Post by farmgal on Oct 17, 2012 23:02:55 GMT -5
October 17 is the 291st day of this leap year in the Gregorian calendar.
There are 75 days remaining until the end of the year.
Days until Election Day, Tuesday November 6, 2012: 20
Countdown until Obama leaves Office www.obamaclock.org/
U.S. Debt Clock: www.usdebtclock.org/
1691 New royal charter for Massachusetts, now including Maine, Plymouth. The Bay Colony asked for the restoration of its original charter. Though the recently enthroned William and Mary agreed to the dissolution of the Dominion, they did not fully restore the colony's independent authority. Instead, they created a new colony of massachusetts, under a royal charter established in 1691. Plymouth and Maine were absorbed into Massachusetts Bay.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Cornwallis#Virginia_campaign
1777 British surrender at Saratoga. A British army of nearly 7,000 surrendered today to a combined force of American militia and Continental regulars. "The fortunes of war have made me your prisoner," said British General John Burgoyne as he handed over his sword to his American counterpart, Horatio Gates. "I shall always be ready to testify that it was through no fault of your excellency," Gates replied.
In the summer of 1777, General Burgoyne led an army of 8,000 men south through New York in an effort to join forces with British General Sir William Howe's troops along the Hudson River. After capturing several forts, Burgoyne's force camped near Saratoga while a larger Patriot army under General Gates gathered just four miles away. On September 19, a British advance column marched out and engaged the Patriot force at the Battle of Freeman's Farm, or the First Battle of Saratoga. Failing to break through the American lines, Burgoyne's force retreated. On October 7, another British reconnaissance force was repulsed by an American force under General Benedict Arnold in the Battle of Bemis Heights, also known as the Second Battle of Saratoga.
Gates retreated north to the village of Saratoga with his 5,000 surviving troops. By October 13, some 20,000 Americans had surrounded the British, and four days later Burgoyne was forced to agree to the first large-scale surrender of British forces in the Revolutionary War.
Burgoyne successfully negotiated that his surviving men would be returned to Britain by pledging that they would never again serve in North America. The nearly 6,000-man army was kept in captivity at great expense to the Continental Congress until the end of the war.
Soon after word of the Patriot victory at Saratoga reached France, King Louis XVI agreed to recognize the independence of the United States and French Foreign Minister Charles Gravier, Count de Vergennes, made arrangements with U.S. Ambassador Benjamin Franklin to begin providing formal French aid to the Patriot cause. This assistance was crucial to the eventual American victory in the Revolutionary War.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Burgoyne
1781 - General Cornwallis attempted to escape encirclement by crossing York River, "but a violent storm arose" dispersing his boats causing him to ask for an armistice. (Sandra and TI Richard Sanders - 1987)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Cornwallis
An early depiction of a group of Texas Rangers, c. 1845
1835 The first resolution formally creating the Texas Rangers is approved. On this day in 1835, Texans approve a resolution to create the Texas Rangers, a corps of armed and mounted lawmen designed to "range and guard the frontier between the Brazos and Trinity Rivers."
In the midst of their revolt against Mexico, Texan leaders felt they needed a semi-official force of armed men who would defend the isolated frontier settlers of the Lone Star Republic against both Santa Ana's soldiers and hostile Indians; the Texas Rangers filled this role. But after winning their revolutionary war with Mexico the following year, Texans decided to keep the Rangers, both to defend against Indian and Mexican raiders and to serve as the principal law enforcement authority along the sparsely populated Texan frontier.
Although created and sanctioned by the Texas government, the Rangers was an irregular body made up of civilians who furnished their own horses and weapons. Given the vast expanse of territory they patrolled and the difficulty of communicating with the central government, the government gave the men of the Rangers considerable independence to act as they saw fit. Sometimes the Rangers served as a military force, taking on the role of fighting the Indians that in the U.S. was largely the responsibility of the Army. At other times the Rangers mainly served as the principal law enforcement power in many frontier regions of Texas, earning lasting fame for their ability to track down and eliminate outlaws, cattle thieves, train robbers, and murderers, including such notorious bandits as John Wesley Hardin and King Fisher.
Even as late as the first two decades of the 20th century, the state of Texas continued to rely on the Rangers to enforce order in the wilder regions of the state, like the oil boomtowns along the Rio Grande. Increasingly, though, some Texans began to criticize the Rangers, arguing that they used excessive violence and often failed to observe the finer points of the law when apprehending suspects. As a result, in the 1930s, the state won control over the Rangers, transforming it into a modern and professional law enforcement organization.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Ranger_Division
1871 President Grant suspends writ of habeas corpus in nine counties in South Carolina and sent federal troops to South Carolina to stop attacks by the Ku Klux Klan against newly emancipated black citizens.
1888 The first issue of "National Geographic Magazine." National Geographic Magazine is the journal of the National Georgraphic Society, largest scientific and educational institution in the world. The nonprofit society was founded in 1888 in Washington, D.C., by 33 civic leaders to promote "the increase and diffusion of geographic knowledge." Its first president was Gardiner Greene Hubbard, father-in-law and financial backer of Alexander Graham Bell and first president of the Bell Telephone Company.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Geographic_(magazine)
1888 Thomas Edison files a patent for the Optical Phonograph (the first movie).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison#West_Orange_and_Fort_Myers_.281886.E2.80.931931.29
1910 - A hurricane made a loop off the southwest coast of Florida. Winds above 100 mph were reported at Fort Myers FL, and the barometric pressure at Sand Key reached 28.40 inches. (David Ludlum)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1910_Atlantic_hurricane_season#Hurricane_Five
1917 First British bombing of Germany in World War I.
1919 Radio Corporation of America (RCA) created. "On October 17, 1919, GE caused to be organized under the laws of the State of Delaware the company known as the Radio Corporation of America. In the certificate of incorporation, it was provided that 'no person shall be eligible for election as a director or officer of the corporation who is not at the time of such election a citizen of the United States'. On November 20, 1919, the American Marconi Company was officially merged with the Radio Corporation of America. It continued to exist for legal purposes to wind up its affairs, but ceased to function as a communications corporation.
1931 Al Capone convicted of tax evasion, sentenced to 11 years in prison. Capone was tried in a federal court in 1931. He pleaded guilty to the charges, hoping for a plea bargain. But after the judge refused his lawyer's offers, and the jury was replaced on the day of the trial to frustrate Capone's associates' efforts to bribe or intimidate the original jury, Al Capone was found guilty on five of twenty-two counts of tax evasion for the years 1925, 1926, and 1927, and willful failure to file returns for 1928 and 1929. He was sentenced to eleven years in a federal prison and one year in the county jail, and also had to serve an earlier six-month contempt of court sentence.
1933 Albert Einstein arrives in the US, a refugee from Nazi Germany. Einstein came to New York with his wife Elsa, his secretary Helen Dukas and his assistant Walther Mayer on October 17 and visits his newly adopted home town Princeton, New Jersey. He begins to work for the Institute for Advanced Study.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein
1940 Will Bradley’s orchestra recorded "Five O’Clock Whistle"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Bradley
1941 Konoye government falls. On this day in 1941, the government of Prince Fumimaro Konoye, prime minister of Japan, collapses, leaving little hope for peace in the Pacific.
Konoye, a lawyer by training and well studied in Western philosophy, literature, and economics, entered the Japanese Parliament's upper house by virtue of his princely status and immediately pursued a program of reform. High on his agenda was a reform of the army general staff in order to prevent its direct interference in foreign policy decisions. He also sought an increase in parliamentary power. An antifascist, Konoye championed an end to the militarism of Japanese political structures, especially in light of the war in Manchuria, which began in 1931.
Appointed prime minister in 1933, Konoye's first cabinet fell after full-blown war broke out between Japan and China. In 1940, Konoye was asked to form a second cabinet. But as he sought to contain the war with China, relations with the United States deteriorated, to the point where Japan was virtually surrounded by a U.S. military presence and threats of sanctions. On August 27, 1941, Konoye requested a summit with President Roosevelt in order to diminish heightening tensions. Envoys were exchanged, but no direct meeting with the president took place. (The U.S. government believed it could send the wrong message to China-and that Japan was on the losing end of that war anyway.)
