Today in History, June 17th
On June 17, 1972, five burglars were arrested at the Watergate complex, starting the scandal that toppled Nixon. Plus Bunker Hill.
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June 17 is best known for 1972, when five men were arrested inside the Democratic National Committee’s offices at the Watergate complex, the break-in that grew into the scandal that ended Richard Nixon’s presidency. The date also saw the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775 and the Statue of Liberty’s arrival in New York Harbor in 1885.
The big story: The Watergate burglars are arrested (1972)
In the early hours of June 17, 1972, police caught five men inside the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office-hotel-apartment complex in Washington, D.C. They were carrying burglary tools, cameras, film and three tear gas guns the size of pens, and officers found electronic bugging gear at the scene and in rooms the men had rented in the building. Four of the men were Cuban exiles or Cuban American. The fifth, James W. McCord Jr., was a former CIA agent, and within a day he was identified as the paid security coordinator for Nixon’s reelection committee. Nixon won a landslide that November anyway. The story kept unspooling through Washington Post reporting, a Senate investigation and a fight over secret White House tapes. When the tapes were released in August 1974, they showed Nixon telling an aide to have the FBI halt its investigation. Days later he became the first U.S. president to resign.
More events on June 17
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1631 | Mumtaz Mahal, wife of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, died in childbirth. He later built the Taj Mahal in her memory. |
| 1775 | British troops attacked colonial militia on Breed’s Hill outside Boston in the Battle of Bunker Hill, the first major battle of the American Revolution. |
| 1876 | Sioux and Cheyenne warriors won a tactical victory over General George Crook’s column at the Battle of the Rosebud, eight days before the Little Bighorn. |
| 1885 | The Statue of Liberty arrived in New York Harbor from France. |
| 1900 | Future president Herbert Hoover and his wife, Lou, were trapped when Boxer rebels besieged the foreign community in Tianjin, China. The ordeal lasted nearly a month. |
| 1940 | With Paris already fallen, Marshal Henri Pétain, named France’s prime minister the night before, announced he would seek an armistice with Nazi Germany. |
| 1944 | Iceland declared itself a republic. |
| 1953 | Soviet forces crushed antigovernment riots in East Berlin. |
| 1976 | The NBA announced a merger with the American Basketball Association, taking in the Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, New York Nets and San Antonio Spurs. |
| 1986 | President Ronald Reagan nominated Judge Antonin Scalia to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Senate later confirmed him unanimously. |
| 1994 | TV viewers watched police follow O.J. Simpson’s white Ford Bronco along Interstate 405 in Los Angeles after he was charged with murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman. He was acquitted in 1995. |
| 2015 | A white gunman killed nine Black worshippers at a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. |
Born on June 17
- 1871: James Weldon Johnson, poet, diplomat and author of God’s Trombones, born in Jacksonville, Florida.
- 1882: Igor Stravinsky, Russian-born composer of The Rite of Spring, born near St. Petersburg (June 5, Old Style).
- 1987: Kendrick Lamar, Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper, born in Compton, California.
Sources
- Watergate burglars arrested, History.com
- This Day in History: June 17, History.com
- On This Day: June 17, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Philippe Pétain, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- James Weldon Johnson, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Igor Stravinsky, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Kendrick Lamar, Encyclopaedia Britannica
Ehm, that guy isn’t Alfred Windischgratz. It’s Joseph Radetzky von Radetz.