names to the craters and valleys of the

moon, most notably the Sea of Tranquility, the site, ofthe first lunar landing in 1969. He died in 1671 at the age of 73

1837 – J. P. Morgan, Hartford, Connecticut, American banker

Deaths

1790 – Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father, inventor ambassador and writer (Poor Richards Almanac), dies at 84

1983 – Felix Pappalardi, rocker (Cream, Mountain), dies

Nevelson’s work Shadows and Flags is on Maiden Lane at Louise Nevelson Plaza, the first public place to be named after an artist in New York.

1988 – Louise Nevelson, sculptor, dies of brain tumor at 88

1990 – Ralph David Abernathy, US civil rights leader, dies