In October, Konoye resigned because of increasing tension with his army minister, Tojo Hideki. Tojo succeeded Konoye as prime minister, holding on to his offices of army minister and war minister. Imperial Japan's foreign policy was now formally controlled by the military. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Konoye was put under military surveillance, his political career all but over until 1945, when the emperor considered sending him to Moscow to negotiate peace terms. That meeting never came off.
When Saipan fell to the U.S. Marines and Army, Tojo's government collapsed. Upon Japan's surrender, Tojo shot himself to prevent being taken prisoner by the United States. He lived and was tried by an international war-crimes tribunal—and hanged on December 22, 1948. As for Konoye, the grand irony of his career came when he was served with an arrest warrant by the U.S. occupying force for suspicion of war crimes. Rather than submit to arrest, he committed suicide by drinking poison.
[a href="en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fumimaro_Konoye"]en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fumimaro_Konoye[/a][/url]
1941 – For the first time in World War II, a German submarine attacks an American ship.
1941 German troops execute the male population of the villages Kerdyllia in Serres, Greece and burn the houses down.
1943 Chicago Mayor Ed Kelly opens city's new subway system. Work on the city's first subway began December 17, 1938. Mayor Kelly and Secretary of Interior Harold L. Ickes turned the first spades of earth in North State Street near Chicago Avenue. A deep shaft was then executed for access to the line of the subway where mining operations began. Mining through the soft, watery clay underlying the city was a difficult engineering task but it was accomplished without a single cave-in. The subway was opened October 17, 1943.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Joseph_Kelly
1950 - Small but powerful Hurricane King struck Miami, FL. The hurricane packs winded to 122 mph, with gusts to 150 mph. Hurricane King then moved up the Florida peninsula to Georgia. Four persons were killed and damage was 28 million dollars. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_King
1953 "St. George and the Dragonet" by Stan Freberg topped the charts.
1955 Lee Merriwether joins the Today Show panel.
1955 Jose Ferrer and Claire Bloom starred on NBC’s "Producers' Showcase."
1960 "Save the Last Dance for Me" by the Drifters topped the charts. Ben Nelson remained with Atlantic Records on their Atco subsidiary as a solo artist, and agreed to record with the group until a suitable replacement could be found, singing on "Dance With Me," "This Magic Moment," "I Count the Tears," and "Save the Last Dance for Me," the latter their only number one hit, among other songs, through the spring of 1960. By the time his exit had been arranged, Nelson had changed his name to the more memorable Ben E. King, which was how he emerged in his own right.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Save_the_Last_Dance_for_Me
1961 NASA civilian pilot Joseph A Walker takes X-15 to 108,600 feet. In 1960, Walker was the first NASA pilot to fly the X-15 aircraft, following Scott Crossfield, the manufacturer's test pilot. On the first flight, he didn't realize how much power the engine had, and he crashed backward into his seat, screaming, "Oh, my God!"; a flight controller jokingly replied "Yes? You called?" Walker would go on to fly the X-15 24 times In 1963, Walker made two X-15 flights beyond 100 kilometers - the edge of space. These were the only spaceplane flights past that threshold until SpaceShipOne in 2004.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_A._Walker
1961 "HOT ROCKS" Candy was trademark registered.
www.amazon.com/Old-Fashion-Hot-Rocks-Candy/dp/B001V3Z3VG
1964 "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" by Manfred Mann topped the charts. "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" was written by the songwriting team of Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich. It was originally recorded by The Exciters as the follow-up to their hit "Tell Him." However, the British invasion had begun and once Manfred Mann recorded it, the Exciters were out of luck.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Wah_Diddy_Diddy
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.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_New_York_World%27s_Fair
1966 A fire at a building in New York, New York kills 12 firefighters, the New York City Fire Department's deadliest day until the September 11, 2001 attacks.
1967 Pete Knight in X-15 reaches 278,885 feet. Pete Knight made 16 flights in the X-15, and set the world unofficial speed record for fixed wing aircraft, 4,520 mph (mach 6.7), in the X-15A-2. He also made one flight above 50 miles, qualifying him for astronaut wings.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Knight
1967 The play "Hair" is first performed. HAIR was created by James Rado and Gerome Ragni, two out-of-work actors who, according to Rado, "were aware of the traditional Broadway format, but we wanted to create something new, something different, something that translated to the stage the wonderful excitement we felt in the streets." This "excitement" was that of the long-haired, peace-loving, freewheeling hippies of New York's East Village. HAIR opened at the Public Theater on October 17, 1967. However, that run soon came to an end, with no new venue in sight. The show opened on Broadway at the Biltmore Theater on April 29, 1968. It closed on July 1, 1972 after 1,742 performances.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_(musical)
1968 Olympic protestors stripped of their medals. On October 17, 1968, Olympic gold medalist Tommie Smith and bronze medalist John Carlos are forced to return their awards because they raised their fists in a black-power salute during the medal ceremony. In a press conference the next day, International Olympic Committee President Avery Brundage deplored the athletes’ "outrageous stance"—it repudiated, he said, "the basic principles of the Olympic games." The AP photograph of the ceremony is one of the most familiar and enduring images of a tumultuous era.
On October 16, Smith and Carlos finished first and third in the 200-meter dash at the Mexico City Olympics. Smith set a new world record: 19.83 seconds. Their medal-ceremony protest was relatively spontaneous—the pair decided what they’d do while they waited in the athletes’ lounge for the ceremony to begin--but the sprinters had been active in the civil rights movement long before they arrived in Mexico City. Along with Harry Edwards, one of their professors at San Diego State University, Smith and Carlos had organized a group called the Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR) that tried to encourage African-American athletes to boycott the Games. (Even if you won the medal," Carlos said," it ain’t going to save your momma. It ain’t going to save your sister or your children. It might give you 15 minutes of fame, but what about the rest of your life?")
When they got to the podium for the medal ceremony, Smith and Carlos were wearing OPHR badges on their tracksuits. (Silver medalist Peter Norman, an Australian, wore one too.) They wore no shoes, to symbolize the poverty that plagued so many black Americans. Carlos wore a necklace of black beads, he said, "for those individuals that were lynched or killed that no one said a prayer for, that were hung tarred. It was for those thrown off the side of the boats in the middle passage." Smith wore a black scarf. Both bowed their heads, raised their gloved hands and remained silent while "The Star-Spangled Banner" played.
People in the crowd booed and cursed at the athletes. The IOC convened the next day and determined that Smith and Carlos would have to forfeit their medals and leave the Olympic Village—and Mexico—immediately. Brundage even threatened to boot the entire American team as punishment. "The untypical exhibitionism of these athletes violates the basic standards of good manners and sportsmanship, which are so highly valued in the United States," the U.S. Olympic Committee said "Such immature behavior is an isolated incident" and "a willful disregard of Olympic principles."
Even after the athletes had been disciplined, the backlash continued. Newspapers compared the men to Nazis—Brett Musburger, a sportscaster for ABC, called them "black-skinned storm troopers." Time called their act "nasty" and "ugly." His "un-American activities" got Smith discharged from the Army, and someone threw a rock through a plate-glass window at his baby’s crib. The two men received death threats for years.
In some quarters, at least, public opinion has recently begun to shift, and many people now celebrate the sprinters’ courageous and principled act. In 2005, San José State University unveiled a 20-foot-tall statue honoring the two men.
1970 "I'll Be There" by the Jackson 5 topped the charts
1971 - Great balls of fire were observed just ahead of a tornado moving down the main street of Wray CO. However, little other electrical activity accompanied the storm. Nine persons were injured in the tornado, all at a trailer court at the edge of town. (The Weather Channel)
1973 The Arab oil embargo begins. It will last until March 1974.
1974 NBA New Orleans Jazz begin a 28 game road losing streak
1974 Ford explains his pardon of Nixon to Congress. On this day in 1974, President Gerald Ford explains to Congress why he had chosen to pardon his predecessor, Richard Nixon, rather than allow Congress to pursue legal action against the former president.
