October 17 ::: Project ETERNITY

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October 17 is the 290th (in leap years the 291st) day of the year according to the Gregorian calendar. There are 75 days remaining.

Events

1200-1899

1244 - Battle of La Forbie: Crusaders were defeated by Khwarezmians & Egyptians

1346 - Battle of Neville's Cross: King David II of Scotland was captured by Edward III of England at Calais, and imprisoned in the Tower of London for eleven years

1469 - Ferdinand II of Aragon marries Isabella of Castile. Their marriage leads to the unification of Aragon and Castile in a single country, Spain

1604 - Kepler's Star: German astronomer Johannes Kepler observed 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 sold 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 British golf open

1888 - Thomas Edison files a patent for the Optical Phonograph (the first movie).

1900-1999

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 appeared 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 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 - 200 Algerian protesters are massacred by the Paris police

1967 - The musical Hair opens at the Anspacher Theater on Broadway.

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.

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.

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.

1989 - Loma Prieta earthquake (7.1 on the Richter scale) hits the San Francisco Bay Area.

1994 - Draft peace treaty between Israel and Jordan

1994 - Peace treaty between the government of Angola and UNITA rebels.

2000-2099

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.