On This Day - What happened 17 February

In the century prior to the UN's creation, several international treaty organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross were formed to ensure protection and assistance for victims of armed conflict and strife.

On 17 February, a pincer movement involving both French's cavalry and the main British force attempted to take the entrenched position, but the frontal attacks were uncoordinated and so were easily repulsed by the Boers. Finally, Roberts resorted to bombarding Cronjé into submission, but it took a further ten precious days, and with the British troops using the polluted Modder River as water supply, there was a typhoid epidemic killing many troops. General Cronjé was forced to surrender at Surrender Hill with 4,000 men.

Following the assassination of his uncle, the Grand Duke Sergei Aleksandrovich, on 17 February [O.S. 4 February] 1905, the Tsar made new concessions.

Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia killed 17 February [O.S. 4 February] 1905 in Moscow.

In Gallipoli, the Ottoman Empire successfully repelled the British, French, and Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs).

Operation Hailstone took place 17 to 18 February 1944, was a massive United States Navy air and surface attack on Truk Lagoon conducted as part of the American offensive drive against the Imperial Japanese Navy. As a result, Japanese reinforcement of Eniwetok garrison prevented.

Whilst serving in the Naval Intelligence Division, Fleming had planned to become an author and had told a friend, "I am going to write the spy story to end all spy stories." On 17 February 1952, he began writing his first James Bond novel, Casino Royale, at his Goldeneye estate in Jamaica, where he wrote all his Bond novels during the months of January and February each year.

Jordan was born in Brooklyn, New York.

According to the Shi'ite customs, memorial services (referred to as chehelom) are held forty days after a person's death. Encouraged by Khomeini (who declared that the blood of martyrs must water the "tree of Islam"), radicals pressured the mosques and moderate clergy to commemorate the deaths of the students, and used the occasion to generate protests. The informal network of mosques and bazaars, which for years had been used to carry out religious events, increasingly became consolidated as a coordinated protest organization. On 18 February, forty days after Qom clashes, demonstrations broke out in various different cities. The largest was in Tabriz, which descended into a full-scale riot. "Western" and government symbols such as cinemas, bars, state-owned banks, and police stations were set ablaze. Units of Imperial Iranian Army were deployed to the city to restore order, and the death toll, according to government was six, while Khomeini claimed hundreds were "martyred".

On 17 February 1991 the Task Force took enemy mortar fire, but the enemy forces managed to escape.

The large-scale removal of Bosnian-Serb heavy weapons began on 17 February 1994.

On 17 February 2010, Fast Company ranked HTC as the 31st most innovative company in the world.

The company later expanded into more countries in the 1990s and 2000s. The first IKEA store in Latin America opened on 17 February 2010 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

On 17 February 2011, IKEA announced its plans to develop a wind farm in Dalarna County, Sweden, furthering its goal of using only renewable energy to fuel its operations.

Punk received a title rematch with The Rock, at Elimination Chamber, with the added stipulation that if The Rock was disqualified or counted out, he would still lose the WWE Championship. The Rock would pin Punk to retain the championship.

As Minister of the Economy, Macron was at the forefront of pushing through business-friendly reforms. On 17 February 2015, Prime Minister Manuel Valls pushed Macron's signature law package through a reluctant parliament using the special 49.3 procedure.