October 17
is the 290th (in
leap years the 291st) day of the year according to the
Gregorian calendar. There are 75 days remaining.
*
539 BC - King
Cyrus The Great of
Persia marches into the city of
Babylon, releasing the
Jews from almost 70 years of exile and making the first Human Rights Declaration.
*
1244 -
Battle of La Forbie:
Crusaders are defeated by
Khwarezmians and
Egyptians.
*
1346 -
Battle of Neville's Cross: King
David II of Scotland is captured by
Edward III of England at
Calais, and imprisoned in the
Tower of London for eleven years.
*
1448 -
Second Battle of Kosovo, where the mainly
Hungarian army lead by
John Hunyadi fought an
Ottoman army lead by
Murad II.
*
1604 -
Kepler's Star:
German astronomer Johannes Kepler observes that an exceptionally bright star had suddenly appeared in the
constellation.
Ophiuchus, which turned out to be the last
supernova to have been observed in our own
galaxy, the
Milky Way.
*
1662 -
Charles II of England sells
Dunkerque to France for 40,000 pounds.
*
1777 - American troops defeat the British in the
Battle of Saratoga.
*
1781 - General
Charles Cornwallis offers his surrender to the
American revolutionaries at
Yorktown, Virginia.
*
1800 -
England takes control of the Dutch colony of
Curaçao.
*
1806 - Former leader of the
Great Slave Rebellion of 1791,
Emperor Jacques I of
Haiti was
assassinated after an oppressive rule.
*
1860 - First
The Open Championship (referred to in North America as the
British Open)
*
1888 -
Thomas Edison files a patent for the
Optical Phonograph (the first movie).
*
1912 -
Bulgaria,
Greece and
Serbia declare war on the
Ottoman Empire, joining
Montenegro in the
First Balkan War.
*
1917 - First British bombing of
Germany in
World War I*
1931 -
Al Capone convicted of
income tax evasion.
*
1933 -
Albert Einstein, fleeing
Nazi Germany, moves to the US.
*
1937 -
Huey, Dewey and Louie,
Donald Duck's three almost identical
nephews, first appear in a
newspaper comic strip.
*
1941 - For the first time in
World War II, a German
submarine attacks an American ship.
*
1945 - A massive number of people, headed for
CGT and
Evita, gather in the
Plaza de Mayo in
Argentina to demand
Juan Peron's release. This is known to the
Peronists as the
Día de la lealtad (day of loyalty) or
San Perón (Saint Perón). It's considered the birthday of Peronism.
*
1961 - Approximately 200
Algerian protesters (some claim up to 400) are massacred by the
Paris police
*
1965 - The
1964-1965 New York World's Fair closes after a two year run. More than 51 million people had attended the two-year event.
*
1966 - A fire at a building in
New York,
New York kills 12 firefighters.
*
1967 - The musical
Hair opens at the
Anspacher Theater on
Broadway.
*
1970 -
Montreal, Quebec: Quebec
Vice-Premier and Minister of Labour
Pierre Laporte murdered by members of the
FLQ terrorist group.
*
1973 -
OPEC starts an
oil embargo against a number of western countries, considered to have helped
Israel in its war against
Syria*
1979 -
Mother Teresa awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize* 1979 - The
Department of Education Organization Act is signed into law creating the
United States Department of Education and
United States Department of Health and Human Services. Both replace the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
*
1989 -
Loma Prieta earthquake (7.1 on the
Richter scale) hits the
San Francisco Bay Area.
*
1992 - The
United Nations General Assembly declares October 17 as the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, to be observed beginning in 1993. Resolution
47/196 of 22 December 1992.
*
1994 - Draft peace treaty between
Israel and
Jordan* 1994 - Peace treaty between the government of
Angola and
UNITA rebels.
*
2003 -
Carlos Mesa becomes President of
Bolivia.
* 2003 - The pinnacle was fitted on the roof of
Taipei 101, a 106-floor
skyscraper in
Taipei, allowing it to surpass the
Petronas Twin Towers in
Kuala Lumpur by 50 meters (165 feet) and become the
World's tallest highrise.
