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Yagan was a Noongar warrior who played a key part in early indigenous Australian resistance to European settlement and rule in the area of Perth, Western Australia. After he led a series of attacks in which white settlers were murdered, a bounty was offered for his capture dead or alive, and he was shot dead by a young settler. Yagan's death has passed into Western Australian folklore as a symbol of the unjust and sometimes brutal treatment of the indigenous peoples of Australia by colonial settlers. Yagan's head was removed and taken to Britain, where it was exhibited as an "anthropological curiosity". It spent over a century in storage at a museum before being buried in an unmarked grave in 1964. In 1993 its location was identified, and four years later it was exhumed and repatriated to Australia. Since then, the issue of its proper reburial has become a source of great controversy and conflict amongst the indigenous people of the Perth area. To date, the head remains unburied. (more...)

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Selected anniversaries

February 17: Tanis Diena

• 1801 - The U.S. House of Representatives elected Thomas Jefferson as President and Aaron Burr as Vice President of the United States, resolving an electoral tie in the 1800 presidential election.
• 1854 - Britain recognized the independence of the Orange Free State (flag pictured) in the present-day Free State Province, South Africa.
• 1895 - The ballet Swan Lake was first performed at full length with music by Tchaikovsky in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
• 1959 - Vanguard 2, the first weather satellite, was launched to measure cloud-cover distribution.
• 1979 - About 120,000 troops of the People's Liberation Army of China crossed into northern Vietnam, starting the Sino-Vietnamese War.

Recent days: February 16 – February 15 – February 14

In the news

• A mudslide in Southern Leyte in the Philippines leaves hundreds dead or missing.
• The British House of Commons passes a smoking ban for all indoor public places in England.
• Former president René Préval is declared the winner in the Haitian presidential election following days of protests over claims of electoral fraud.
• Tokelau's referendum on self-governance fails, with the 60% support vote in the New Zealand territory falling short of the two-thirds majority required to pass.

2006 Winter Olympics

• Cross country skiing: Kristina Šmigun of Estonia wins the 10-km event and takes her second gold medal in Turin.
• Figure skating: Evgeny Plushenko of Russia sets a world record for the highest score in the free program and wins the men's competition.

Did you know...

From Wikipedia's newest articles:

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• ...that a Lombard warlord, Melus of Bari, was routed in 1018 at the site of the famous defeat of the Romans by Hannibal?
• ...that the Majlis Amanah Rakyat operates several educational institutes and offers several scholarships for the benefit of Bumiputra students in Malaysia?