June 17 is Eat Your Vegetables Day
National Apple Strudel Day
National Cherry Tart Day
Bunker Hill Day in honor of the Battle of 1775.
Sir Francis Drake claimed a land he calls Nova Albion (modern California) for England on June 17, 1579.
On June 17, 1631, Mumtaz Mahal died during childbirth. Her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, spent the next 17 years building her mausoleum, the Taj Mahal.
1673 – French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet reached the Mississippi River and become the first Europeans to make a detailed account of its course.
June 17, 1885 – The Statue of Liberty arrived in New York Harbor.
Watergate scandal: On June 17, 1972, five White House operatives are arrested for burgling the offices of the Democratic National Committee, in an attempt by some members of the Republican party to illegally wiretap the opposition.
From Today in Science:
Birthday of George Cormack (June 17, 1870), Co-inventor of Wheaties cereal. In 1921, a health clinician in Minneapolis, while mixing a batch of bran gruel for his patients, spilled some of the mix on a hot stove where it sizzled into a crisp flake. After tasting the very first Wheaties prototype, he took the idea to the Washburn Crosby Company, where the head miller, George Cormack, took on the task of trying to strengthen the flakes to keep them from turning to dust inside a cereal box. Cormack tested 36 varieties of wheat before he developed the perfect flake. It was introduced in test marketing in Nov 1924. Originally named Washburn’s Gold Medal Whole Wheat Flakes, the name Wheaties was chosen by a company wide contest won by Jane Bausman, the wife of the export manager. Numerous other entries included Nutties and Gold Medal Wheat Flakes.