17 APRIL

1897 - Filipino revolutionary Emilio Aguinaldo, following his controversial, if not fraudulent election as President of a new revolutionary body, names his all-Caviteno cabinet members; three weeks earlier, Katipunan Supremo Andres Bonifacio had nullified the Tejeros Convention that elected Aguinaldo on grounds that it was marked by fraud, even as the "brains" of Katipunan, Emilio Jacinto, had reiterated that Bonifacio is still the leader of the Philippine revolution in a letter dated April 11, 1897.

1895 - The Treaty of Shimonosek wherein China recognizes  the full "independence" of Korea is signed by Japan and China and includes the following points: the ceding of Pescadores, Taiwan and the Liaodong peninsula to Japan, payment of 200 million taels in indemnity, among others; the pact came following the Sino-Japanese War over control of Korea that began July of last year and which was impressively won by Japan.

1961 - The disastrous Bay of Pigs is launched by some 1,500 Cuban exiles trained by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in the bid to overthrow Cuba's Fidel Castro; the rebel forces, which have landed before dawn yesterday and supported from both the sea and air will initially claim successes but being heavily outnumbered and unable to attract mass defections, will shortly be defeated.

1970 - Apollo 13, the American manned lunar spacecraft that has met a severe malfunction on its journey to the moon, safely returns to Earth; the mission was aborted when two days after take-off, the normal supply of oxygen, electricity, light, and water had been disrupted and the space crew and controllers on Earth tried to come up with emergency procedures.