Congress had accused Nixon of obstruction of justice during the investigation of the Watergate scandal, which began in 1972. White House tape recordings revealed that Nixon knew about and possibly authorized the bugging of the Democratic National Committee offices, located in the Watergate Hotel in Washington D.C. Rather than be impeached and removed from office, Nixon chose to resign on August 8, 1974.
When he assumed office on August 9, 1974, Ford, referring to the Watergate scandal, announced that America’s "long national nightmare" was over. There were no historical or legal precedents to guide Ford in the matter of Nixon’s pending indictment, but after much thought, he decided to give Nixon a full pardon for all offenses against the United States in order to put the tragic and disruptive scandal behind all concerned. Ford justified this decision by claiming that a long, drawn-out trial would only have further polarized the public. Ford’s decision to pardon Nixon was condemned by many and is thought to have contributed to Ford’s failure to win the presidential election of 1976.
From his home in California, Nixon responded to Ford’s pardon, saying he had gained a different perspective on the Watergate affair since his resignation. He admitted that he was "wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate, particularly when it reached the stage of judicial proceedings and grew from a political scandal into a national tragedy."
1974 Oakland A's beat LA Dodgers, 4 games to 1 in 71st World Series
1978 President Carter signs bill restoring Jefferson Davis citizenship
1979 Mother Teresa of India, 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.
1984 - A snowstorm struck northern Utah producing a record 18 inches in 24 hours at Salt Lake City, and 40 inches at the nearby Alta Ski Resort. The town of Magna, located ten miles west of Salt Lake City, did not receive any snow at all. The storm was responsible for a fifty vehicle pile-up along Interstate 15 near Farmington UT. (Storm Data)
1987 First World Series game in a covered stadium (Minnesota Metrodome). In the first indoor World Series game ever, Dan Gladden's grand slam caps a 7-run 4th inning and leads the Twins to a 10-1 win over St. Louis in game one. It is the first World Series grand slam since 1970.
1987 - It was a great day for an Oktoberfest, or to enjoy the colors of autumn, as much of the nation enjoyed sunny and mild weather. Columbia SC dipped to 34 degrees, marking their third morning in a row of record cold. Bakersfield CA reached 80 degrees for the 143rd day in a row to break a record established in 1940. (The National Weather Summary)
1988 - Thunderstorms produced severe weather in the Middle Mississippi Valley and the Lower Ohio Valley. Severe thunderstorms spawned three tornadoes in Indiana, including one which injured four persons. Strong thunderstorm winds at Connerville IND caused three million dollars damage. Thunderstorms in Illinois produced hail two inches in diameter at Colfax. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1989 Earthquake in SF (6.9) cancels 3rd game of 86th World Series - kills 67. Game Three of the World Series is postponed when an earthquake strikes the San Francisco Bay area a half hour before game time, causing minor damage to Candlestick Park but major damage to the surrounding area. The quake registers 7.1 magnitude, killing 67 people and does $7 billion in damage. Though this was one of the most powerful and destructive earthquakes ever to hit a populated area of the United States, the death toll was quite small.
The proximity of the San Andreas Fault to San Francisco was well-known for most of the 20th century, but the knowledge did not stop the construction of many un-reinforced brick buildings in the area. Finally, in 1972, revised building codes forced new structures to be built to withstand earthquakes. The new regulations also called for older buildings to be retrofitted to meet the new standards, but the expense involved made these projects a low priority for the community.
On October 17, the Bay Area was buzzing about baseball. The Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants, both local teams, had reached the World Series. The first game of the series was scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park. Just prior to the game, with the cameras on the field, a 7.1-magnitude tremor centered near Loma Prieta Peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains rocked the region from Santa Cruz to Oakland. Though the stadium withstood the shaking, much of the rest of San Francisco was not so fortunate.
The city’s marina district suffered great damage. Built before 1972, on an area of the city where there was no underlying bedrock, the liquefaction of the ground resulted in the collapse of many homes. Burst gas mains and pipes also sparked fires that burned out of control for nearly two days. Also hard hit by the quake were two area roads, the Nimitz Expressway and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.
Both roads featured double-decker construction and, on each, the upper level collapsed during the earthquake. Forty-one of the 67 victims of this disaster were motorists on the lower level of the Nimitz, who were killed when the upper level of the road collapsed and crushed them in their cars. Only one person was killed on the Bay Bridge--which had been scheduled for a retrofitting the following week--because there were no cars under the section that collapsed.
Other heavily damaged communities included Watsonville, Daly City and Palo Alto. More than 10 percent of the homes in Watsonville were completely demolished. The residents, most of whom were Latino, faced additional hardship because relief workers and the Red Cross did not have enough Spanish-speaking aides or translators to assist them.
The earthquake caused billions of dollars in damages, and contributed in part to the deep recession that California suffered in the early 1990s.
1989 - Showers and thunderstorms representing the remnants of Hurricane Jerry deluged southeast Kentucky with four to six inches of rain in 18 to 24 hours, resulting in widespread flash flooding. Flooding resulted in more than five million dollars damage. Temperatures again warmed into the 80s and lower 90s in the southeastern U.S. Lakeland FL and Orlando FL reported record highs of 95 degrees. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
2006 The United States population reaches 300 million.
Births
1711 Jupiter Hammon (d before 1806) Black poet who became the first African-American published writer in America when a poem appeared in print in 1760. He was a slave his entire life, and the date of his death is unknown. He was living in 1790 at the age of 79, and died by 1806. Hammon was a devout Christian, and is considered one of the founders of African American literature.
1817 Samuel Ringgold Ward (d c. 1866) African American who escaped enslavement to become an abolitionist, newspaper editor and Congregational minister, author of Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro: his anti-slavery labours in the United States, Canada and England, written after his speeches throughout Britain in 1853. It enabled him to raise funds for the Anti-slavery Society of Canada where many escaped slaves from the USA were arriving in the 1850s.
1859 William "Buck" Ewing (d 1906) Major League Baseball player and manager, and is widely regarded as the best catcher of his era and is often argued to be the best player of the 19th century. He was born in Hoagland, Ohio.
1865 James Rudolph Garfield (d 1950) American politician, lawyer and son of President James Abram Garfield and First Lady Lucretia Garfield.
1869 Robert Sessions Woodworth (d 1962) U.S. psychologist who conducted major research on learning and developed a system of "dynamic psychology" into which he sought to incorporate several different schools of psychological thought.
1886 Ernest William Goodpasture (d 1960) American pathologist and physician. Goodpasture advanced the scientific understanding of the pathogenesis of infectious diseases, parasitism, and a variety of rickettsial and viral infections. Together with colleagues at Vanderbilt University, he invented methods for growing viruses and rickettsiae in chicken embryos and fertilized chicken eggs. This enabled the development of vaccines against influenza, chicken pox, smallpox, yellow fever, typhus, Rocky mountain spotted fever and other diseases. He also described Goodpasture's syndrome (1919), an uncommon condition which typically causes rapid destruction of the kidneys.
1886 Spring Byington (d 1971) American actress. Her career included a seven-year run on radio and television as the star of December Bride. She was a key MGM contract player appearing in films from the 1930s through the 1960s
1903 Nathanael West (born Nathan von Wallenstein Weinstein) (d 1940) US author, screenwriter and satirist. (Day of the Locusts)
1912 Jack Owens, The Cruising Crooner, American singer/songwriter (d. 1982)
1912 Pope John Paul I (Latin: Ioannes Paulus PP. I, Italian: Giovanni Paolo I), born Albino Luciani, (d 1978), reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and as Sovereign of Vatican City from 26 August 1978 until his death 33 days later. His reign is among the shortest in papal history, resulting in the most recent Year of Three Popes. John Paul I was the first Pope born in the 20th century. (d. 1978)
1914 Jerome "Jerry" Siegel (d, 1996), who also used pseudonyms including Joe Carter,[2] Jerry Ess,[2] and Herbert S. Fine, American co-creator of Superman (along with Joe Shuster), the first of the great comic book superheroes and one of the most recognizable of the 20th century.
