17 Mordad 1387

Events

• 1782 (244 years ago) George Washington orders the creation of the Badge of Military Merit to honor soldiers wounded in battle. It is later renamed to the more poetic Purple Heart.
• 1786 (240 years ago) The first federal Indian Reservation is created by the United States.
• 1942 (84 years ago) World War II: The Battle of Guadalcanal begins as the United States Marines initiate the first American offensive of the war with landings on Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the Solomon Islands.
• 1946 (80 years ago) The government of the Soviet Union presented a note to its Turkish counterparts which refuted the latter's sovereignty over the Turkish Straits, thus beginning the Turkish Straits crisis.
• 1960 (66 years ago) Ivory Coast becomes independent from France.
• 1976 (50 years ago) Viking program: Viking 2 enters orbit around Mars.
• 1987 (39 years ago) Cold War: Lynne Cox becomes the first person to swim from the United States to the Soviet Union, crossing the Bering Strait from Little Diomede Island in Alaska to Big Diomede in the Soviet Union.
• 1989 (37 years ago) U.S. Congressman Mickey Leland (D-TX) and 15 others die in a plane crash in Ethiopia.

Births

• 317 (1709 years ago) Constantius II, Roman emperor (died 361)
• 1876 (150 years ago) Mata Hari, Dutch dancer and spy (died 1917)
• 1933 (93 years ago) Elinor Ostrom, American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2012)
• 1947 (79 years ago) Sofia Rotaru, Ukrainian singer-songwriter, producer, and actress
• 1958 (68 years ago) Bruce Dickinson, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
• 1960 (66 years ago) David Duchovny, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
• 1975 (51 years ago) Charlize Theron, South African actress
• 1984 (42 years ago) Yun Hyon-seok, South Korean poet and author (died 2003)

Deaths

• 461 (1565 years ago) Majorian, Roman emperor (born 420)
• 1106 (920 years ago) Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor (born 1050)
• 1848 (178 years ago) Jöns Jacob Berzelius, Swedish chemist and academic (born 1779)
• 1900 (126 years ago) Wilhelm Liebknecht, German lawyer and politician (born 1826)
• 1938 (88 years ago) Konstantin Stanislavski, Russian actor and director (born 1863)
• 1941 (85 years ago) Rabindranath Tagore, Indian author, poet, and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1861)
• 1957 (69 years ago) Oliver Hardy, American actor, singer, and director (born 1892)
• 2023 (3 years ago) William Friedkin, American film director (born 1935)

All 362 events, births and deaths of August 7