April 17th Major News Events

1984 UK WPC Yvonne Fletcher

1984: WPC Yvonne Fletcher a London police officer is shot and killed while helping control a small demonstration outside the Libyan People's Bureau Embassy in central London. The police can not enter The Libyan building as it has diplomatic immunity but the building is surrounded by armed police officers. Meanwhile Libyan soldiers have now surrounded Britain's embassy in Tripoli trapping the 18 diplomats inside. Following the breakdown of diplomatic relations between the two countries British Diplomats leave Libya and the Libyan diplomats leave England including the person who had killed Yvonne Fletcher. Diplomatic relations with Libya are restored after 15 years in 1999 after the Libyan Government admitted it bore "general responsibility" for WPC Fletcher's death. (It is also believed that when the killer returned to Libya he was immediately executed but this can not be confirmed).

1985 USA Organ Donation

1985: The US Government has announced a campaign to increase awareness of Organ Donation hoping to make the donation of organs as widespread as the giving of blood this follows similar campaigns from other countries around the world as organ transplants become more common.

1986 Lebanon John McCarthy

1986: John McCarthy, a British TV journalist, is abducted on his way to the airport in the war-torn capital of Lebanon, Beirut. On August 8 1991 having spent more than five years held captive by militant group Islamic Jihad, John McCarthy is released making him Britain's longest-held hostage in Lebanon.

1991 USA Dow Jones

1991: The Dow Jones industrial average closed above 3,000 for the first time.

1993 USA Rodney King Beating

1993: Two former police officers are convicted by a federal jury in Los Angeles of violating the civil rights of beaten motorist Rodney King.

1999 England Nail Bomb

1999: A nail bomb outside a busy supermarket in Brixton, south London, has injured dozens. This was the fist in a series of bombs planted by a right-wing extremist David Copeland, 22, who was captured after a nail bomb in a central London pub killed three people.

2006 Israel Suicide Bomber

2006: A Palestinian suicide bomber strikes a Tel Aviv restaurant during Passover, killing nine people.

2007 New Tolkien Book Released

2007: The Children of Húrin by J.R.R. Tolkien has been released in North America and Europe. The book has been developed by Christopher Tolkien over twelve years, and is taken from the unfinished material written by his father. It includes new color plates and black and white illustrations. Houghton Mifflin has acquired U.S. rights to publish the book, which is Tolkien's first work since 1977's posthumous Silmarillion. HarperCollins U.K. had acquired the project from The Tolkien Estate in a world rights deal. The Children of Húrin was started in 1918.

2010 George Washington Library Fee

2010: George Washington is said to have racked up $300,000 in late fees for failing to return two books to a Manhattan library. The first President had borrowed them from the New York Society Library on E. 79th St. in 1789 and never returned them. "We're not actively pursuing the overdue fines," the head librarian said. "But we would be very happy if we were able to get the books back." Washington's deed had gone unnoticed for almost 150 years, and only discovered in 1934, when an old and dusty ledger was discovered in the library's basement.

2010 Suicide Bombers Attack Kacha Pukha Camp

2010: Suicide Bombers Attack Kacha Pukha camp a center for those displaced during the war, leaves 50 dead and many more injured the suicide bombers were members of the Sunni militant organisation, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.

2012 Tokyo Governor to Buy Disputed Islands

2012: Shintaro Ishihara, the governor of Tokyo, has stated that he plans to use public funds to buy a group of disputed islands. The Senkaku islands are also claimed by China and Taiwan and are rich in resources. A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said that any action by Japan to buy the islands would be "illegal and invalid" as China had "indisputable sovereignty" over them.

2013 New Zealand Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage

2013: New Zealand's parliament voted in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage in the country, the first in the Asia-Pacific region to do so. Same-sex civil unions had already been legal in the country since 2005.

2013 Texas Fertilizer Plant Explosion

2013: A huge explosion of ammonium nitrate occurred at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas near Waco, killing at least fifteen people and injuring another one-hundred and sixty people. Over one-hundred buildings were damaged or destroyed.

2014 Author Gabriel Garcia Marquez Dies

2014: Gabriel Garcia Marquez a Spanish-language author from Colombia died at the age of 87 in Mexico. Marquez had won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982 and had penned such famous novels as "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and "Love in the Time of Cholera."