What happened on August 17 ?

1153 - Eustace IV of Boulogne, son of Stephen of England

1304 - Emperor Go-Fukakusa of Japan (b. 1243)

1510 - Edmund Dudley, English statesman

1657 - Robert Blake, British admiral (b. 1599)

1676 - Hans Jakob Christoph von Grimmelshausen, German novelist

1673 - Regnier de Graaf, Dutch physician and anatomist (b. 1641)

1720 - Anne Lefèvre, French scholar (b. 1654)

1723 - Joseph Bingham, English scholar (b. 1668)

1768 (N. S.) - Vasily Kirillovich Trediakovsky, Russian poet (b. 1703)

1785 - Jonathan Trumbull, Governor of the Colony and the state of Connecticut (b. 1710)

1786 - King Frederick II of Prussia (b. 1712)

1834 - Husein Grada??evi?, Bosnian rebel leader (b. 1802)

1850 - Don José de San Martín, Argentine general (b. 1778)

1875 - Wilhelm Bleek, linguist (b. 1827)

1880 - Ole Bull, Norwegian violinist (b. 1810)

1896 - Bridget Driscoll, world's first automobile fatality

1901 - Edmond Audran, French composer (b. 1842)

1918 - Moisei Uritsky, Russian revolutionary (b. 1873)

1920 - Ray Chapman, baseball player (b. 1891)

1925 - Ioan Slavici, Transylvanian writer of Romanian origin (b. 1848)

1954 - Billy Murray, recording artist (b. 1877)

1969 - Otto Stern, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1888)

1971 - Wilhelm List, German field marshal (b. 1880)

1973 - Jean Barraqué, French composer (b. 1928)

1973 - Paul Williams, American singer (The Temptations) (b. 1939)

1973 - Conrad Aiken, American author (b. 1889)

1979 - Vivian Vance, actress (b. 1909)

1983 - Ira Gershwin, American lyricist (b. 1896)

1987 - Rudolf Hess, Nazi deputy (b. 1894)

1988 - Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, President of Pakistan (b. 1924)

1990 - Pearl Bailey, American singer and actress (b. 1918)

1992 - Al Parker, actor (b. 1952)

2004 - Gérard Souzay, French baritone (b. 1918)

2005 - John Bahcall, astrophysicist (b. 1934)