1915 Arthur Asher Miller (d 2005) American playwright and essayist. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include award-winning plays such as All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, and The Crucible. Miller was often in the public eye, particularly during the late 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s, a period during which he testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and was married to Marilyn Monroe.
1918 Rita Hayworth, American film actress and dancer who attained fame during the 1940s not only as one of the era's top stars, but also as a great sex symbol, most notably in Gilda (1946). She appeared in 61 films over 37 years and is listed as one of the American Film Institute's Greatest Stars of All Time. (Gilda, Pal Joey) (d. 1987)
1920 Montgomery Clift, American film actor and stage actor The New York Times’ obituary noted his portrayal of "moody, sensitive young men".Clift received four Academy Award nominations during his career, three for Best Actor and one for Best Supporting Actor. (From Here to Eternity)(d. 1966)
1921 Thomas Gordon "Tom" Poston (d 2007) American television and film actor. He starred on television in a career that began in 1950. He appeared as a comic actor, game show panelist, comedy/variety show host, film actor, television actor, and Broadway performer. (Steve Allen Show, Newhart)
1926 Karl Gordon Henize, Ph.D. (d 1993) astronomer, NASA astronaut, space scientist, and professor at Northwestern University.
1928 James William Gilliam (d 1978) American second and third baseman and coach in Negro League and Major League Baseball who spent his entire major league career with the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers. He was named the 1953 National League Rookie of the Year, and was a key member of ten NL championship teams from 1953 to 1978. The Dodgers' leadoff hitter for most of the 1950s, he scored over 100 runs in each of his first four seasons and led the NL in triples and walks once each. Upon retirement, he became one of the first African-American coaches in the major leagues.
1930 Robert Atkins, American nutritionist, physician and cardiologist, best known for the Atkins Nutritional Approach (or "Atkins Diet"), a popular but controversial way of dieting that entails close control of carbohydrate consumption, emphasizing protein and fat intake, including saturated fat in addition to leaf vegetables and dietary supplements. (d. 2003)
1930 Jimmy Breslin, American newspaper columnist and author. He has written numerous novels, and columns of his have appeared regularly in various newspapers in his hometown of New York City. He was a regular columnist for the newspaper Newsday until his retirement on November 2, 2004, and still has occasional pieces there.
1932 Paul Anderson US, light super heavyweight lifter (Olympic-gold-1956)
1933 William Alison Anders former United States Air Force officer, NASA astronaut, businessman, and engineer. He is, along with Apollo 8 crewmates Frank Borman and Jim Lovell, one of the first three persons to have left Earth orbit and traveled to the Moon (of only 24 people to date).
1938 Evel Knievel, American motorcycle daredevil (d. 2007)
1946 Robert "Bob" Seagren (born October 17, 1946) was an American pole vaulter, the 1968 Olympic champion.
1947 Raymond Eugene "Gene" Green Democratic politician and a U.S. congressman from the state of Texas, representing that state's 29th congressional district. The district includes most of eastern Houston, along with large portions of Houston's eastern suburbs.
1956 Mae C. Jemison American physician and the first African-American woman in space. Jemison holds degree in chemical engineering (1977) and a Doctor of Medicine degree (1981). Before she became an astronaut, Jemison worked as a doctor in West Africa. NASA selected Jemison for astronaut training in 1987. She was as a Science Mission Specialist aboard the Shuttle Endeavour on 12 Sep 1992. During the eight-day mission, she conducted space-sickness experiments and conducted research on bone loss in zero gravity. Jemison left NASA in 1993 and became the director of The Jemison Institute for Advancing Technology in Developing Countries, an organization that researches, designs, implements and evaluates cutting-edge technology in a real-life context.
1958 Alan Eugene Jackson, Newnan, Georgia) American country music singer, known for blending honky tonk and mainstream country sounds and penning many of his own hits. He has recorded 12 studio albums and several compilations, all on the Arista Nashville label. More than 50 of his singles have appeared on Billboard's list of the "Top 30 Country Songs". Of Jackson's entries, 25 were number-one hits. He is the recipient and nominee of multiple awards. Jackson is also a member of the Grand Ole Opry, and he was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 2001.
Deaths
1910 Julia Ward Howe, American composer and abolitionist ("The Battle Hymn of the Republic") (b. 1819)
1972 Billy Williams (December 28, 1910 – October 17, 1972) was an African-American singer, who had a successful cover recording of Fats Waller's "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter" in 1957. The record sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. His trademark hook for his songs was to shout "Oh, Yeah" at the end of lyrics.
1979 Sidney Joseph Perelman, almost always known as S. J. Perelman (b 1904), Jewish-American humorist, author, and screenwriter. He is best known for his humorous short pieces written over many years for The New Yorker. He also wrote for several other magazines, as well as books, scripts, and screenplays.
1991 Ernest Jennings Ford (b 1919, better known as Tennessee Ernie Ford, American recording artist and television host who enjoyed success in the country and Western, pop, and gospel musical genres.
1999 Nicholas Metropolis, Greek-American mathematician, physicist and computer scientist. Recruited by Robert Oppenheimer from Chicago, where he was at the time collaborating with Enrico Fermi and Edward Teller on the first nuclear reactors, to the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He arrived in the Los Alamos, on April 1943, as a member of the original staff of fifty scientists. (b. 1915)
2006 Joseph Christopher Glenn (b 1938) American radio and television news journalist who worked in broadcasting for over 45 years and spent the final 35 years of his career at CBS, retiring in 2006 at the age of 68
2007 Joey Bishop (b 1918) American entertainer who was perhaps best known for being a member of the "Rat Pack" with Frank Sinatra, Peter Lawford, Sammy Davis Jr., and Dean Martin. Bishop appeared on television as early as 1948 and eventually starred in his own weekly comedy series as well as hosting a talk show.
2007 Teresa Brewer, American pop and jazz singer, whose style incorporated elements of country, jazz, R&B, musicals and novelty songs. She was one of the most prolific and popular female singers of the 1950s, recording nearly 600 songs. (b. 1931)
2009 Vic Mizzy, American composer (themes to Green Acres and The Addams Family) (b. 1916)
Christian Feast Day
Catervus
Ignatius of Antioch
Marguerite Marie Alacoque
Rule of Andrew
Richard Gwyn
October 17 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Saints
Holy Prophet Hosea (820 BC)
Holy Martyrs and Unmercenary Physicians Cosmas and Damian in Cilicia (4th century), and their brothers Leontius, Anthimus, and Eutropius.
Martyr Queen Shushanik (Susanna) of Georgia (475)
Monk-martyr Andrew of Crete (767)
St. Anthony, abbot, of Leokhnov (Novgorod) (1611)
St. Joseph (Jandieri) the Wonderworker, Catholicos of Georgia (1770)
New Hieromartyr Alexander (Shchukin), Archbishop of Semipalatinsk (1937)
Martyrs Ethelred and Ethelbert, princes of Kent (ca. 640)
Other Commemorations
Translation of the relics (898) of St. Lazarus "Of the Four Days" (in the tomb), bishop of Kition in Cyprus
Repose of Elder Athanasius (Zakharov) of Ploshchansk Hermitage (1825), disciple of St. Paisius (Velichkovsky)
Repose of Nun Alypia, fool-for-Christ, of Goloseyevo (Kiev) (1988)
[/size]
akaCG
www.scopesys.com/cgi-bin/today2.cgi
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_17
www.history.com/this-day-in-history/capone-goes-to-prison
www.amug.org/~jpaul/oct17.html
www.weatherforyou.com/cgi-bin/weather_history/today2S.pl
www.amug.org/~jpaul/oct17.html
www.todayinsci.com/10/10_17.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_17_(Eastern_Orthodox_liturgics)
There are 75 days remaining until the end of the year.
