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What happened on August 17?
August 17 is day 229 of the year, day 230 in leap years. On August 17, 1876, Richard Wagner's opera Twilight of the Gods premiered in Bayreuth. In 1960, The Beatles gave their first concert under this name in Hamburg. In addition, the American actor Sean Penn was born in 1960.
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Events on August 17
- 1000 Stephen I is crowned the first King of Hungary in Esztergom by a papal envoy.
- 1786 After the death of Frederick II, his nephew Frederick William II becomes King of Prussia.
- 1807 Robert Fulton's steamboat North River Steamboat, also known as Clermont, begins regular steamboat service on the Hudson River between New York City and Albany.
- 1876 Richard Wagner's opera Twilight of the Gods premieres as part of the first Bayreuth Festival.
- 1949 The Otto mail-order company is founded in Hamburg by Werner Otto.
- 1956 The German Federal Constitutional Court bans the KPD on grounds of unconstitutionality.
- 1960 The Beatles give their first concert under this name in St. Pauli, Hamburg's red-light district.
- 1962 Peter Fechter bleeds to death in the death strip of the Berlin Wall, becoming one of the best-known victims of the shoot-to-kill order at the inner German border.
- 1977 Dieter Müller sets a record that still stands today with his six goals in the Bundesliga match 1. FC Köln against Werder Bremen (final score 7:2).
- 1982 Polygram introduces the first audio CDs: Waltzes by Frédéric Chopin, performed by Claudio Arrau, as well as the album The Visitors by the music group ABBA.
- 1987 By defeating Chris Evert in the final of the Manhattan Beach tennis tournament, Steffi Graf becomes the new No. 1 in the women's tennis world rankings and thereby displaces Martina Navratilova; she holds this position for 377 weeks.
- 2017 In an Islamist terrorist attack on Las Ramblas in Barcelona, at least 13 people are killed; about 120 others are injured.
Born on August 17
- 1876 Theodor Däubler, German writer, epicist, lyricist, storyteller, and art critic
- 1883 Friedrich Muckermann, German Catholic publicist and Jesuit, opponent of National Socialism
- 1893 Mae West, American film actress and screenwriter
- 1920 Maureen O’Hara, Irish-American actress and Oscar winner
- 1932 Jean-Jacques Sempé, French cartoonist
- 1941 Lothar Bisky, German cultural scholar and politician
- 1950 Christian Kohlund, Swiss actor
- 1952 Nelson Piquet, Brazilian racing driver
- 1960 Sean Penn, American actor, director, and author
- 1991 Austin Butler, American actor
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Source of events and birthdays: German Wikipedia article „17. August“, licence CC BY-SA 4.0, selected, shortened and translated by Birthday Paper.
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