The events happened on 17th April are :



1982 : Canada Act proclaimed : The Canada Act, also known as the Constitution Act, took effect on this day in 1982, establishing certain individual rights, preserving parliamentary supremacy, and making Canada a wholly independent, fully sovereign state.



2003 : Anneli Jäätteenmäki was sworn in as prime minister of Finland, which thereby became the second country (after New Zealand) to install a woman as head of both state and government.



1975 : Cambodia's ruling Lon Nol government collapsed, and the communist forces of the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, entered Phnom Penh and forcibly dispersed its citizenry into rural areas.



1961 : Cuban leader Fidel Castro's forces repelled the Bay of Pigs invasion, which was led by recent Cuban exiles and financed by the U.S. government during the Cold War.



1956 : Cominform, the international Communist Information Bureau founded in 1947, was disbanded as part of a Soviet program of reconciliation with Yugoslavia.



1895 : The Treaty of Shimonoseki concluded the first Sino-Japanese War, which ended in China's defeat.



1521 : Martin Luther appeared before the Diet of Worms to defend his ideas on church reform.



1194 : Richard I (the Lion-Heart) was crowned king of England for the second time, after earlier surrendering his kingdom to the Holy Roman emperor Henry VI.



16th April | 18th April