Today in News History

On June 17, several notable moments in the history of News stand out. In 1242, Following the Disputation of Paris, twenty-four carriage loads of Jewish religious manuscripts were burnt in Paris. In 1565, Matsunaga Hisahide assassinates the 13th Ashikaga shōgun, Ashikaga Yoshiteru. In 1920, François Jacob, French biologist and geneticist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2013) was born. In 1929, The town of Murchison, New Zealand is rocked by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake killing 17. At the time it was New Zealand's worst natural disaster. In 1940, World War II: RMS Lancastria is attacked and sunk by the Luftwaffe near Saint-Nazaire, France. At least 3,000 are killed in Britain's worst maritime disaster. In 1948, United Airlines Flight 624, a Douglas DC-6, crashes near Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, killing all 43 people on board. In 1963, A day after South Vietnamese President Ngô Đình Diệm announced the Joint Communiqué to end the Buddhist crisis, a riot involving around 2,000 people breaks out. One person is killed. In 1971, U.S. President Richard Nixon in a televised press conference called drug abuse "America's public enemy number one", starting the War on drugs. In 2015, Nine people are killed in a mass shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. In 2017, A series of wildfires in central Portugal kill at least 64 people and injure 204 others. Together, these milestones provide historical context for today's news news and ongoing narratives.