You don't have Javascript enabled. To view this site requires Javascript to be enabled.
MjIxMi0tLTU1NC0tLTE=.jpg
If you can't access speech audio, click here to get Real Player
sponsored by peru

17th June

169---Image_large

1940: France to surrender


With Paris fallen to Germany, Marshal Henri Pétain, the new French leader, announces his intention to sign an armistice with the Nazis. Signed on June 22, the armistice authorized the occupation of more than half of France by Germany. In July, Pétain took office as chief of state at Vichy, a city in unoccupied France. Under Pétain, and later Pierre Laval, the Vichy government collaborated fully with the Nazis, arresting Jews and French resistance fighters and shipping them off to Nazi concentration camps. After the Normandy invasion in 1944, Pétain and Laval were forced to flee to German protection in the east. Both were eventually captured, found guilty of high treason, and sentenced to die. Laval was executed in 1945 but provincial French leader Charles de Gaulle commuted Pétain's sentence to life imprisonment. Pétain died on the Île d'Yeu off France in 1951.

1994

Start of football's World Cup Finals in the United States of America with an opening ceremony which included President Bill Clinton; television celebrity Oprah Winfrey and international singer Diana Ross.

1991

In South Africa, the repeal of the Population Registration Act of 1950 effectively ends the Government's policy of Apartheid.

1982

President Galtieri is ousted as Argentinian President after losing the Falklands War to Britain.

1982

Italian banker Roberto Calvi is found hanged underneath Blackfriars Bridge in London.

1982

Manchester United footballer Norman Whiteside becomes the youngest player to appear in the World Cup finals - playing for Northern Ireland against Yugoslavia in Spain aged 17 years and 41 days.

1976

Russian Boris Spassky becomes the world chass champion.

1970

Edwin Land patents his Polaroid camera.

1967

China explodes its first H-Bomb.

1940

World War II: Russian troops occupy the Baltic states.

1929

Premiere of the Alfred Hitchcock film Blackmail.

1928

Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly across the Atlantic.

1867

Pioneer doctor Joseph Lister performs the first operation using an antiseptic.

1823

Charles MacIntosh patents the waterproof cloth he uses to make raincoats.

1775

American War of Independence: Battle of Bunker Hill north of Boston, Massachussets which ends in victory for the British.

1579

English explorer Sir Francis Drake proclaims English sovereignty over an area of the New World known as New Albion - modern day California.

1980

American tennis player Venus Williams.

1946

American singer Barry Manilow.

1945

French champion cyclist Eddie Merckx - five times winner of the Tour De France.

1932

British athlete Derek Ibbotson - the first man to run a mile in exactly four minutes.

1930

England cricketer Brian Statham.

1917

American singer Dean Martin born in Ohio.

1900

German Nazi Party official Martin Bormann.

1867

John Robert Gregg born in Ireland - inventor of shorthand writing.

1703

Clergyman John Wesley - founder of Methodism.

1239

Edward I, King of England.

1990

Fashion designer Palmira Henry aged 44.

1974

American actress Pamela Britton.

1961

American actor Jeff Chandler.

1939

Eugene Weldman, the last convicted criminal in France to be sent to the guillotine.

1797

Persian ruler Aga Mohammed Khan.