August 17 Through History

Explanation: Indonesian independence was proclaimed by Sukarno and Hatta, just two days after Japan's surrender. The Netherlands initially refused to recognize this independence, triggering a four-year war before officially accepting it in 1949.

Explanation: Animal Farm is an allegorical fable satirizing Soviet Stalinism. Orwell struggled to find a publisher during World War II, as criticizing the USSR, an ally of the democracies, was politically sensitive at the time. The book appears on Time magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels.

Explanation: The Izmit earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.6, is one of the deadliest natural disasters in modern Turkish history, causing around 17,000 deaths. It occurred on the North Anatolian Fault, one of the most active in the world, which runs along northern Turkey for more than 1,200 kilometres.

Explanation: Pierre de Fermat was a lawyer by profession and a brilliant amateur mathematician. His famous "Last Theorem" states that there is no integer solution to the equation xⁿ + yⁿ = zⁿ for n > 2, and it was only proved in 1995 by British mathematician Andrew Wiles, 330 years after Fermat's death.

Explanation: Thierry Henry, trained at Monaco under Arsène Wenger, joined Arsenal in 1999. He became the club's all-time top scorer with 228 goals, winning two English league titles. He also won the 1998 World Cup and the 2000 European Championship with the French national team.

Explanation: Three members of Pussy Riot — Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich — were sentenced to two years in a labor camp after performing a "punk prayer" at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow in February 2012. The case sparked major international controversy over freedom of expression in Russia.

Explanation: Charpentier and Doudna described the CRISPR-Cas9 system, a 'molecular scissors' technique that allows DNA to be cut with unprecedented precision. This discovery earned them the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020, making them the 6th and 7th women to share this prize since its creation in 1901.

Explanation: Nelson Piquet won three Formula 1 World titles: in 1981 and 1983 with Brabham, then in 1987 with Williams. He is one of the rare drivers to have reached that number, joining a very exclusive club alongside Niki Lauda, Ayrton Senna and Jack Brabham.

Explanation: Gabon proclaimed its independence from France on August 17, 1960, as part of a wave of African decolonizations that marked that same year, nicknamed "the Year of Africa". Léon Mba became the country's first president, before being replaced by Omar Bongo in 1967, whose family governed Gabon for more than 55 years.

Explanation: Frederick II of Prussia is nicknamed "Frederick the Great". An enlightened monarch, he corresponded with Voltaire and contributed to the spread of the Enlightenment across Europe. Under his reign, Prussia became a major European power, thanks in particular to his victories during the Seven Years' War (1756-1763).