On this day in hitory- 17th April

On this day in 1961, Cuban exiles invaded Cuba

A group of 1,500 Cuban exiles supported by the US government invaded the Bay of Pigs on the southern coast of Cuba in an attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro.

The invasion of Cuba was carried out by a force of about 1,400 exiled Cubans, with American support from the sea and air. The main landing point at the Bay of Pigs was a beach surrounded by a mosquito-infested swamp. The only way to get further in to the island was along just three heavily-defended roads. The fighting lasted just three days. The invasion force was badly outnumbered and the mass defection of Cubans they had hoped for - their only realistic hope of success - never materialised. More than 100 of the invasion force died in the attack, and 1,189 were taken prisoner.

Shortly afterwards, President Kennedy acknowledged US support for the invaders. It was the worst foreign policy embarrassment of his career. The Bay of Pigs debacle not only strengthened Fidel Castro's hold on power, but also brought the Soviet Union firmly on to his side. It acted as a key catalyst for the Cuban missile crisis 18 months later, on 28 October 1962, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.

Historian Jack Douglas died on this day

Jack Douglas (c1933 - 17 April 2012) was born in Waukegan, Illinois, USA. He was a librarian, university archivist and historian.

As university archivist, Douglas worked to acquire more than 8,000 photos of the Santa Clara Valley from 1913 to the 1950s from the heirs of commercial photographer John C. Gordon.

George Douglas (centre) was born on this day in 1817

George Bruce Douglas played a significant role in the industrial development of Cedar Rapids, creating what would become one of the largest cornstarch plants in the world. George first worked in his father's cereal business, Douglas and Stuart, which became The Quaker Oats Company.

Sir Patrick Geddes died in 1932

Sir Patrick Geddes, the Scottish biologist and social scientist, is regarded as the founding father of town planning. Geddes was greatly troubled by the plight of refugees of the war between Armenians and the Ottoman Empire in 1896. His response was to travel to Cyprus, helping the displaced people to resettle there in small agricultural and industrial units.
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Births

1771 - Douglas, Rev William
1773 - Douglas, Robert (3rd of Brigton)
1790 - Douglas, Janet
1796 - Douglass, Mary Warner
1806 - Douglass, Prudence
1816 - Douglas, George
1817 - Douglas, Margaret
1850 - Douglas, Susan
1854 - Douglas, Francis Archibald Brown MA
1855 - Douglas, Lucy Jane
1863 - Douglas, Addison Herman
1863 - Douglas, Edna Lucy
1873 - Douglas, Georges Louis Marie de
1875 - Douglas, Ella
1933 - Douglas, Ross James
1987 - Douglas, Peter Sholto

Births on this day

Deaths

1938 - Douglass, Aaron Samuel
1980 - Douglas, Vera Constance
1984 - Douglas, Barbara
1989 - Douglas, James Clifton
2002 - Douglas, Francis William "Frank"
2012 - Douglas, Jack

Deaths on this day

Events

1377 – King Richard II of England is crowned.
1661 – The first banknotes in Europe are issued by the Swedish bank Stockholms Banco.
1779 – American Revolutionary War: Light infantry of the Continental Army seize a fortified British Army position in a midnight bayonet attack at the Battle of Stony Point.
1790 – The District of Columbia is established as the capital of the United States after signature of the Residence Act.
1809 – The city of La Paz, in what is today Bolivia, declares its independence from the Spanish Crown during the La Paz revolution and forms the Junta Tuitiva, the first independent government in Spanish America, led by Pedro Domingo Murillo.
1861 – American Civil War: At the order of President Abraham Lincoln, Union troops begin a 25-mile march into Virginia for what will become the First Battle of Bull Run, the first major land battle of the war.
1927 – Augusto César Sandino leads a raid on U.S. Marines and Nicaraguan Guardia Nacional that had been sent to apprehend him in the village of Ocotal, but is repulsed by one of the first dive-bombing attacks in history.
1942 – Holocaust: Vel' d'Hiv Roundup (Rafle du Vel' d'Hiv): The government of Vichy France orders the mass arrest of 13,152 Jews who are held at the Vélodrome d'Hiver in Paris before deportation to Auschwitz.
1945 – World War II: The heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis leaves San Francisco with parts for the atomic bomb "Little Boy" bound for Tinian Island.
1945 – Manhattan Project: The Atomic Age begins when the United States successfully detonates a plutonium-based test nuclear weapon near Alamogordo, New Mexico.
1948 – Following token resistance, the city of Nazareth, revered by Christians as the hometown of Jesus, capitulates to Israeli troops during Operation Dekel in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
1969 – Apollo program: Apollo 11, the first mission to land astronauts on the Moon, is launched from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Kennedy, Florida.
1979 – Iraqi President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr resigns and is replaced by Saddam Hussein.
1999 – John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, Carolyn, and her sister, Lauren Bessette, died when the Piper Saratoga PA-32R aircraft he was piloting crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha's Vineyard.

Events on this day