What happened on 17 February?

6 events from the Ever-When timeline, ranked by how much they mattered.

1. 1776 Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Monumental history of Rome's collapse.
2. 1963 Born: Michael Jordan American basketball player; six-time NBA champion.
3. 1957 The New York Times finds Castro alive With Batista's press insisting Castro died at the landing, veteran correspondent Herbert Matthews is smuggled into the Sierra Maestra and finds him very much alive — commanding, by
4. 1904 Puccini's Madama Butterfly premieres Opera set in early-20th-century Nagasaki; controversial for its Orientalism.
5. 1958 CND and the peace symbol Britain's Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament forms and adopts the symbol that becomes a global emblem of peace.
6. 2008 Kosovo declares independence Kosovo unilaterally declares independence from Serbia, recognised by much of the West but not Serbia, Russia or China.