17 October 2024 (MIA)

1091 – London tornado of 1091: A tornado thought to be of strength T8/F4 strikes the heart of London.

1346 – Battle of Neville’s Cross: King David II of Scotland is captured by the English near Durham, 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 an Ottoman army led by Sultan Murad II.

1558 – Poczta Polska, the Polish postal service, is founded.

1604 – Kepler’s Supernova: German astronomer Johannes Kepler observes a supernova in the constellation Ophiuchus.

1610 – French king Louis XIII is crowned in Reims Cathedral.

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 Amadeus Mozart, age 15.

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.

1861 – Nineteen people are killed in the Cullin-la-ringo massacre, the deadliest massacre of Europeans by aborigines in Australian history.

1878 – Kresna Uprising against the Ottomans broke out. Under the leadership of Dimitar Pop Georgiev-Berovski and Stojan Karastoilov, about 400 fighters attacked Ottoman army barracks in the village of Kresna. They also liberated several surrounding villages. The uprising was suppressed in June of next year.

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

1905 – The October Manifesto issued by Tsar Nicholas II of Russia (October 30th in the Gregorian calendar).

1907 – Guglielmo Marconi’s company begins the first commercial transatlantic wireless service between Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada and 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.

1918 – Haitian rebels attack the barracks of the Gendarmerie of Haiti, igniting the Second Caco War

1919 – RCA is incorporated as the Radio Corporation of America.

1931 – Al Capone is convicted of income tax evasion.

1933 – Albert Einstein flees Nazi Germany and moves to the United States.

1941 – World War II: a German submarine attacks an American ship for the first time in the war.

1941 – German troops execute the male population of the villages Kerdyllia in Serres, Greece.

1943 – The Holocaust: Sobibór extermination camp is closed.

1945 – A massive number of people, headed by CGT, gather in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, Argentina to demand Juan Perón’s release. It calls “el día de la lealtad peronista” (peronista loyalty day)

1945 – Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens becomes Prime Minister of Greece between the pull-out of the German occupation force in 1944 and the return of King Georgios II to Greece.

1956 – The first commercial nuclear power station is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II in Sellafield,in Cumbria, England.

1956 – Donald Byrne and Bobby Fischer play a famous chess game called The Game of the Century. Fischer beat Byrne and wins a Brilliancy prize.

1961 – Scores of Algerian protesters (some claim up to 400) are massacred by the Paris police at the instigation of former Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon, then chief of the Prefecture of Police.

1965 – The 1964–65 New York World’s Fair closes after a two-year run. More than 51 million people had attended the event.

1966 – A fire at a building in New York City kills 12 firefighters, the fire department’s deadliest day until the September 11, 2001 attacks.

1970 – Montreal: Quebec Vice-Premier and Minister of Labour Pierre Laporte murdered by members of the FLQ terrorist group.

1973 – OPEC imposes an oil embargo against a number of Western countries, considered to have helped Israel in its war against Egypt and 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 is 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 – The 6.9 Mw Loma Prieta earthquake shakes the San Francisco Bay Area and the Central Coast with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). Sixty-three people were killed.

1989 – Peaceful Revolution: The East German Politburo votes to remove Erich Honecker from his role as General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany.

1994 – Russian journalist Dmitry Kholodov is assassinated while investigating corruption in the armed forces.

2001 – Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Ze’evi becomes the first Israeli minister to be assassinated in a terrorist attack.

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 in Kuala Lumpur by 56 metres (184 ft) and become the world’s tallest highrise.

2018 – The recreational use of cannabis is legalized in Canada.

2018 – Kerch Polytechnic College attack in Crimea.