* 2003 -
Eunuchs in the
Indian state of
Madhya Pradesh float the
political party Jiti Jitayi Politics.
*
2004 - Approximately 10,000 people gather at the
Lincoln Memorial in
Washington, D.C. for the
Million Worker March, a pro-labor and anti-war demonstration.
*
1253 -
Ivo of Kermartin, French saint (d.
1303)
*
1563 -
Jodocus Hondius, Flemish cartographer (d.
1611)
*
1577 -
Cristofano Allori, Italian painter (d.
1621)
*
1582 -
Johann Gerhard, German Lutheran leader (d.
1637)
*
1623 -
Francis Turretin, Swiss theologian (d.
1687)
*
1688 -
Domenico Zipoli, Italian composer (d.
1726)
*
1711 -
Jupiter Hammon, American writer
*
1719 -
Jacques Cazotte, French writer (d.
1792)
*
1813 -
Georg Büchner, German playwright (d.
1837)
*
1817 -
Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, a famous Indian Muslim intellectual of the 19th Century (d.
1898)
*
1864 -
Elinor Glyn, British writer (d.
1943)
*
1865 -
James Rudolph Garfield, American politician (d.
1950)
*
1886 -
Spring Byington, American actress (died
1971)
*
1890 -
Roy Kilner, English cricketer (d.
1928)
*
1898 -
Shinichi Suzuki, Japanese violin teacher (d.
1998)
*
1898 -
Simon Vestdijk, Dutch writer (d.
1971)
*
1900 -
Jean Arthur, American actress (d.
1991)
*
1902 -
Irene Ryan, American actress (d.
1973)
*
1903 -
Nathanael West, American writer (d.
1940)
*
1906 -
Paul Derringer, baseball player (d.
1987)
*
1912 -
Pope John Paul I (d.
1978)
*
1914 -
Jerry Siegel, American cartoonist, co-creator of
Superman (d.
1998)
*
1915 -
Arthur Miller, American playwright (d.
2005)
*
1917 -
Sumner Locke Elliott, Australian (later American) novelist (d.
1991)
*
1918 -
Rita Hayworth, American actress (d.
1987)
*
1919 -
Isaak Markovich Khalatnikov, Russian physicist
*
1920 -
Montgomery Clift, American actor (d.
1966)
*
1921 -
Tom Poston, American actor and comedian
* 1921 -
Maria Gorokhovskaya, Soviet gymnast (d.
2001)
*
1923 -
Charles McClendon,
LSU head football coach (d.
2001)
*
1930 -
Robert Atkins, American nutritionist (d.
2003)
* 1930 -
Jimmy Breslin, American writer
*
1931 -
Ernst Hinterberger, Austrian writer
*
1933 -
Jeanine Deckers, Belgian nun and singer (d.
1985)
*
1936 -
Hiroo Kanamori, Japanese seismologist
*
1938 -
Evel Knievel, American daredevil
*
1940 -
Peter Stringfellow, British
nightclub owner
*
1941 -
Earl Thomas Conley, American
country music singer
* 1941 -
Jim Seals American singer/songwriter (
Seals and Crofts)
*
1942 -
Gary Puckett, American musician
*
1946 - Sir
Cameron Mackintosh, British stage producer and director
* 1946 -
Adam Michnik, Polish activist
* 1946 -
Bob Seagren, American athlete and actor
*
1947 -
Gene Green, American politician
* 1947 -
Michael McKean, American actor and comedian
*
1948 -
Margot Kidder, Canadian actress
* 1948 -
George Wendt, American actor
*
1950 -
Howard Rollins, American actor (d.
