September 17 - Events

Events

• 480 BC – The Battle of Thermopylae, fought between 300 Spartans, led by their king, Leonidas, and theAchaemenid Empire begins
• 1111 – Highest Galician nobility led by Pedro Fróilaz de Traba and the bishop Diego Gelmírez crown Alfonso VII as "King of Galicia".
• 1176 – The Battle of Myriokephalon is fought.
• 1462 – The Battle of Świecino (also known as the Battle of Żarnowiec) is fought during Thirteen Years' War.
• 1577 – The Peace of Bergerac is signed between Henry III of France and the Huguenots.
• 1630 – The city of Boston, Massachusetts is founded.
• 1631 – Sweden wins a major victory at the Battle of Breitenfeld against the Holy Roman Empire during theThirty Years War.
• 1683 – Antonie van Leeuwenhoek writes a letter to the Royal Society describing "animalcules": the first known description of protozoa.
• 1776 – The Presidio of San Francisco is founded in New Spain.
• 1778 – The Treaty of Fort Pitt is signed. It is the first formal treaty between the United States and a Native American tribe (the Lenape or Delaware Indians).
• 1787 – The United States Constitution is signed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• 1809 – Peace between Sweden and Russia in the Finnish War. The territory to becomeFinland is ceded to Russia by the Treaty of Fredrikshamn.
• 1814 – Francis Scott Key finishes his poem "Defence of Fort McHenry", later to be the lyrics of "The Star-Spangled Banner".
• 1859 – Joshua A. Norton declares himself "Emperor Norton I" of the United States.
• 1862 – American Civil War: George B. McClellan halts the northward drive of Robert E. Lee's Confederate army in the single-day Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day in American history.
• 1862 – American Civil War: The Allegheny Arsenal explosion results in the single largest civilian disaster during the war.
• 1894 – The Battle of Yalu River, the largest naval engagement of the First Sino-Japanese War.
• 1900 – Philippine-American War: Filipinos under Juan Cailles defeat Americans underColonel Benjamin F. Cheatham at Mabitac.
• 1908 – The Wright Flyer flown by Orville Wright, with Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge as passenger, crashes killing Selfridge. He becomes the first airplane fatality.
• 1914 – Andrew Fisher becomes Prime Minister of Australia for the third time.
• 1916 – World War I: Manfred von Richthofen ("The Red Baron"), a flying ace of theGerman Luftstreitkräfte, wins his first aerial combat near Cambrai, France.
• 1920 – The National Football League is organized in Canton, Ohio, United States.
• 1924 – The Border Defence Corps is established in the Second Polish Republic for the defence of the eastern border against armed Soviet raids and local bandits.
• 1928 – The Okeechobee Hurricane strikes southeastern Florida, killing upwards of 2,500 people. It is the third deadliest natural disaster in United States history, behind theGalveston Hurricane of 1900 and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
• 1939 – World War II: The Soviet Union joins Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland during thePolish Defensive War of 1939.
• 1939 – World War II: A German U-boat U 29 sinks the British aircraft carrierHMS Courageous.
• 1939 – Taisto Mäki becomes the first man to run the 10,000 metres in under 30 minutes, in a time of 29:52.6
• 1941 – World War II: A decree of the Soviet State Committee of Defense, restoringVsevobuch in the face of the Great Patriotic War, is issued
• 1943 – World War II: The Russian city of Bryansk is liberated from Nazis.
• 1944 – World War II: Allied Airborne troops parachute into the Netherlands as the "Market" half of Operation Market Garden.
• 1947 – James V. Forrestal is sworn in as the first Secretary of Defense of United States.
• 1948 – The Lehi (also known as the Stern gang) assassinates Count Folke Bernadotte, who was appointed by the UN to mediate between the Arab nations and Israel.
• 1948 – The Nizam of Hyderabad surrenders his sovereignty over the Hyderabad State and joins the Indian Union.
• 1949 – The Canadian steamship SS Noronic burns in Toronto Harbour with the loss of over 118 lives.
• 1956 – Television is first broadcast in Australia.
• 1957 – Malaysia joins the United Nations.
• 1961 – The world's first retractable-dome stadium, the Civic Arena, opens in Pittsburgh.
• 1974 – Bangladesh, Grenada and Guinea-Bissau join the United Nations.
• 1976 – The first Space Shuttle, Enterprise, is unveiled by NASA.
• 1978 – The Camp David Accords are signed by Israel and Egypt.
• 1980 – After weeks of strikes at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland, the nationwide independent trade union Solidarity is established.
• 1980 – Former Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza Debayle is killed in Asunción,Paraguay.
• 1983 – Vanessa Williams becomes the first black Miss America.
• 1991 – Estonia, North Korea, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, the Marshall Islands andMicronesia join the United Nations.
• 1991 – The first version of the Linux kernel (0.01) is released to the Internet.
• 1992 – An Iranian Kurdish leader and his two joiners are assassinated by political militants in Berlin, Germany.
• 1993 – Last Russian troops leave Poland.
• 2001 – The New York Stock Exchange reopens for trading after the September 11 Attacks, the longest closure since the Great Depression.
• 2006 – Fourpeaked Mountain in Alaska erupts, marking the first eruption for the long-dormant volcano in at least 10,000 years.
• 2007 – AOL, once the largest ISP in the U.S., officially announces plans to refocus the company as an advertising business and to relocate its corporate headquarters fromDulles, Virginia to New York, New York.
• 2010 – The 54 year run of the soap opera As the World Turns ends as its final episode is broadcast.