What Happened This Day In History... April 17

858		Benedict III ends his reign as Catholic Pope.
1492		Christopher Columbus signs a contract with Spain to find a western route to the Indies.
1521		Martin Luther is excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church.
1524		Present-day New York Harbor is discovered by Giovanni Verrazano.
1535		Antonio Mendoza is appointed first viceroy of New Spain.
1758		Frances Williams, the first African-American to graduate for a college in the western hemisphere, publishes a collection of Latin poems.
1808		Bayonne Decree by Napoleon I of France orders seizure of U.S. ships.
1824		Russia abandons all North American claims south of 54' 40'.
1861		Virginia become eighth state to secede from the Union.
1864		General Grant bans the trading of prisoners.
1865		Mary Surratt is arrested as a conspirator in the Lincoln assassination.
1875		The game "snooker" is invented by Sir Neville Chamberlain.
1895		China and Japan sign peace treaty of Shimonoseki.
1929		Baseball player Babe Ruth and Claire Hodgeson, a former member of the Ziegfield Follies, get married.
1946		The last French troops leave Syria.
1947		Jackie Robinson bunts for his first major league hit.
1961		Some 1,400 Cuban exiles attack the Bay of Pigs in an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro.
1964		Jerrie Mock becomes first woman to fly solo around the world.
1969		Sirhan Sirhan is convicted of assassinating Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
1970		Apollo 13–originaly scheduled to land on the moon–lands back safely on Earth after an accident.
1975		Khmer Rouge forces capture the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh.
1983		In Warsaw, police rout 1,000 Solidarity supporters.
Born on April 17
1622		Henry Vaughan, poet
1676		Frederick I, king of Sweden
1741		Samuel Chase, signer of the Declaration of Independence
1820		Alexander Cartwright, sportsman, developed baseball.
1866		Ernest Henry Starling, British physiologist.
1885		Isak Dinesen (Karen Dinesen), Danish writer (Out of Africa).
1894		Nikita S. Khrushchev, Soviet premier (1958-64).
1897		Thornton Wilder, novelist and playwright (Our Town).
1923		Harry Reasoner, American broadcast journalist.
1928		Cynthia Ozick, writer (The Cannibal Galaxy, The Messiah of Stockholm).