Days until Election Day, Tuesday November 6, 2012: 20
Countdown until Obama leaves Office www.obamaclock.org/
U.S. Debt Clock: www.usdebtclock.org/
1691 New royal charter for Massachusetts, now including Maine, Plymouth. The Bay Colony asked for the restoration of its original charter. Though the recently enthroned William and Mary agreed to the dissolution of the Dominion, they did not fully restore the colony's independent authority. Instead, they created a new colony of massachusetts, under a royal charter established in 1691. Plymouth and Maine were absorbed into Massachusetts Bay.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Cornwallis#Virginia_campaign
1777 British surrender at Saratoga. A British army of nearly 7,000 surrendered today to a combined force of American militia and Continental regulars. "The fortunes of war have made me your prisoner," said British General John Burgoyne as he handed over his sword to his American counterpart, Horatio Gates. "I shall always be ready to testify that it was through no fault of your excellency," Gates replied.
In the summer of 1777, General Burgoyne led an army of 8,000 men south through New York in an effort to join forces with British General Sir William Howe's troops along the Hudson River. After capturing several forts, Burgoyne's force camped near Saratoga while a larger Patriot army under General Gates gathered just four miles away. On September 19, a British advance column marched out and engaged the Patriot force at the Battle of Freeman's Farm, or the First Battle of Saratoga. Failing to break through the American lines, Burgoyne's force retreated. On October 7, another British reconnaissance force was repulsed by an American force under General Benedict Arnold in the Battle of Bemis Heights, also known as the Second Battle of Saratoga.
Gates retreated north to the village of Saratoga with his 5,000 surviving troops. By October 13, some 20,000 Americans had surrounded the British, and four days later Burgoyne was forced to agree to the first large-scale surrender of British forces in the Revolutionary War.
Burgoyne successfully negotiated that his surviving men would be returned to Britain by pledging that they would never again serve in North America. The nearly 6,000-man army was kept in captivity at great expense to the Continental Congress until the end of the war.
Soon after word of the Patriot victory at Saratoga reached France, King Louis XVI agreed to recognize the independence of the United States and French Foreign Minister Charles Gravier, Count de Vergennes, made arrangements with U.S. Ambassador Benjamin Franklin to begin providing formal French aid to the Patriot cause. This assistance was crucial to the eventual American victory in the Revolutionary War.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Burgoyne
1781 - General Cornwallis attempted to escape encirclement by crossing York River, "but a violent storm arose" dispersing his boats causing him to ask for an armistice. (Sandra and TI Richard Sanders - 1987)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Cornwallis
An early depiction of a group of Texas Rangers, c. 1845
1835 The first resolution formally creating the Texas Rangers is approved. On this day in 1835, Texans approve a resolution to create the Texas Rangers, a corps of armed and mounted lawmen designed to "range and guard the frontier between the Brazos and Trinity Rivers."
In the midst of their revolt against Mexico, Texan leaders felt they needed a semi-official force of armed men who would defend the isolated frontier settlers of the Lone Star Republic against both Santa Ana's soldiers and hostile Indians; the Texas Rangers filled this role. But after winning their revolutionary war with Mexico the following year, Texans decided to keep the Rangers, both to defend against Indian and Mexican raiders and to serve as the principal law enforcement authority along the sparsely populated Texan frontier.
Although created and sanctioned by the Texas government, the Rangers was an irregular body made up of civilians who furnished their own horses and weapons. Given the vast expanse of territory they patrolled and the difficulty of communicating with the central government, the government gave the men of the Rangers considerable independence to act as they saw fit. Sometimes the Rangers served as a military force, taking on the role of fighting the Indians that in the U.S. was largely the responsibility of the Army. At other times the Rangers mainly served as the principal law enforcement power in many frontier regions of Texas, earning lasting fame for their ability to track down and eliminate outlaws, cattle thieves, train robbers, and murderers, including such notorious bandits as John Wesley Hardin and King Fisher.
Even as late as the first two decades of the 20th century, the state of Texas continued to rely on the Rangers to enforce order in the wilder regions of the state, like the oil boomtowns along the Rio Grande. Increasingly, though, some Texans began to criticize the Rangers, arguing that they used excessive violence and often failed to observe the finer points of the law when apprehending suspects. As a result, in the 1930s, the state won control over the Rangers, transforming it into a modern and professional law enforcement organization.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Ranger_Division
1871 President Grant suspends writ of habeas corpus in nine counties in South Carolina and sent federal troops to South Carolina to stop attacks by the Ku Klux Klan against newly emancipated black citizens.
1888 The first issue of "National Geographic Magazine." National Geographic Magazine is the journal of the National Georgraphic Society, largest scientific and educational institution in the world. The nonprofit society was founded in 1888 in Washington, D.C., by 33 civic leaders to promote "the increase and diffusion of geographic knowledge." Its first president was Gardiner Greene Hubbard, father-in-law and financial backer of Alexander Graham Bell and first president of the Bell Telephone Company.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Geographic_(magazine)
1888 Thomas Edison files a patent for the Optical Phonograph (the first movie).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison#West_Orange_and_Fort_Myers_.281886.E2.80.931931.29
1910 - A hurricane made a loop off the southwest coast of Florida. Winds above 100 mph were reported at Fort Myers FL, and the barometric pressure at Sand Key reached 28.40 inches. (David Ludlum)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1910_Atlantic_hurricane_season#Hurricane_Five
1917 First British bombing of Germany in World War I.
1919 Radio Corporation of America (RCA) created. "On October 17, 1919, GE caused to be organized under the laws of the State of Delaware the company known as the Radio Corporation of America. In the certificate of incorporation, it was provided that 'no person shall be eligible for election as a director or officer of the corporation who is not at the time of such election a citizen of the United States'. On November 20, 1919, the American Marconi Company was officially merged with the Radio Corporation of America. It continued to exist for legal purposes to wind up its affairs, but ceased to function as a communications corporation.
1931 Al Capone convicted of tax evasion, sentenced to 11 years in prison. Capone was tried in a federal court in 1931. He pleaded guilty to the charges, hoping for a plea bargain. But after the judge refused his lawyer's offers, and the jury was replaced on the day of the trial to frustrate Capone's associates' efforts to bribe or intimidate the original jury, Al Capone was found guilty on five of twenty-two counts of tax evasion for the years 1925, 1926, and 1927, and willful failure to file returns for 1928 and 1929. He was sentenced to eleven years in a federal prison and one year in the county jail, and also had to serve an earlier six-month contempt of court sentence.
1933 Albert Einstein arrives in the US, a refugee from Nazi Germany. Einstein came to New York with his wife Elsa, his secretary Helen Dukas and his assistant Walther Mayer on October 17 and visits his newly adopted home town Princeton, New Jersey. He begins to work for the Institute for Advanced Study.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein
1940 Will Bradley’s orchestra recorded "Five O’Clock Whistle"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Bradley
1941 Konoye government falls. On this day in 1941, the government of Prince Fumimaro Konoye, prime minister of Japan, collapses, leaving little hope for peace in the Pacific.
Konoye, a lawyer by training and well studied in Western philosophy, literature, and economics, entered the Japanese Parliament's upper house by virtue of his princely status and immediately pursued a program of reform. High on his agenda was a reform of the army general staff in order to prevent its direct interference in foreign policy decisions. He also sought an increase in parliamentary power. An antifascist, Konoye championed an end to the militarism of Japanese political structures, especially in light of the war in Manchuria, which began in 1931.
Appointed prime minister in 1933, Konoye's first cabinet fell after full-blown war broke out between Japan and China. In 1940, Konoye was asked to form a second cabinet. But as he sought to contain the war with China, relations with the United States deteriorated, to the point where Japan was virtually surrounded by a U.S. military presence and threats of sanctions. On August 27, 1941, Konoye requested a summit with President Roosevelt in order to diminish heightening tensions. Envoys were exchanged, but no direct meeting with the president took place. (The U.S. government believed it could send the wrong message to China-and that Japan was on the losing end of that war anyway.)
