THURSDAY, APRIL 17, 2008

Today is Thursday, April 17, the 108th day of 2008. There are 258 days left in the year.

1492 _ Christopher Columbus signs contract with Spain to find the Indies

1521 _ Martin Luther is excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church

1534 _ Sir Thomas More confined in London Tower

1629 _ First commercial fishery established

1932 _ Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia ends slavery

1969 _ Czechoslovakia's Communist Party chairman Alexander Dubcek deposed

1969 _ Sirhan Sirhan is convicted of assassinating Senator Robert F. Kennedy

1971 _ Egypt, Libya and Syria form federation (FAR)

1971 _ People's Republic Bangladesh forms, under sheik Mujib ur-Rahman

1986 _ IBM produces first megabit-chip