On this day in History - Oct. 17

538 BC - King Cyrus of Persia marches into the city of Babylon, releasing the Jews from almost 70 years of exile and making the first Human Rights Declaration
0532 - Pope Boniface II dies
1244 - Battle of La Forbie: Crusaders are defeated by Khwarezmians & Egyptians
1253 - Ivo of Kermartin was born (d. 1303). French saint.
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
1563 - Jodocus Hondius was born (d. 1611). Flemish cartographer.
1577 - Cristofano Allori was born (d. 1621). Italian painter.
1582 - Johann Gerhard was born (d. 1637). German Lutheran leader.
1586 - Philip Sidney dies killed in battle (b. 1554). English courtier, soldier, and writer
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.
1623 - Francis Turretin was born (d. 1687). Swiss theologian.

1651 - Defeated by Oliver Cromwell at Worcester, Charles II of England flees to France
1660 - Adrian Scrope dies (b. 1601). English regicide
1662 - Charles II of England sells Dunkerque to France for 40 000 pounds
1673 - Thomas Clifford, 1st Baron Clifford of Chudleigh dies (b. 1630). English statesman.
1688 - Domenico Zipoli was born (d. 1726). Italian composer.

1711 - Jupiter Hammon was born. America's first published black poet

1744 - Giuseppe Antonio Guarneri dies. Violins maker.
1757 - René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur dies (b. 1683). French scientist.

1776 - Pierre François le Courayer dies (b. 1681). French theologian.
1777 - American troops defeat the British in the Battle of Saratoga
1780 - William Cookworthy dies (b. 1705). English chemist.
1781 - General Charles Cornwallis offers his surrender to the American revolutionaries at Yorktown, Virginia
1797 - Treaty of Campo-Formio, Italy.

1798 - Francisco Lacerda e Almeida dies. Portuguese explorer and geographer.
1800 - England takes control of the Dutch colony of Curaçao
1806 - Jean-Jacques Dessalines dies (b. 1758). Haitian independence leader.
1806 - Former leader of the Great Slave Rebellion of 1791, Emperor Jacques I of Haiti was assassinated after an oppressive rule
1813 - Georg Büchner was born (d. 1837). German playwright.
1820 - Édouard Roche was born (d. 18 Apr. 1883). French astronomer.
1847 - Chiquinha Gonzaga (Francisca Edwiges Neves Gonzaga) was born (d. 1935). Brazilian composer and conductor.

1849 - Frederic Chopin dies in Paris (b. 1810). Polish-French musician and composer.
1860 - First British golf open
1864 - Elinor Glyn was born (d. 1943). British writer.
1865 - James Rudolph Garfield was born (d. 1950). American politician.

1867 - Josep Puig Cadafalch was born. Architect.
1887 - Gustav Kirchhoff dies (b. 1824). German physicist.

1888 - Paul Bernays was born (d. 18 Sep 1977). Swiss mathematician and logician who is known for his attempts to develop a unified theory of mathematics
1888 - Thomas Edison files a patent for the Optical Phonograph (the first movie).
1889 - Nikolai Gavrilovitch Tchernichevski dies (b. 1828). Russian socialist revolucionary.
1890 - Roy Kilner was born (d. 1928). English cricketer.

1893 - Spring Byington was born. Actress (Please Don't Eat the Daisies, Angels in the Outfield, Jezebel, Little Women, Laramie, December Bride).

1893 - Marie Edme Patrice Maurice de Mac-Mahon dies. President of France (24 May 1873 - 30 Jan 1879).

1894 - Pablo de Rokha was born. Chilean poet.

1895 - Arthur Duarte was born. Portuguese film director and actor. [director :O Costa do Castelo (1943), A Menina da Rádio (1944), O Leão da Estrela (1947), O Noivo das Caldas (1956), etc.]
1898 - Simon Vestdijk was born (d. 1971). Dutch writer.
1900 - Jean Arthur was born (d. 1991). American actress.
1902 - Irene Ryan was born (d. 26 Apr 1973). American actress.
1903 - Nathanael West was born (d. 1940). American writer (Miss Lonelyhearts, Day of the Locust)

1907 - Vladimir Vladimirovich Belousov was born (d. 25 Dec 1990). Soviet geologist and geophysicist whose theory of density differentiation (1942) held that movements of the Earth's surface is a result of gradual internal structural changes as denser matter sinks towards the Earth's centre.
1910 - Julia Ward Howe dies (b. 1819). American composer and abolitionist.
1912 - Pope John Paul I was born (d. 1978)
1912 - Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia declare war on the Ottoman Empire, joining Montenegro in the First Balkan War
1914 - Jerry Siegel was born (d. 1998). American cartoonist.
1915 - Arthur Miller was born (d. 2005). American playwright.
1917 - First British bombing of Germany in World War I

1917 - Marsha Hunt was born in Chicago, Illinois. American actress.

1917 - Alexandre Cabral was born (d. 1996). Portuguese writer and translator. Important investigator of the work of Camilo Castelo Branco (Dicionário de Camilo)
1918 - Rita Hayworth was born (d. 1987). American actress.

1920 - Montgomery Clift was born († 23 Jul 1966). American actor.
1920 - Miguel Delibes was born. Spanish novelista, dramatist and journalist.
1921 - Tom Poston was born. American actor and comedian.

1924 - Antonio Ramos Rosa was born in Faro. Portuguese essayst and poet. Awarded with "Prémio Pessoa" in 1988.