In October, Konoye resigned because of increasing tension with his army minister, Tojo Hideki. Tojo succeeded Konoye as prime minister, holding on to his offices of army minister and war minister. Imperial Japan's foreign policy was now formally controlled by the military. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Konoye was put under military surveillance, his political career all but over until 1945, when the emperor considered sending him to Moscow to negotiate peace terms. That meeting never came off.
When Saipan fell to the U.S. Marines and Army, Tojo's government collapsed. Upon Japan's surrender, Tojo shot himself to prevent being taken prisoner by the United States. He lived and was tried by an international war-crimes tribunal—and hanged on December 22, 1948. As for Konoye, the grand irony of his career came when he was served with an arrest warrant by the U.S. occupying force for suspicion of war crimes. Rather than submit to arrest, he committed suicide by drinking poison.
[a href="en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fumimaro_Konoye"]en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fumimaro_Konoye[/a][/url]
1941 – For the first time in World War II, a German submarine attacks an American ship.
1941 German troops execute the male population of the villages Kerdyllia in Serres, Greece and burn the houses down.
1943 Chicago Mayor Ed Kelly opens city's new subway system. Work on the city's first subway began December 17, 1938. Mayor Kelly and Secretary of Interior Harold L. Ickes turned the first spades of earth in North State Street near Chicago Avenue. A deep shaft was then executed for access to the line of the subway where mining operations began. Mining through the soft, watery clay underlying the city was a difficult engineering task but it was accomplished without a single cave-in. The subway was opened October 17, 1943.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Joseph_Kelly
1950 - Small but powerful Hurricane King struck Miami, FL. The hurricane packs winded to 122 mph, with gusts to 150 mph. Hurricane King then moved up the Florida peninsula to Georgia. Four persons were killed and damage was 28 million dollars. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_King
1953 "St. George and the Dragonet" by Stan Freberg topped the charts.
1955 Lee Merriwether joins the Today Show panel.
1955 Jose Ferrer and Claire Bloom starred on NBC’s "Producers' Showcase."
1960 "Save the Last Dance for Me" by the Drifters topped the charts. Ben Nelson remained with Atlantic Records on their Atco subsidiary as a solo artist, and agreed to record with the group until a suitable replacement could be found, singing on "Dance With Me," "This Magic Moment," "I Count the Tears," and "Save the Last Dance for Me," the latter their only number one hit, among other songs, through the spring of 1960. By the time his exit had been arranged, Nelson had changed his name to the more memorable Ben E. King, which was how he emerged in his own right.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Save_the_Last_Dance_for_Me
1961 NASA civilian pilot Joseph A Walker takes X-15 to 108,600 feet. In 1960, Walker was the first NASA pilot to fly the X-15 aircraft, following Scott Crossfield, the manufacturer's test pilot. On the first flight, he didn't realize how much power the engine had, and he crashed backward into his seat, screaming, "Oh, my God!"; a flight controller jokingly replied "Yes? You called?" Walker would go on to fly the X-15 24 times In 1963, Walker made two X-15 flights beyond 100 kilometers - the edge of space. These were the only spaceplane flights past that threshold until SpaceShipOne in 2004.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_A._Walker
1961 "HOT ROCKS" Candy was trademark registered.
www.amazon.com/Old-Fashion-Hot-Rocks-Candy/dp/B001V3Z3VG
1964 "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" by Manfred Mann topped the charts. "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" was written by the songwriting team of Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich. It was originally recorded by The Exciters as the follow-up to their hit "Tell Him." However, the British invasion had begun and once Manfred Mann recorded it, the Exciters were out of luck.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Wah_Diddy_Diddy
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.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_New_York_World%27s_Fair
1966 A fire at a building in New York, New York kills 12 firefighters, the New York City Fire Department's deadliest day until the September 11, 2001 attacks.
1967 Pete Knight in X-15 reaches 278,885 feet. Pete Knight made 16 flights in the X-15, and set the world unofficial speed record for fixed wing aircraft, 4,520 mph (mach 6.7), in the X-15A-2. He also made one flight above 50 miles, qualifying him for astronaut wings.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Knight
1967 The play "Hair" is first performed. HAIR was created by James Rado and Gerome Ragni, two out-of-work actors who, according to Rado, "were aware of the traditional Broadway format, but we wanted to create something new, something different, something that translated to the stage the wonderful excitement we felt in the streets." This "excitement" was that of the long-haired, peace-loving, freewheeling hippies of New York's East Village. HAIR opened at the Public Theater on October 17, 1967. However, that run soon came to an end, with no new venue in sight. The show opened on Broadway at the Biltmore Theater on April 29, 1968. It closed on July 1, 1972 after 1,742 performances.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_(musical)
1968 Olympic protestors stripped of their medals. On October 17, 1968, Olympic gold medalist Tommie Smith and bronze medalist John Carlos are forced to return their awards because they raised their fists in a black-power salute during the medal ceremony. In a press conference the next day, International Olympic Committee President Avery Brundage deplored the athletes’ "outrageous stance"—it repudiated, he said, "the basic principles of the Olympic games." The AP photograph of the ceremony is one of the most familiar and enduring images of a tumultuous era.
On October 16, Smith and Carlos finished first and third in the 200-meter dash at the Mexico City Olympics. Smith set a new world record: 19.83 seconds. Their medal-ceremony protest was relatively spontaneous—the pair decided what they’d do while they waited in the athletes’ lounge for the ceremony to begin--but the sprinters had been active in the civil rights movement long before they arrived in Mexico City. Along with Harry Edwards, one of their professors at San Diego State University, Smith and Carlos had organized a group called the Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR) that tried to encourage African-American athletes to boycott the Games. (Even if you won the medal," Carlos said," it ain’t going to save your momma. It ain’t going to save your sister or your children. It might give you 15 minutes of fame, but what about the rest of your life?")
When they got to the podium for the medal ceremony, Smith and Carlos were wearing OPHR badges on their tracksuits. (Silver medalist Peter Norman, an Australian, wore one too.) They wore no shoes, to symbolize the poverty that plagued so many black Americans. Carlos wore a necklace of black beads, he said, "for those individuals that were lynched or killed that no one said a prayer for, that were hung tarred. It was for those thrown off the side of the boats in the middle passage." Smith wore a black scarf. Both bowed their heads, raised their gloved hands and remained silent while "The Star-Spangled Banner" played.
People in the crowd booed and cursed at the athletes. The IOC convened the next day and determined that Smith and Carlos would have to forfeit their medals and leave the Olympic Village—and Mexico—immediately. Brundage even threatened to boot the entire American team as punishment. "The untypical exhibitionism of these athletes violates the basic standards of good manners and sportsmanship, which are so highly valued in the United States," the U.S. Olympic Committee said "Such immature behavior is an isolated incident" and "a willful disregard of Olympic principles."
Even after the athletes had been disciplined, the backlash continued. Newspapers compared the men to Nazis—Brett Musburger, a sportscaster for ABC, called them "black-skinned storm troopers." Time called their act "nasty" and "ugly." His "un-American activities" got Smith discharged from the Army, and someone threw a rock through a plate-glass window at his baby’s crib. The two men received death threats for years.
In some quarters, at least, public opinion has recently begun to shift, and many people now celebrate the sprinters’ courageous and principled act. In 2005, San José State University unveiled a 20-foot-tall statue honoring the two men.
1970 "I'll Be There" by the Jackson 5 topped the charts
1971 - Great balls of fire were observed just ahead of a tornado moving down the main street of Wray CO. However, little other electrical activity accompanied the storm. Nine persons were injured in the tornado, all at a trailer court at the edge of town. (The Weather Channel)
1973 The Arab oil embargo begins. It will last until March 1974.
1974 NBA New Orleans Jazz begin a 28 game road losing streak
1974 Ford explains his pardon of Nixon to Congress. On this day in 1974, President Gerald Ford explains to Congress why he had chosen to pardon his predecessor, Richard Nixon, rather than allow Congress to pursue legal action against the former president.
