June 17 in history — On This Day

A photograph taken after the 1871 fire can make Chicago look as though its future had been decided by a wall of flame. A view from around 1905 tells a different story: tall offices, busy transport routes and commercial streets crowded again.

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Discovery takes Sultan bin Salman into space

Also on June 17

Aurel Vlaicu flies his first aircraft

This Week in History

Shenzhou 9 takes Liu Yang and her crewmates into orbit

Hayabusa returns a capsule from asteroid Itokawa

War & Conflict

Air France Flight 139 is hijacked

Space

Discovery takes Sultan bin Salman into space

Technology

Aurel Vlaicu flies his first aircraft

History

Stanislav Petrov Assesses a False Nuclear Alarm

China Conducts Its First Nuclear Test

Tsar Bomba: The Largest Nuclear Test Explosion

Crime & Justice

An Ovechkin family group hijacks Aeroflot Flight 3739

Seven Lives Lost: The Unsolved Mystery of United Air Lines Flight 23

Science

A criticality accident exposes Louis Slotin to radiation

Joseph Priestley isolates the gas later named oxygen

Stones fall from the sky near L’Aigle

Medicine & Health

Ether Day: The Demonstration That Changed Surgery

Surgeons Perform the First Partial Face Transplant

The First World AIDS Day

Nature & Disasters

A Wyoming Discovery Brings the Black-Footed Ferret Back Into View

The Endangered Species Act Is Signed

The Andes Flight Survivors' Rescue Is Completed

Exploration

The First Flight Around the World Returns to Seattle

Film & TV

Edison’s laboratory demonstrates a prototype Kinetoscope

The Lumière Cinématographe Is Shown to a Paying Paris Audience

The Story Behind the Photo

Chicago After the Fire: From Burned Blocks to a New Skyline

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The Road to the Moon

Fires That Changed Cities

The Age of Invention

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My Birthday in History

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