In the early hours of February 12, 1817, Argentine revolutionary José de San Martín leads his troops down the slopes of the Andes Mountains towards the Spanish forces defending Chile. By nightfall, the Spanish would be routed, the fledgling nation of Chile would have taken a major step toward independence.

The legendary Texas Ranger and frontiersman “Big Foot” Wallace is born in Lexington, Virginia.

On July 4, 1817, workers break ground on the Erie Canal at Rome, New York. The canal, completed in 1825, links the eastern seaboard with the Midwest and transforms New York into a major economic and cultural hub.

On November 21, 1817, U.S. troops from Fort Scott attack the small Seminole Indian village of Fowltown, located in southern Georgia, killing about 20 men and igniting the First Seminole War. The conflict, which lasted less than a year, would not succeed in squashing Native resistance, but it would contribute to the Spanish relinquishing its Florida territory to the United States.