Congress had accused Nixon of obstruction of justice during the investigation of the Watergate scandal, which began in 1972. White House tape recordings revealed that Nixon knew about and possibly authorized the bugging of the Democratic National Committee offices, located in the Watergate Hotel in Washington D.C. Rather than be impeached and removed from office, Nixon chose to resign on August 8, 1974.
When he assumed office on August 9, 1974, Ford, referring to the Watergate scandal, announced that America’s "long national nightmare" was over. There were no historical or legal precedents to guide Ford in the matter of Nixon’s pending indictment, but after much thought, he decided to give Nixon a full pardon for all offenses against the United States in order to put the tragic and disruptive scandal behind all concerned. Ford justified this decision by claiming that a long, drawn-out trial would only have further polarized the public. Ford’s decision to pardon Nixon was condemned by many and is thought to have contributed to Ford’s failure to win the presidential election of 1976.
From his home in California, Nixon responded to Ford’s pardon, saying he had gained a different perspective on the Watergate affair since his resignation. He admitted that he was "wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate, particularly when it reached the stage of judicial proceedings and grew from a political scandal into a national tragedy."
1974 Oakland A's beat LA Dodgers, 4 games to 1 in 71st World Series
1978 President Carter signs bill restoring Jefferson Davis citizenship
1979 Mother Teresa of India, 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.
1984 - A snowstorm struck northern Utah producing a record 18 inches in 24 hours at Salt Lake City, and 40 inches at the nearby Alta Ski Resort. The town of Magna, located ten miles west of Salt Lake City, did not receive any snow at all. The storm was responsible for a fifty vehicle pile-up along Interstate 15 near Farmington UT. (Storm Data)
1987 First World Series game in a covered stadium (Minnesota Metrodome). In the first indoor World Series game ever, Dan Gladden's grand slam caps a 7-run 4th inning and leads the Twins to a 10-1 win over St. Louis in game one. It is the first World Series grand slam since 1970.
1987 - It was a great day for an Oktoberfest, or to enjoy the colors of autumn, as much of the nation enjoyed sunny and mild weather. Columbia SC dipped to 34 degrees, marking their third morning in a row of record cold. Bakersfield CA reached 80 degrees for the 143rd day in a row to break a record established in 1940. (The National Weather Summary)
1988 - Thunderstorms produced severe weather in the Middle Mississippi Valley and the Lower Ohio Valley. Severe thunderstorms spawned three tornadoes in Indiana, including one which injured four persons. Strong thunderstorm winds at Connerville IND caused three million dollars damage. Thunderstorms in Illinois produced hail two inches in diameter at Colfax. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1989 Earthquake in SF (6.9) cancels 3rd game of 86th World Series - kills 67. Game Three of the World Series is postponed when an earthquake strikes the San Francisco Bay area a half hour before game time, causing minor damage to Candlestick Park but major damage to the surrounding area. The quake registers 7.1 magnitude, killing 67 people and does $7 billion in damage. Though this was one of the most powerful and destructive earthquakes ever to hit a populated area of the United States, the death toll was quite small.
The proximity of the San Andreas Fault to San Francisco was well-known for most of the 20th century, but the knowledge did not stop the construction of many un-reinforced brick buildings in the area. Finally, in 1972, revised building codes forced new structures to be built to withstand earthquakes. The new regulations also called for older buildings to be retrofitted to meet the new standards, but the expense involved made these projects a low priority for the community.
On October 17, the Bay Area was buzzing about baseball. The Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants, both local teams, had reached the World Series. The first game of the series was scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park. Just prior to the game, with the cameras on the field, a 7.1-magnitude tremor centered near Loma Prieta Peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains rocked the region from Santa Cruz to Oakland. Though the stadium withstood the shaking, much of the rest of San Francisco was not so fortunate.
The city’s marina district suffered great damage. Built before 1972, on an area of the city where there was no underlying bedrock, the liquefaction of the ground resulted in the collapse of many homes. Burst gas mains and pipes also sparked fires that burned out of control for nearly two days. Also hard hit by the quake were two area roads, the Nimitz Expressway and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.
Both roads featured double-decker construction and, on each, the upper level collapsed during the earthquake. Forty-one of the 67 victims of this disaster were motorists on the lower level of the Nimitz, who were killed when the upper level of the road collapsed and crushed them in their cars. Only one person was killed on the Bay Bridge--which had been scheduled for a retrofitting the following week--because there were no cars under the section that collapsed.
Other heavily damaged communities included Watsonville, Daly City and Palo Alto. More than 10 percent of the homes in Watsonville were completely demolished. The residents, most of whom were Latino, faced additional hardship because relief workers and the Red Cross did not have enough Spanish-speaking aides or translators to assist them.
The earthquake caused billions of dollars in damages, and contributed in part to the deep recession that California suffered in the early 1990s.
1989 - Showers and thunderstorms representing the remnants of Hurricane Jerry deluged southeast Kentucky with four to six inches of rain in 18 to 24 hours, resulting in widespread flash flooding. Flooding resulted in more than five million dollars damage. Temperatures again warmed into the 80s and lower 90s in the southeastern U.S. Lakeland FL and Orlando FL reported record highs of 95 degrees. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
2006 The United States population reaches 300 million.
Births
1711 Jupiter Hammon (d before 1806) Black poet who became the first African-American published writer in America when a poem appeared in print in 1760. He was a slave his entire life, and the date of his death is unknown. He was living in 1790 at the age of 79, and died by 1806. Hammon was a devout Christian, and is considered one of the founders of African American literature.
1817 Samuel Ringgold Ward (d c. 1866) African American who escaped enslavement to become an abolitionist, newspaper editor and Congregational minister, author of Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro: his anti-slavery labours in the United States, Canada and England, written after his speeches throughout Britain in 1853. It enabled him to raise funds for the Anti-slavery Society of Canada where many escaped slaves from the USA were arriving in the 1850s.
1859 William "Buck" Ewing (d 1906) Major League Baseball player and manager, and is widely regarded as the best catcher of his era and is often argued to be the best player of the 19th century. He was born in Hoagland, Ohio.
1865 James Rudolph Garfield (d 1950) American politician, lawyer and son of President James Abram Garfield and First Lady Lucretia Garfield.
1869 Robert Sessions Woodworth (d 1962) U.S. psychologist who conducted major research on learning and developed a system of "dynamic psychology" into which he sought to incorporate several different schools of psychological thought.
1886 Ernest William Goodpasture (d 1960) American pathologist and physician. Goodpasture advanced the scientific understanding of the pathogenesis of infectious diseases, parasitism, and a variety of rickettsial and viral infections. Together with colleagues at Vanderbilt University, he invented methods for growing viruses and rickettsiae in chicken embryos and fertilized chicken eggs. This enabled the development of vaccines against influenza, chicken pox, smallpox, yellow fever, typhus, Rocky mountain spotted fever and other diseases. He also described Goodpasture's syndrome (1919), an uncommon condition which typically causes rapid destruction of the kidneys.
1886 Spring Byington (d 1971) American actress. Her career included a seven-year run on radio and television as the star of December Bride. She was a key MGM contract player appearing in films from the 1930s through the 1960s
1903 Nathanael West (born Nathan von Wallenstein Weinstein) (d 1940) US author, screenwriter and satirist. (Day of the Locusts)
1912 Jack Owens, The Cruising Crooner, American singer/songwriter (d. 1982)
1912 Pope John Paul I (Latin: Ioannes Paulus PP. I, Italian: Giovanni Paolo I), born Albino Luciani, (d 1978), reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and as Sovereign of Vatican City from 26 August 1978 until his death 33 days later. His reign is among the shortest in papal history, resulting in the most recent Year of Three Popes. John Paul I was the first Pope born in the 20th century. (d. 1978)
1914 Jerome "Jerry" Siegel (d, 1996), who also used pseudonyms including Joe Carter,[2] Jerry Ess,[2] and Herbert S. Fine, American co-creator of Superman (along with Joe Shuster), the first of the great comic book superheroes and one of the most recognizable of the 20th century.
