Today is Friday, April 17, the 107th day of 2015. 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
1895 ― Treaty of Shimonoseki signed, ends first Sino-Japanese War (1894-95)
1912 ― first unofficial gold record (Al Jolson’s “Ragging The Baby To Sleep”)
1961 ― 1,400 Cuban exiles land in Bay of Pigs attempt to overthrow Castro
1969 ― Czechoslovakia’s Communist Party chairman Alexander Dubcek deposed
1971 ― People’s Republic Bangladesh forms, under sheik Mujib ur-Rahman
1983 ― Nolan Ryan strikes out his 3,500th batter
1986 ― IBM produces first megabit-chip