Today in History, 6/17

1239: Edward I of England, aka Edward Longshanks, aka The Hammer of the Scots, is born.
1462: Vlad III the Impaler attempts to assassinate Mehmed II. The attempt is unsuccessful, but Mehmed is still forced to withdraw from Wallachia, Romania.1579: Sir Francis Drake claims California for England.
1631: Muntaz Mahal dies during childbirth. Her husband, the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, spends the next twenty years building her tomb, the Taj Mahal.1704: John Kay is born. He is the inventor of the flying shuttle which greatly increased the speed of weaving and helped kick off the Industrial Revolution.1775: The Battle of Bunker Hill takes place.
1882: Igor Stravinsky is born. Here he is conducting his own work Firebird.

1885: The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor.
1888: Heinz Guderian is born. He, along with Rommel, pioneered the concept of Blitzkrieg.1898: The United States Navy Hospital Corps is established.
1898: MC Escher is born.1901: The College Board announces its first standardized test, the forerunner to the modern SAT.
1903: Ruth Wakefield, inventor of the chocolate chip cookie, is born.
1904: Actor Ralph Bellamy is born. Here he is on the old Dinah Shore Chevy Show.

1930: President Hoover signs the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act into law.

1939: The last public guillotining in France takes place as convicted murderer Eugen Weidmann is put to death.
1945: Frank Ashmore is born. He played Martin, the traitorous lizard in the V saga.
1948: Barry Manilow is born.

1951: Joe Piscapo is born.

1957: Jon Gries is born. He played Lazlo Hollyfeld in Real Genius.
1958: Jello Biafra, lead singer for the Dead Kennedys is born.

1960: Thomas Haden Church is born. He played the dim-witted mechanic on Wings and The Strobe in the underrated movie The Specials.

1963: Greg Kinnear is born. He was the host of Talk Soup for a long time and played Captain Amazing in Mystery Men. Hey, Mystery Men and The Specials are similar movies and Church and Kinnear played similar characters in both!

1972: Five White House operatives are arrested while trying to install eavesdropping equipment in the Democratic National Headquarters in the Watergate office building.
1980: Venus Williams is born.1982: The body of Vatican banker Roberto Calvi is found hanging from the Blackfriars Bridge in London.
1987: The Dusky Seaside Sparrow becomes extinct.1994: OJ Simpson is arrested for the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.

Today in History elements mostly cribbed from The History Channel, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Jewish World Review, The Writer's Almanac and anything else I can dig up.