Today in History: The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor

The following is a chronological list of notable events that occurred on June 17 throughout history: 

653 – Pope Martin I is arrested and taken to Constantinople, due to his opposition to monothelitism.

1462 – Vlad the Impaler attempts to assassinate Mehmed II (The Night Attack at Târgovişte), forcing him to retreat from Wallachia.

1665 – Battle of Montes Claros: Portugal definitively secured independence from Spain in the last battle of the Portuguese Restoration War.

1885 – The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor.

1939 – Last public guillotining in France: Eugen Weidmann, a convicted murderer, is executed in Versailles outside the Saint-Pierre prison.

1953 – Cold War: East Germany Workers Uprising: In East Germany, the Soviet Union orders a division of troops into East Berlin to quell a rebellion.

1971 – U.S. President Richard Nixon in a televised press conference called drug abuse “America’s public enemy number one”, starting the War on drugs.

1972 – Watergate scandal: Five White House operatives are arrested for burgling the offices of the Democratic National Committee during an attempt by members of the administration of President Richard M. Nixon to illegally wiretap the political opposition as part of a broader campaign to subvert the democratic process.

1994 – Following a televised low-speed highway chase, O. J. Simpson is arrested for the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.

2021 – Juneteenth National Independence Day, was signed into law by President Joe Biden, to become the first federal holiday established since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983.