1996)
*
1956 -
Mae Jemison, astronaut
*
1957 -
Steve McMichael, American football player and professional wrestler
*
1958 -
Alan Jackson, American singer and songwriter
*
1959 -
Ron Drummond, American writer, editor, and independent scholar
* 1959 -
Russell Gilbert, Australian comedian and actor
*
1962 -
Mike Judge, Ecuadoran-born cartoonist and writer
*
1963 -
Norm MacDonald, Canadian comedian and actor
*
1965 -
Aravinda de Silva, Sri Lankan cricketer
*
1966 -
Mark Gatiss, English actor
*
1968 -
Ziggy Marley, Jamaican musician
*
1969 -
Ernie Els, South African golfer
*
1970 -
Anil Kumble, Indian cricketer
* 1970 -
John Mabry, baseball player
*
1971 -
Chris Kirkpatrick, American singer
*
1972 -
Eminem, American rapper
* 1972 -
Wyclef Jean, Haitian-born singer
* 1972 -
Joe McEwing, baseball player
*
1974 -
John Rocker, baseball player
*
1977 -
Nicole Cabell, American soprano
*
1979 -
Kimi Räikkönen, Finnish race car driver
*
532 -
Pope Boniface II*
1174 - Queen
Petronila of Aragon (b.
1135)
*
1586 -
Philip Sidney, English courtier, soldier, and writer (killed in battle) (b.
1554)
*
1660 -
Adrian Scrope, English regicide (b.
1601)
*
1673 -
Thomas Clifford, 1st Baron Clifford of Chudleigh, English statesman (b.
1630)
*
1757 -
René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur, French scientist (b.
1683)
*
1776 -
Pierre François le Courayer, French theologian (b.
1681)
*
1780 -
William Cookworthy, English chemist (b.
1705)
*
1786 -
Johann Ludwig Aberli, Swiss artist (b.
1723)
*
1806 -
Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Haitian independence leader (b.
1758)
*
1836 -
Orest Kiprensky, Russian painter (b.
1782)
*
1849 -
Frédéric Chopin, Polish-French musician and composer (b.
1810)
*
1887 -
Gustav Kirchhoff, German physicist (b.
1824)
*
1889 -
Nikolai Chernyshevsky, Russian philosopher (b.
1828)
*
1910 -
Julia Ward Howe, American composer and abolitionist (b.
1819)
*
1931 -
Alfons Maria Jakob, German neurologist (b.
1884)
*
1934 -
Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Spanish histologist and neuroscientist, recipient of the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine ( b.
1852)
*
1958 -
Charlie Townsend, English cricketer (b.
1876)
*
1962 -
Natalia Goncharova, Russian painter (b.
1882)
*
1967 -
Henry Pu Yi, last
Emperor of China (b.
1906)
*
1970 -
Pierre Laporte, Vice-Premier of Quebec (assassinated) (b.
1921)
*
1972 -
Prince George of Yugoslavia (b.
1987)
*
1973 -
Ingeborg Bachmann, Austrian writer (b.
1926)
*
1979 -
S. J. Perelman, American writer (b.
1904)
*
1984 -
Henri Michaux, French painter and poet (b.
1899)
*
1991 -
Tennessee Ernie Ford, American singer and television performer (b.
1919)
*
1992 -
Herman Johannes, Indonesian professor, scientist and politician (b.
1912)
*
2000 -
Leo Nomellini, wrestler (b.
1924)
*
2001 -
Rehavam Zeevi, Israeli politician (b.
1926)
*
2002 -
Derek Bell, Irish harpist (
The Chieftans) (b.
1935)
*
2004 -
Uzi Hitman, Israeli singer (b.
1952)
*
2005 -
Ba Jin, Chinese writer (b.
1904)
*
2005 -
Franky Gee, European techno artist (b.
1964}
*
R.C. Saints - Saint
Ignatius of Antioch; translation of Saint Audrey (
Æthelthryth); Saint
Richard Gwyn*
Haiti - Death of
Jean-Jacques Dessalines (
1806), State holiday
*
United States - Black Poetry Day
*UN International Day for the Eradication of Poverty
*
French Republican Calendar -
Aubergine (Eggplant) Day, twenty-sixth day in the
Month of Vendémiaire*
BBC: On This Day-
October 16 -
October 18 -
September 17 -
November 17 --
listing of all days
