April 17: Evacuation Day in Syria (1946) Artist's impression of Kepler-186f 1080 – Canute IV became King of Denmark upon the death of his brother Harald III. 1809 – Napoleonic Wars: After a three-day chase, the French ship D'Hautpoul was captured off Puerto Rico by a British squadron under Alexander Cochrane. 1951 – The Peak District was designated the first national park in the United Kingdom. 1975 – The Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh, the capital of the Khmer Republic, ending the Cambodian Civil War and establishing the socialist state of Democratic Kampuchea. 2014 – NASA announced the discovery of Kepler-186f (pictured), the first exoplanet with a radius similar to Earth's discovered in the habitable zone of another star. Marino Faliero (d. 1355)Hannah Webster Foster (d. 1840)Karen Blixen (b. 1885)Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu (d. 1954) More anniversaries: April 16 April 17 April 18 Archive By email List of days of the year About