1926 - Beverly Garland was born. Actress
1926 - Julie Adams was born in Waterloo, Iowa. American actress.
1927 - Tom Poston was born. Actor
1930 - Robert Atkins was born (d. 2003). American nutritionist.
1930 - Jimmy Breslin was born. American writer
1931 - José Alencar was born. Vice-president of Brazil
1931 - Al Capone convicted of income tax evasion and sentenced to eleven years in prison. (He was released in 1939).
1931 - Alfons Maria Jakob dies (b. 1884). German neurologist.
1933 - Albert Einstein, fleeing Nazi Germany, moves to the US
1934 - Santiago Ramón y Cajal dies (b. 1 May 1852). Spanish hystologist who (with Camillo Golgi) awarded in 1906 the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for establishing the neuron, or nerve cell, as the basic unit of nervous structure
1936 - Hiroo Kanamori was born. Japanese seismologist
1937 - Huey, Dewey and Louie, Donald Duck's three almost identical nephews, first appear in a newspaper comic strip.
1938 - Evel Knievel was born. American daredevil
1938 - Karl Kautsky dies. Austrian socialist theoretic.
1940 - Peter Stringfellow was born. British nightclub owner
1941 - For the first time in World War II, a German submarine attacks an American ship
1942 - Gary Puckett was born. American musician
1944 - Rufino Blanco Fombona dies. Venezuelan writer.
1945 - A massive number of people 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.
1946 - Sir Cameron Mackintosh was born. British stage producer and director
1946 - Bob Seagren was born. American athlete and actor
1946 - Adam Michnik was born. Polish activist
1947 - Gene Green was born. American politician
1947 - Michael McKean was born. American actor and comedian
1948 - Margot Kidder was born. Canadian actress
1948 - George Wendt was born. American actor
1950 - Howard Rollins was born (d. 1996). American actor.
1956 - Mae Jemison was born. Astronaut

1956 - the Queen of England opened Calder Hall, Britain's first nuclear power station.
1957 - Steve McMichael was born. American football player and professional wrestler

1957 - French author Albert Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature.
1958 - Alan Jackson was born. American singer and songwriter
1958 - Charlie Townsend dies (b. 1876). English cricketer.
1961 - Approximately 200 Algerian protesters (some claim up to 400) are massacred by the Paris police
1962 - Mike Judge was born. Ecuadoran-born cartoonist and writer
1963 - Norm Macdonald was born. Canadian comedian and actor

1963 - Sergio Goycochea was born. Argentine football player.
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.
1966 - Botswana and Lesoto are admitted as ONU members
1967 - The musical Hair opens at the Anspacher Theater on Broadway.
1967 - Henry Pu Yi dies (b. 1906). Last emperor of China.
1968 - Black athletes make silent protest : Two black Americans make history at the Mexico Olympics with a silent protest against racial discrimination.
1968 - Ziggy Marley was born. Jamaican musician
1969 - Ernie Els was born. South African golfer
1970 - Anil Kumble was born. Indian cricketer
1970 - Pierre Laporte dies assassinated (b. 1921). Vice-Premier of Quebec.
1970 - Anwar Sadat becomes president of Egypt
1970 - Montreal, Quebec: Quebec Vice-Premier and Minister of Labour Pierre Laporte murdered by members of the FLQ terrorist group.
1971 - Chris Kirkpatrick was born. American singer
1972 - Eminem was born. American rapper
1972 - Wyclef Jean was born. Haitian-born singer
1973 - OPEC starts an oil embargo against a number of western countries, considered to have helped Israel in its war against Syria
1973- Ingeborg Bachmann dies (b. 1926). Austrian writer.
1973 - Gene Krupa dies (b. 1909). American drummer.
1974 - John Rocker was born. baseball player

1977 - West German commandos stormed a hijacked Lufthansa jetliner that was on the ground in Mogadishu, Somalia, freeing all 86 hostages and killing three of the four hijackers.
1979 - Kimi Räikkönen was born. Finnish race car driver.
1979 - S. J. Perelman dies (b. 1904). American writer and humorist .
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.
1980 - Pope welcomes Queen of England to the Vatican
1983 - Raymond Aron dies (b. 1905). French philosopher and sociolog
1984 - Henri Michaux dies (b. 1899). French painter and poet
1984 - The New York Times runs an article titled "CIA primer tells nicaraguan rebels how to kill", which describes a secret "Psychological Operations in Guerilla Warfare" manual that the CIA supplied to the Contras and that gives instructions on how to kidnap and assassinate civil officials such as judges and policemen.

1984 - Mário Silva, pintor português, obtém o Prémio Siena 1982, em Itália, pela sua obra Quadrado de Ouro.
1989 - Loma Prieta earthquake (7.1 on the Richter scale) hits the San Francisco Bay Area.
1991 - Tennessee Ernie Ford dies (b. 1919). American singer and television performer
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.

1992 - Eleições presidenciais em Angola dão 49,57 % a Eduardo dos Santos (MPLA) e 40,07 % a Jonas Savimbi (UNITA).
1994 - Draft peace treaty between Israel and Jordan
1994 - Peace treaty between the government of Angola and UNITA rebels.
1998 - O ex-governante chileno, Augusto Pinochet é detido em Londres por orden do juiz espanhol Garzón

2000 - Fariba Hashtroudi, Iranian archeologist and journalist receives the 2000 Human Right Prize for Literature.
2001 - Rehavam Zeevi dies (b. 1926). Israeli politician
2002 - Derek Bell dies. Irish harpist (The Chieftans)
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.
R.C. Saints - Saint Ignatius of Antioch; translation of Saint Audrey (Æthelthryth)
Haiti - Death of Jean-Jacques Dessalines (State holiday)
United States - Black Poetry Day
UN International Day for the Eradication of Poverty