Portal:United States/On this day/August 17
{{Portal:United States/On this day/Layout
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|day=17
|events=
- 1807 – Robert Fulton's first American steamboat leaves New York City for Albany, New York on the Hudson River, inaugurating the first commercial steamboat service in the world.
- 1862 – Indian Wars: The Lakota (Sioux) Dakota War of 1862 begins in Minnesota as Lakota warriors attack white settlements along the Minnesota River.
- 1862 – American Civil War: Major General JEB Stuart is assigned command of all the cavalry of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.
- 1863 – American Civil War: In Charleston, South Carolina, Union batteries and ships bombard Confederate–held Fort Sumter.
- 1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Gainesville – Confederate forces defeat Union troops near Gainesville, Florida.
- 1907 – Pike Place Market, the longest continuously–running public farmers market in the US, opened in Seattle.
- 1915 – Jewish American Leo Frank is lynched for the alleged murder of a 13–year–old girl in Marietta, Georgia.
- 1942 – U.S. Marines raid the Japanese–held Pacific island of Makin (Butaritari).
- 1943 – World War II: The U.S. Eighth Air Force suffers the loss of 60 bombers on the Schweinfurt–Regensburg mission.
- 1943 – World War II: The U.S. Seventh Army under General George S. Patton arrive in Messina, Italy, followed several hours later by the British 8th Army under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, thus completing the Allied conquest of Sicily.
- 1943 – World War II: First Québec Conference of Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and William Lyon Mackenzie King begins.
- 1953 – Addiction: First meeting of Narcotics Anonymous in Southern California.
- 1959 – Quake Lake: Quake Lake was formed by the magnitude 7.5 1959 Yellowstone earthquake near Hebgen Lake in Montana.
- 1969 – Category 5 Hurricane Camille hits the Mississippi coast, killing 248 people and causing $1.5 billion in damage.
- 1988 – Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and U.S. Ambassador Arnold Raphel are killed in a plane crash.
- 1998 – Monica Lewinsky scandal: US President Bill Clinton admits in taped testimony that he had an "improper physical relationship" with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. On the same day he admits before the nation that he "misled people" about his relationship.
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