★ Daily Strange History ★
You're about to discover something weird from history.
On July 17, 1717, King George I of Great Britain floated down the River Thames on a royal barge accompanied by a separate barge carrying 50 musicians, who premiered George Frideric Handel's iconic 'Water Music' for the occasion. The concert reportedly lasted hours and was performed multiple times at the king's request.
The image of a monarch commissioning an entire floating orchestra to serenade him down a river, then enjoying it so much he demanded encores on the water, is an almost absurdly lavish spectacle that somehow produced one of classical music's most beloved compositions.
On July 17, 1973, King Mohammed Zahir Shah of Afghanistan was deposed by his own cousin Mohammed Daoud Khan while he was literally on a surgical operating table in Italy, completely unaware his 40-year reign had just ended. He never returned to power.
Being overthrown while under general anesthesia during surgery abroad is perhaps the most uniquely helpless way a monarch has ever lost a throne - his cousin essentially waited for the perfect moment of total vulnerability to seize the country.
On July 17, 1918, the RMS Carpathia - the very ship that had heroically rescued over 700 survivors of the Titanic in 1912 - was sunk off the coast of Ireland by the German submarine SM U-55, killing five people on board.
The cruel irony of a ship celebrated worldwide for saving lives being sent to the bottom of the ocean just six years later gives the Carpathia one of the most tragically poetic fates of any vessel in maritime history.
On July 17, 1048, Damasus II was elected pope, only to die just 23 days after taking office, making his papacy one of the shortest in the entire history of the Catholic Church. On the very same day, a four-year-old boy named Henry IV was crowned King of Germany in Aachen.
The absurd coincidence of a pope dying within 23 days of election happening on the exact same day a toddler was crowned king of Germany makes July 17, 1048 one of the most surreal single days in medieval political history.
On July 17, 1938, Douglas Corrigan took off from Brooklyn supposedly bound for California, but landed in Ireland 28 hours later, claiming he simply flew in the wrong direction by mistake. He was nicknamed 'Wrong Way' Corrigan and became an unlikely American folk hero.
Corrigan's flight plan to California had been officially rejected by aviation authorities, and many suspected his 'wrong way' navigation was entirely deliberate - making his wide-eyed innocent act one of history's most charming and audacious cover stories.