17 FEBRUARY

1872 - Three Filipino priests Mariano Gomez, Jose G. Burgos, and Jacinto  R. Zamora, are executed by garrote at Bagumbayan, Manila two days after  being found guilty of the trumped-up charge of treason in connection with  the Cavite Mutiny during the Spanish colonial rule; the martyr priests who would later be dubbed the GOMBURZA (based on their combined last names), had agitated for the secularization of the clergy in the  Philippines but actually were actually not connected with the Cavite Mutiny; their execution would help make Filipinos realize that they would always be considered second class residents of their own archipelago by the colonial Spaniards, eventually paving the way for the Propaganda period of sustained campaign for reforms in their bid to awaken the Spanish monarchy/government as to the needs of its colony and to make for a closer and more equal association of the archipelago between the Philippines and the supposed motherland, Spain.

 

1945 - The eastern side of the Spanish wall of Intramuros in Manila, Philippines is bombed as the American forces continue to take over the Japanese positions in the Battle for Manila during World War II; the battle will end by March 3, with the American forces routing the Japanese and reclaiming the capital city of its Southeast Asian colony; more than three years earlier,  Japanese planes attacked United States  military installations in Pearl Harbor and in Baguio, Davao, and Clark Field in the American colony, the Philippines, sparking the Pacific theater of the Second World War, with the retreating Bald Eagle forces surrendering to the Japanese in Bataan in 1942.

Photo credits:

http://escuelactivities.blogspot.com/2010_12_01_archive.htmlhttp://www.flickriver.com/photos/johntewell/sets/72157622715038247/