August 17

Today in History
• 1180 - Yoritomo Minamoto leads uprising against Kiyomori Taira
• 1590 - Governor of Roanoke Island colony, returns to find no trace of the colonists
• 1787 - Jews are granted permission in Budapest Hungary to pray in groups
• 1788 - Losantville, Ohio (now Cincinnati) founded
• 1807 - Robert Fulton's steamboat Clermont begins first trip up Hudson River
• 1835 - Solymon Merrick of Springfield, Massachusetts patents the first wrench
• 1858 - 1st bank in Hawaii opens
• 1859 - 1st air mail (in a balloon) took off from Lafayette, Indiana


Holidays - Traditional and Obscure
• Baby Boomers Recognition Day
• Gabon Independence Day
• Indonesia independence Day
• National Black Cat Appreciation Day
• National Massachusetts Day
• National Nonprofit Day
• National Thrift Shop Day
• National Workers’ Comp Adjuster Day

Birthdays
• 1629 - King John [Jan] III Sobieski of Poland
• 1786 - Davy Crockett, American frontiersman, adventurer and politician
• 1786 - Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, mother of Queen Victoria
• 1817 - Joseph baron Kervyn de Lettenhove, Belgian Internal minister (1870-71)
• 1844 - Menelik II, Emperor of Ethiopia (1889-1913)
• 1866 - Mir Mahboob Ali Khan, 6th Nizam of Hyderabad
• 1870 - Frederick F. Russell, physician, developed 1st successful typhoid fever vaccine
• 1887 - Charles I, last emperor of Austria-Hungary (1916-18)