On This Day: February 17

This is the 48th day of the year.

Fact of the Day: driving course

The first driving course at a high school was offered at State College High School in State College, Pennsylvania, in 1934. It included classroom work and behind-the-wheel training. The first instructor was Amos Earl Neyhart. Students who completed the course received Pennsylvania automobile operators' licenses.

Holidays

Feast day of Saints Theodulus and Julian, St. Evermod, St. Loman, St. Fintan of Cloneenagh, and St. Finan of Lindisfarne.

Events

1621 - Miles Standish became a military captain.

1801 - The U.S. House of Representatives broke an electoral college tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, electing Jefferson as the third President and Burr as Vice President.

1816 - A street in Baltimore became the first to be lit with gas from America's first gas company.

1864 - The Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley sank the USS Housatonic in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina.

1865 - South Carolina's capital city, Columbia, was destroyed by fire as Major General William Tecumseh Sherman marched through.

1897 - The forerunner of the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA), the National Congress of Mothers, was founded in Washington.

1933 - "Newsweek" was first published.

1938 - The first color television was demonstrated at the Dominion Theatre in London.

1947 - The Voice of America (VOA) began radio broadcasts.

1968 - The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame opened in Springfield, Massachusetts.

1972 - President Richard Nixon departed on his historic trip to China.

1979 - In response to the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, China launched an invasion of Vietnam.

1979 - "A Prairie Home Companion" debuted on National Public Radio.

2002 - Microsoft released Windows 2000.

Births

1781 - Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laënnec, French physician, inventor of stethoscope.

1843 - A. Montgomery Ward, American merchant, department store mogul.

1874 - Thomas J. Watson Sr., American industrialist who built IBM into the largest manufacturer of data processing equipment in the world.

1889 - H.L. Hunt (Haroldson Lafayette Hunt), American industrialist.

1902 - Marian Anderson, US operatic contralto.

1942 - Huey P. Newton, American activist who co-founded the Black Panthers.

1963 - Michael Jordan, former basketball player, born in Brooklyn, New York.

1972 - Billie Joe Armstrong, songwriter, lead vocalist, and guitarist for the punk rock band Green Day.

1981 - Paris Hilton, American socialite and heiress.

Deaths

1909 - Geronimo, leader of the Chiricahua Apache.

1919 - Wilfrid Laurier, seventh Prime Minister of Canada.

1982 - Lee Strasburg, American actor.

2004 - José López Portillo, President of Mexico from 1976 to 1982.