October 17 - Events

Events

• 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.
• 1091 – T8/F4 tornado strikes the heart of London.
• 1346 – Battle of Neville's Cross: King David II of Scotland is captured by Edward III of England nearDurham, and imprisoned in the Tower of London for eleven years.
• 1448 – Second Battle of Kosovo, where the mainly Hungarian army led by John Hunyadi is defeated by anOttoman army led by Sultan Murad II.
• 1456 – The University of Greifswald is established, making it the second oldest university in northern Europe (also for a period the oldest in Sweden, and Prussia)
• 1604 – Kepler's Star: German astronomer Johannes Kepler observes a supernova in the constellationOphiuchus.
• 1610 – French king Louis XIII is crowned in Rheims.
• 1660 – Nine Regicides, the men who signed the death warrant of Charles I, are hanged, drawn and quartered.
• 1662 – Charles II of England sells Dunkirk to France for 40,000 pounds.
• 1771 – Premiere in Milan of the opera Ascanio in Alba, composed by Wolfgang Mozart, age 15.
• 1777 – American troops defeat the British in the Battle of Saratoga.
• 1781 – General Charles Cornwallis offers his surrender to the American revolutionists at Yorktown, Virginia.
• 1797 – Treaty of Campo Formio is signed between France and Austria
• 1800 – Britain takes control of the Dutch colony of Curaçao.
• 1806 – Former leader of the Haitian Revolution, Emperor Jacques I of Haiti is assassinated after an oppressive rule.
• 1814 – London Beer Flood occurs in London, killing nine.
• 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).
• 1907 – Guglielmo Marconi's company begins the first commercial transatlantic wireless service between Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, Canadaand Clifden, Ireland.
• 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 U.S..
• 1941 – For the first time in World War II, a German submarine attacks an American ship.
• 1941 – German troops execute the male population of the villages Kerdyllia in Serres, Greece.
• 1943 – Burma Railway (Burma-Thailand Railway) is completed.
• 1945 – A massive number of people, headed by CGT and Evita, gather in the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina to demand Juan Peron's release.
• 1956 – The first commercial nuclear power station is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II in Sellafield,in Cumbria, England.
• 1961 – Scores of Algerian protesters (some claim up to 400) are massacred by the Paris police at the instigation of Nazi collaboratorMaurice Papon, then chief of the Prefecture of Police.
• 1964 – Prime Minister of Australia Robert Menzies opens the artificial Lake Burley Griffin in the middle of the capital Canberra.
• 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, the New York City Fire Department's deadliest day until theSeptember 11, 2001 attacks.
• 1966 – Botswana and Lesotho join the United Nations.
• 1968 – Black American athletes make a silent protest against racism at the Olympics
• 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.
• 1977 – German Autumn: Four days after it is hijacked, Lufthansa Flight 181 lands in Mogadishu, Somalia, where a team of German GSG 9 commandos later rescues all remaining hostages on board.
• 1979 – Mother Teresa awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
• 1979 – The Department of Education Organization Act is signed into law creating the US Department of Education and US Department of Health and Human Services.
• 1980 – As part of the Holy See – United Kingdom relations a British monarch makes the first state visit to the Vatican
• 1989 – 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake (7.1 on the Richter scale) hits the San Francisco Bay Area and causes 57 deaths directly (and 6 indirectly).
• 1998 – At Jesse, in the Niger Delta, Nigeria, a petroleum pipeline explodes killing about 1200 villagers, some of whom are scavenging gasoline.
• 2000 – Train crash at Hatfield, north of London, leading to collapse of Railtrack.
• 2003 – The pinnacle is fitted on the roof of Taipei 101, a 101-floor skyscraper in Taipei, allowing it to surpass the Petronas Twin Towers inKuala Lumpur by 56 metres (184 ft) and become the World's tallest highrise.