June 17

The Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal

1631 Mumtaz Mahal, wife of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, died in childbirth;
Jahan spent the next seventeen years constructing her mausoleum, the Taj Mahal
(pictured).
1843 New Zealand Wars: An armed posse of Europeans set out from Nelson to
arrest Ngti Toa chief Te Rauparaha and clashed with Mori, resulting in 26 deaths.
1922 Portuguese naval aviators Gago Coutinho and Sacadura Cabral completed
the first aerial crossing of the South Atlantic.
1940 Second World War: Britain's worst maritime disaster occurred when at
least 3,000 people were killed as a result of the troopship RMS Lancastria's sinking
by the Luftwaffe near Saint-Nazaire, France.