February 17th in History: Milestones and Events

February 17th in History: Milestones and Events

Today is February 17, 2026, marking the 48th day of the year with 317 days remaining. On this day in history, Danica Patrick made history by winning the Daytona 500 pole in 2013, becoming the first woman to achieve this feat. In 1801, the U.S. House of Representatives resolved an electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, electing Jefferson as president and Burr as vice president. The International Committee of the Red Cross was established in 1863 by the Public Welfare Society of Geneva to provide relief to wounded combatants. The Civil War saw the first naval attack of its kind in 1864 when the Confederate submarine HL Hunley sank the Union ship USS Housatonic in Charleston Harbor. The National Congress of Mothers, which later evolved into the National Parent Teacher Association, held its inaugural meeting in Washington in 1897.

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling in 1964 in Wesberry v. Sanders, mandating that congressional districts within each state must have roughly equal populations. Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1992 after being convicted of 15 counts of first-degree murder. Colin Ferguson was found guilty of six counts of murder in the Long Island Rail Road shootings in 1995 and received a 315-year prison sentence. Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in 2008. In 2014, Jimmy Fallon took over as the host of NBC's "Tonight Show," succeeding Jay Leno.