What happened on 17 February?

10 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. 1645 New Model Army Parliament creates a national professional army under Fairfax and Cromwell; wins Naseby and finishes the first civil war.
4. 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
5. 1913 Armory Show Some 1,300 works fill a New York armoury, bringing Matisse, Picasso, Duchamp and the European avant-garde to a scandalised American public — the birth of modern art in the United S
6. 1904 Puccini's Madama Butterfly premieres Opera set in early-20th-century Nagasaki; controversial for its Orientalism.
7. 1958 CND and the peace symbol Britain's Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is publicly launched and adopts the symbol that becomes a global emblem of peace.
8. 2008 Kosovo declares independence Kosovo unilaterally declares independence from Serbia, recognised by much of the West but not Serbia, Russia or China.
9. 1461 Second Battle of St Albans Margaret's northern army routs Warwick and recovers the captive Henry VI — but London shuts its gates against her plundering troops, and within weeks Edward IV is proclaimed king.
10. 1884 Maupassant's The Necklace A clerk's wife loses a borrowed diamond necklace and spends ten years in poverty repaying it — only to learn it was paste: the most famous twist ending in the short story.