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Events

538 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.

1244 - Battle of La Forbie: Crusaders are defeated by Khwarezmians and Egyptians.

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.

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.

1662 - Charles II of England sells 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 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).

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 appear 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, headed for CGT and Evita, 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 - Approximately 200 Algerian protesters (some claim up to 400) are massacred by the Paris police

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.

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.

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

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.

1994 - Draft peace treaty between Israel and Jordan

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

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.

 

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