September 17 - Events

Events

• 456 – Remistus, Roman general (magister militum), is besieged with a Gothic force at Ravenna and later executed in the Palace in Classis, outside the city.
• 1111 – Highest Galician nobility led by Pedro Fróilaz de Traba and the bishop Diego Gelmírez crown Alfonso VII as "King of Galicia".
• 1176 – The Battle of Myriokephalon is fought.
• 1462 – The Battle of Świecino (also known as the Battle of Żarnowiec) is fought during Thirteen Years' War.
• 1577 – The Peace of Bergerac is signed between Henry III of France and the Huguenots.
• 1630 – The city of Boston, Massachusetts is founded.
• 1631 – Sweden wins a major victory at the Battle of Breitenfeld against the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years War.
• 1683 – Antonie van Leeuwenhoek writes a letter to the Royal Society describing "animalcules": the first known description of protozoa.
• 1716 – Jean Thurel enlists in the Touraine Regiment at the age of 17, the first day of a military career that would span for over 90 years.
• 1775 – American Revolutionary War: The Invasion of Canada begins with the Siege of Fort St. Jean.
• 1776 – The Presidio of San Francisco is founded in New Spain.
• 1778 – The Treaty of Fort Pitt is signed. It is the first formal treaty between the United States and a Native American tribe (the Lenape or Delaware Indians).
• 1787 – The United States Constitution is signed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• 1809 – Peace between Sweden and Russia in the Finnish War. The territory to become Finland is ceded to Russia by the Treaty of Fredrikshamn.
• 1814 – Francis Scott Key finishes his poem "Defence of Fort McHenry", later to be the lyrics of "The Star-Spangled Banner".
• 1849 – American abolitionist Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery.
• 1859 – Joshua A. Norton declares himself "Emperor Norton I" of the United States.
• 1862 – American Civil War: George B. McClellan halts the northward drive of Robert E. Lee's Confederate army in the single-day Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day in American history.
• 1862 – American Civil War: The Allegheny Arsenal explosion results in the single largest civilian disaster during the war.
• 1894 – The Battle of Yalu River, the largest naval engagement of the First Sino-Japanese War.
• 1900 – Philippine-American War: Filipinos under Juan Cailles defeat Americans under Colonel Benjamin F. Cheatham at Mabitac.
• 1908 – The Wright Flyer flown by Orville Wright, with Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge as passenger, crashes killing Selfridge. He becomes the first airplane fatality.
• 1914 – Andrew Fisher becomes Prime Minister of Australia for the third time.
• 1916 – World War I: Manfred von Richthofen ("The Red Baron"), a flying ace of the German Luftstreitkräfte, wins his first aerial combat near Cambrai, France.
• 1920 – The American Professional Football Association (later renamed National Football League) is organized in Canton, Ohio, United States.
• 1924 – The Border Defence Corps is established in the Second Polish Republic for the defence of the eastern border against armed Soviet raids and local bandits.
• 1928 – The Okeechobee Hurricane strikes southeastern Florida, killing upwards of 2,500 people. It is the third deadliest natural disaster in United States history, behind the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
• 1939 – World War II: The Soviet Union joins Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland during the Polish Defensive War of 1939.
• 1939 – World War II: A German U-boat U 29 sinks the British aircraft carrier HMS Courageous.
• 1939 – Taisto Mäki becomes the first man to run the 10,000 metres in under 30 minutes, in a time of 29:52.6
• 1940 – World War II: Following the German defeat in the Battle of Britain, Hitler postpones Operation Sea Lion indefinitely.
• 1941 – World War II: A decree of the Soviet State Committee of Defense, restoring Vsevobuch in the face of the Great Patriotic War, is issued.
• 1943 – World War II: The Russian city of Bryansk is liberated from Germans.
• 1944 – World War II: Allied Airborne troops parachute into the Netherlands as the "Market" half of Operation Market Garden.
• 1948 – The Lehi (also known as the Stern gang) assassinates Count Folke Bernadotte, who was appointed by the UN to mediate between the Arab nations and Israel.
• 1948 – The Nizam of Hyderabad surrenders his sovereignty over the Hyderabad State and joins the Indian Union.
• 1949 – The Canadian steamship SS Noronic burns in Toronto Harbour with the loss of over 118 lives.
• 1957 – Malaysia joins the United Nations.
• 1961 – The world's first retractable-dome stadium, the Civic Arena, opens in Pittsburgh.
• 1974 – Bangladesh, Grenada and Guinea-Bissau join the United Nations.
• 1976 – The first Space Shuttle, Enterprise, is unveiled by NASA.
• 1978 – The Camp David Accords are signed by Israel and Egypt.
• 1980 – After weeks of strikes at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland, the nationwide independent trade union Solidarity is established.
• 1980 – Former Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza Debayle is killed in Asunción, Paraguay.
• 1983 – Vanessa Williams becomes the first black Miss America.
• 1991 – Estonia, North Korea, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, the Marshall Islands and Micronesia join the United Nations.
• 1991 – The first version of the Linux kernel (0.01) is released to the Internet.
• 1992 – An Iranian Kurdish leader and his two joiners are assassinated by political militants in Berlin, Germany.
• 1993 – Last Russian troops leave Poland.
• 2001 – The New York Stock Exchange reopens for trading after the September 11 Attacks, the longest closure since the Great Depression.
• 2006 – Fourpeaked Mountain in Alaska erupts, marking the first eruption for the long-dormant volcano in at least 10,000 years.
• 2006 – An audio tape of a private speech by Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány is leaked to the public, in which he confessed that his Hungarian Socialist Party had lied to win the 2006 election, sparking widespread protests across the country.
• 2007 – AOL, once the largest ISP in the U.S., officially announces plans to refocus the company as an advertising business and to relocate its corporate headquarters from Dulles, Virginia to New York, New York.
• 2011 – Occupy Wall Street movement begins in Zucotti Park, New York City.