February 17 in History

The peasants of Dithmarschen flooded their own fields the night before the battle. When Duke Friedrich's armored knights charged at dawn, their horses sank into knee-deep mud. The peasants — farmers with pitchforks — killed over 4,000 professional soldiers. They lost twelve men. Friedrich's army included Swiss mercenaries and heavy cavalry, the best money could buy. The farmers had studied the tide tables. Dithmarschen stayed independent for another 59 years.

Henry Dunant went to Italy in 1859 to pitch a business deal. He arrived in Solferino the day 40,000 men were killed or wounded in nine hours. No medics. No stretchers. No plan. Bodies everywhere. He abandoned his meeting and spent days organizing locals to help anyone who was bleeding, regardless of which side they fought for. Three years later he published his own book about it and mailed copies to every powerful person in Europe. The pitch: create volunteer medical corps in every country, make battlefield hospitals neutral ground, guarantee protection for medics. On February 9, 1863, he and four Geneva citizens formed a committee to make it real. Eight days later they renamed it the International Committee for Relief to the Wounded. By October they'd convened 36 delegates from 16 countries. That committee became the Red Cross. A failed business trip became the Geneva Conventions.

Emperor Jovian died in his tent at Tyana after ruling Rome for eight months. The official cause: carbon monoxide from a brazier. The unofficial version: assassination. He'd just signed a humiliating peace treaty with Persia, surrendering five provinces and the fortress city of Nisibis. His predecessor Julian had died in battle against Persia six months earlier. Two emperors, two deaths, both tied to the same war. The army elected a new emperor within 24 hours. They didn't wait for an investigation.

Musa Celebi seized the Ottoman sultanate with military backing from Wallachia's Mircea I, ending years of bloody civil war among Bayezid I's surviving sons. His rise consolidated power over the European provinces but alienated his brother Mehmed, who controlled Anatolia. Mehmed would defeat and execute Musa two years later, reunifying the empire.

The wave that hit Ambon in 1674 was taller than a football field is long. 330 feet. Eyewitnesses said it came so fast they couldn't run. The earthquake itself was violent enough to level buildings, but the water did most of the killing. Over 2,300 people drowned. Ambon sits in the Ring of Fire, where tectonic plates grind against each other constantly. The Dutch East India Company had a major trading post there. They recorded the losses meticulously — not out of grief, but because each death meant lost labor and trade disruption. The company's ledgers survived. Most of the victims' names didn't.

Pascual de Iriate's expedition lost sixteen men at Evangelistas Islets in 1676. The western entrance to the Strait of Magellan — where the Pacific meets one of the world's most dangerous passages. The islets sit directly in the path of storms that build across thousands of miles of open ocean. Spanish expeditions knew the route was deadly. They kept trying anyway because the alternative was sailing around Cape Horn, which was worse. The Strait of Magellan had been "discovered" 155 years earlier. Spain still couldn't navigate it reliably. Sixteen men gone in a single incident wasn't unusual. It was Tuesday.

The House voted 36 times over seven days. Jefferson and Burr had tied at 73 electoral votes each—they were running mates, but the Constitution didn't distinguish between president and vice president on the ballot. Alexander Hamilton, who despised both men, threw his weight behind Jefferson. "At least Jefferson has principles," he wrote. Burr never forgave him. Three years later, he shot Hamilton dead in a duel.

French naval infantry stormed the Citadel of Saigon, overwhelming its garrison of 1,000 Nguyen dynasty soldiers in a swift assault during the Cochinchina Campaign. The capture gave France its first permanent foothold in Southeast Asia and opened the door to sixty years of colonial rule over Vietnam. Saigon would become the capital of French Indochina.