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
• 1066 - Battle of Hastings
• 1174 - Queen Petronila of Aragon dies (b. 1135)
• 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
• 1448 - Second Battle of Kosovo, where the mainly Hungarian army lead by John Hunyadi fought an Ottoman army lead by Murad II.
• 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.
• 1719 - Jacques Cazotte was born (d. 1792). French writer.
• 1744 - Giuseppe Antonio Guarneri dies. Violins maker.
• 1757 - René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur dies (b. 1683). French scientist.
• 1760 - Claude Henri de Rouvroy was born. Philosopher
• 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
• 1786 - Johann Ludwig Aberli dies (b. 1723). Swiss artist.
• 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.
• 1817 - Sir Syed Ahmad Khan was born (d. 1898). Famous Indian Muslim intellectual of the 19th Century.
• 1820 - Édouard Roche was born (d. 18 Apr. 1883). French astronomer.
• 1836 - Orest Kiprensky dies (b. 1782). Russian painter.
• 1837 - Johann Nepomuk Hummel dies (b. 1778). Austrian pianist and composer.
• 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.
• 1868 - Laura Secord dies (b. 1775). Canadian heroine of the war of 1812.
• 1886 - Spring Byington was born (d. 1971). American actress.
• 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.
• 1898 - Shinichi Suzuki was born (d. 1998). Japanese violin teacher.
• 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),
• 1906 - Paul Derringer was born (d. 1987). Baseball player.
• 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 Camilo Castelo Branco's work (Dicionário de Camilo).
• 1917 - Sumner Locke Elliott was born (d. 1991). Australian (later American) novelist.
• 1918 - Rita Hayworth was born (d. 1987). American actress.
• 1919 - Isaak Markovich Khalatnikov was born. Russian physicist
• 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.
• 1921 - Maria Gorokhovskaya was born (d. 2001). Soviet gymnast.
• 1922 - Pierre Juneau, was born. Canadian film and broadcast executive
• 1922 - Luiz Bonfá was born (d. 2001). Brazilian guitarist and composer.
• 1923 - Charles McClendon was born (d. 2001). LSU Tigers head football coach.
• 1923 - Barney Kessel was born (d. 2004). American jazz guitarist.
• 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.
• 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 - Ernst Hinterberger was born. Austrian writer
• 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
• 1933 - Jeanine Deckers was born (d. 1985). Belgian nun and singer.
• 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.
• 1941 - Earl Thomas Conley was born. American country music singer.
• 1941 - Jim Seals was born. American singer/songwriter (Seals and Crofts)
• 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.
• 1946 - Michael Hossack was born. American rock drummer (The Doobie Brothers)
• 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.
• 1959 - Ron Drummond was born. American writer, editor, and independent scholar
• 1959 - Russell Gilbert was born. Australian comedian and actor
• 1960 - Rob Marshall was born. American theater and film director
• 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.
• 1962 - Natalia Goncharova dies (b. 1882). Russian painter.
• 1963 - Norm Macdonald was born. Canadian comedian and actor.
• 1963 - Sergio Goycochea was born. Argentine football player.
• 1963 - Jacques Hadamard dies (b. 1865). French mathematician.
• 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.
• 1965 - Aravinda de Silva was born. Sri Lankan cricketer
• 1966 - Mark Gatiss was born. English actor
• 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
• 1969 - Rick Mercer was born. Canadian comedian
• 1970 - John Mabry was born. Baseball player
• 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.
• 1970 - Vola Vale dies (b. 1867). American actress.
• 1971 - Chris Kirkpatrick was born. American singer ('N Sync)
• 1972 - Eminem was born. American rapper
• 1972 - Wyclef Jean was born. Haitian-born singer
• 1972 - Joe McEwing was born. Baseball player
• 1972 - Prince George of Yugoslavia dies (b. 1887)
• 1972 - Turk Broda dies (b. 1914). National Hockey League goaltender.
• 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.
• 1974 - Bárbara Paz was born. Brazilian actress.
• 1975 - Francis Bouillon was born. National Hockey League defenseman
• 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.
• 1981 - Albert Cohen dies (b. 1895). Swiss author.
• 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 - Presidential elections in Angola Eduardo dos Santos (MPLA) wins with 49,57% / Eleições presidenciais em Angola dão 49,57 % a Eduardo dos Santos (MPLA) e 40,07 % a Jonas Savimbi (UNITA).
• 1992 - Herman Johannes dies (b. 1912). Indonesian professor, scientist and politician.
• 1994 - Draft peace treaty between Israel and Jordan
• 1994 - Peace treaty between the government of Angola and UNITA.
• 1998 - O ex-governante chileno, Augusto Pinochet é detido em Londres por orden do juiz espanhol Garzón
• 1998 - Hakim Mohammed Said dies (b. 1920). Pakistani scholar and philanthropist
• 1998 - Joan Hickson dies (b. 1906). British actress.
• 2000 - Fariba Hashtroudi, Iranian archeologist and journalist receives the 2000 Human Right Prize for Literature.
• 2000 - Leo Nomellini dies (b. 1924). Wrestler.
• 2001 - Jay Livingston dies (b. 1915). American songwriter.
• 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.
• 2003 - Eunuchs in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh float the political party Jiti Jitayi Politics.
• 2004 - Uzi Hitman dies (b. 1952). Israeli singer.
• 2005 - Ba Jin dies (b. 1904). Chinese writer.
• 2005 - Franky Gee dies (b. 1964). European techno artist.
• 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.
• International Day for Eradication of Poverty (United Nations) / Dia Internacional para a Erradicação da Pobreza