1915 Arthur Asher Miller (d 2005) American playwright and essayist. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include award-winning plays such as All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, and The Crucible. Miller was often in the public eye, particularly during the late 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s, a period during which he testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and was married to Marilyn Monroe.
1918 Rita Hayworth, American film actress and dancer who attained fame during the 1940s not only as one of the era's top stars, but also as a great sex symbol, most notably in Gilda (1946). She appeared in 61 films over 37 years and is listed as one of the American Film Institute's Greatest Stars of All Time. (Gilda, Pal Joey) (d. 1987)
1920 Montgomery Clift, American film actor and stage actor The New York Times’ obituary noted his portrayal of "moody, sensitive young men".Clift received four Academy Award nominations during his career, three for Best Actor and one for Best Supporting Actor. (From Here to Eternity)(d. 1966)
1921 Thomas Gordon "Tom" Poston (d 2007) American television and film actor. He starred on television in a career that began in 1950. He appeared as a comic actor, game show panelist, comedy/variety show host, film actor, television actor, and Broadway performer. (Steve Allen Show, Newhart)
1926 Karl Gordon Henize, Ph.D. (d 1993) astronomer, NASA astronaut, space scientist, and professor at Northwestern University.
1928 James William Gilliam (d 1978) American second and third baseman and coach in Negro League and Major League Baseball who spent his entire major league career with the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers. He was named the 1953 National League Rookie of the Year, and was a key member of ten NL championship teams from 1953 to 1978. The Dodgers' leadoff hitter for most of the 1950s, he scored over 100 runs in each of his first four seasons and led the NL in triples and walks once each. Upon retirement, he became one of the first African-American coaches in the major leagues.
1930 Robert Atkins, American nutritionist, physician and cardiologist, best known for the Atkins Nutritional Approach (or "Atkins Diet"), a popular but controversial way of dieting that entails close control of carbohydrate consumption, emphasizing protein and fat intake, including saturated fat in addition to leaf vegetables and dietary supplements. (d. 2003)
1930 Jimmy Breslin, American newspaper columnist and author. He has written numerous novels, and columns of his have appeared regularly in various newspapers in his hometown of New York City. He was a regular columnist for the newspaper Newsday until his retirement on November 2, 2004, and still has occasional pieces there.
1932 Paul Anderson US, light super heavyweight lifter (Olympic-gold-1956)
1933 William Alison Anders former United States Air Force officer, NASA astronaut, businessman, and engineer. He is, along with Apollo 8 crewmates Frank Borman and Jim Lovell, one of the first three persons to have left Earth orbit and traveled to the Moon (of only 24 people to date).
1938 Evel Knievel, American motorcycle daredevil (d. 2007)
1946 Robert "Bob" Seagren (born October 17, 1946) was an American pole vaulter, the 1968 Olympic champion.
1947 Raymond Eugene "Gene" Green Democratic politician and a U.S. congressman from the state of Texas, representing that state's 29th congressional district. The district includes most of eastern Houston, along with large portions of Houston's eastern suburbs.
1956 Mae C. Jemison American physician and the first African-American woman in space. Jemison holds degree in chemical engineering (1977) and a Doctor of Medicine degree (1981). Before she became an astronaut, Jemison worked as a doctor in West Africa. NASA selected Jemison for astronaut training in 1987. She was as a Science Mission Specialist aboard the Shuttle Endeavour on 12 Sep 1992. During the eight-day mission, she conducted space-sickness experiments and conducted research on bone loss in zero gravity. Jemison left NASA in 1993 and became the director of The Jemison Institute for Advancing Technology in Developing Countries, an organization that researches, designs, implements and evaluates cutting-edge technology in a real-life context.
1958 Alan Eugene Jackson, Newnan, Georgia) American country music singer, known for blending honky tonk and mainstream country sounds and penning many of his own hits. He has recorded 12 studio albums and several compilations, all on the Arista Nashville label. More than 50 of his singles have appeared on Billboard's list of the "Top 30 Country Songs". Of Jackson's entries, 25 were number-one hits. He is the recipient and nominee of multiple awards. Jackson is also a member of the Grand Ole Opry, and he was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 2001.
Deaths
1910 Julia Ward Howe, American composer and abolitionist ("The Battle Hymn of the Republic") (b. 1819)
1972 Billy Williams (December 28, 1910 – October 17, 1972) was an African-American singer, who had a successful cover recording of Fats Waller's "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter" in 1957. The record sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. His trademark hook for his songs was to shout "Oh, Yeah" at the end of lyrics.
1979 Sidney Joseph Perelman, almost always known as S. J. Perelman (b 1904), Jewish-American humorist, author, and screenwriter. He is best known for his humorous short pieces written over many years for The New Yorker. He also wrote for several other magazines, as well as books, scripts, and screenplays.
1991 Ernest Jennings Ford (b 1919, better known as Tennessee Ernie Ford, American recording artist and television host who enjoyed success in the country and Western, pop, and gospel musical genres.
1999 Nicholas Metropolis, Greek-American mathematician, physicist and computer scientist. Recruited by Robert Oppenheimer from Chicago, where he was at the time collaborating with Enrico Fermi and Edward Teller on the first nuclear reactors, to the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He arrived in the Los Alamos, on April 1943, as a member of the original staff of fifty scientists. (b. 1915)
2006 Joseph Christopher Glenn (b 1938) American radio and television news journalist who worked in broadcasting for over 45 years and spent the final 35 years of his career at CBS, retiring in 2006 at the age of 68
2007 Joey Bishop (b 1918) American entertainer who was perhaps best known for being a member of the "Rat Pack" with Frank Sinatra, Peter Lawford, Sammy Davis Jr., and Dean Martin. Bishop appeared on television as early as 1948 and eventually starred in his own weekly comedy series as well as hosting a talk show.
2007 Teresa Brewer, American pop and jazz singer, whose style incorporated elements of country, jazz, R&B, musicals and novelty songs. She was one of the most prolific and popular female singers of the 1950s, recording nearly 600 songs. (b. 1931)
2009 Vic Mizzy, American composer (themes to Green Acres and The Addams Family) (b. 1916)
Christian Feast Day
Catervus
Ignatius of Antioch
Marguerite Marie Alacoque
Rule of Andrew
Richard Gwyn
October 17 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Saints
Holy Prophet Hosea (820 BC)
Holy Martyrs and Unmercenary Physicians Cosmas and Damian in Cilicia (4th century), and their brothers Leontius, Anthimus, and Eutropius.
Martyr Queen Shushanik (Susanna) of Georgia (475)
Monk-martyr Andrew of Crete (767)
St. Anthony, abbot, of Leokhnov (Novgorod) (1611)
St. Joseph (Jandieri) the Wonderworker, Catholicos of Georgia (1770)
New Hieromartyr Alexander (Shchukin), Archbishop of Semipalatinsk (1937)
Martyrs Ethelred and Ethelbert, princes of Kent (ca. 640)
Other Commemorations
Translation of the relics (898) of St. Lazarus "Of the Four Days" (in the tomb), bishop of Kition in Cyprus
Repose of Elder Athanasius (Zakharov) of Ploshchansk Hermitage (1825), disciple of St. Paisius (Velichkovsky)
Repose of Nun Alypia, fool-for-Christ, of Goloseyevo (Kiev) (1988)
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akaCG
www.scopesys.com/cgi-bin/today2.cgi
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_17
www.history.com/this-day-in-history/capone-goes-to-prison
www.amug.org/~jpaul/oct17.html
www.weatherforyou.com/cgi-bin/weather_history/today2S.pl
www.amug.org/~jpaul/oct17.html
www.todayinsci.com/10/10_17.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_17_(Eastern_Orthodox_liturgics)