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“Next to God we are indebted to women, first for life itself, and then for making it worth living.” ~ Mary McLeod Bethune
“Heaven's last, best gift” ~ Milton
“All men who avoid female society...have gross tastes and revolt against what is pure” ~ William Makepeace Thackeray
(Trivia: “In Have Gun - Will Travel”, “Helen of Abajinian” - Paladin plays fast and loose with his quotations, inaccurately quoting the line as Shelley's / Milton's and Thackeray's references are correct)
Wikipedia
October 17th, 539 BC
Cyrus the Great marches into the city of Babylon, releasing the Jews from almost 70 years of exile, and allowing the Jews to return to Yehud Medinata and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.
Wikipedia Image: Babel Tower, Babylon. by Imagem.Mundo. "The Tower of Babylon".
October 17th, 456
Roman Empire:
456 - Battle of Placentia; Ricimer, supported by Majorian (comes domesticorum), defeats the Roman usurper Avitus near Piacenza (Northern Italy).
Wikipedia Image: Relief from a 3rd-century sarcophagus depicting a battle between Romans and Germanic warriors; the central figure is perhaps the emperor Hostilian / Depiction of the Menorah on the Arch of Titus in Rome.
October 17th, 1091
Tornadoes:
1091 - London Tornado of 1091: a tornado thought to be of strength T8/F4 strikes the heart of London.
Wikipedia Photo: Tornado hits the Essex town of Stanford-le-Hope, 25 miles from London, 27th August, 2010.
October 17th, 1346
Battle of Neville's Cross: King David II of Scotland is captured by Edward III of England near Durham, and imprisoned in the Tower of London for eleven years.
Wikipedia Image: Battle of Neville's Cross - 1346
October 17th, 1448
Battle of Kosovo 1448: where the mainly Hungarian army led by John Hunyadi is defeated by an Ottoman army led by Sultan Murad II.
Wikipedia Painting: Battle of Kosovo 1448; An Akıncı irregular defeating a Hungarian knight.
October 17th, 1604
Kepler's Star: German astronomer Johannes Kepler observes a supernova in the constellation Ophiuchus.
Wikipedia Image: Milky Way Galaxy, National Geographic
October 17th, 1662
Charles II of England: sells Dunkirk to France for 40,000 pounds.
Wikipedia Photo: Grand Large Housing and District Dunkirk, Architects: ANMA / Agence Nicolas Michelin & Associés
October 17th, 1771
Premiere in Milan of the opera Ascanio in Alba, composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, age 15.
Wikipedia Image: Mozart / 'Papageno', from Mozart's 'The Magic Flute', by Lynn Barnes and Papageno; Metropolitain Opera; 'Papageno' by Kay Konrad.
October 17th, 1777
American Revolutionary War:
1777 - Saratoga campaign; British General John Burgoyne surrenders his army at Saratoga, New York.
1781 - Siege of Yorktown; British General Lord Charles Cornwallis surrenders to General George Washington at Yorktown, Virginia.
Wikipedia Paintings: Washington Crossing the Delaware, by Emanuel Leutz; Battle of the Chesapeake, French (left) and British (right) lines; Battle of Bunker Hill, The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill by John Trumbull; The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, September 13, 1782, by John Singleton Copley; Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau at Yorktown, 1781; "The surrender at Saratoga" shows General Daniel Morgan in front of a French de Vallière 4-pounder; Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown by (John Trumbull, 1797).
October 17th, 1800
French Revolutionary Wars / Napoleonic Wars:
1800 - Britain takes control of the Dutch colony of Curaçao.
Wikipedia Painting: Battle of Trafalgar: The British HMS Sandwich fires to the French flagship Bucentaure (completely dismasted) in the battle of Trafalgar;
Napoleon in Berlin (Meynier). After defeating Prussian forces at Jena, the French Army entered Berlin on 27 October 1806;
Battle of the Bridge of Arcole Napoleon Bonaparte leading his troops over the bridge of Arcole, by Horace Vernet;
Napoleon as King of Italy (Appiani);
Napoleon Crossing the Alps (David). In 1800 Bonaparte took the French Army across the Alps, eventually defeating the Austrians at Marengo;
Charge of the Russian Imperial Guard cavalry against French cuirassiers at the Battle of Friedland, 14 June 1807;
Battle of Borodino as depicted by Louis Lejeune. The battle was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars;
Napoleon's withdrawal from Russia, a painting by Adolph Northen;
Wellington at Waterloo by Robert Alexander Hillingford;
Napoleon is often represented in his green colonel uniform of the Chasseur à Cheval, with a large bicorne and a hand-in-waistcoat gesture.
Battle of Trafalgar; as seen from the mizzen starboard shrouds of the Victory by J. M. W. Turner (oil on canvas, 1806 to 1808).
October 17th, 1860
First The Open Championship (referred to in North America as the British Open).
Wikipedia Photo: 2012 British Open at Royal Lytham & St Annes
October 17th, 1888
Thomas Edison files a patent for the Optical Phonograph (the first movie).
Wikipedia Photo: Thomas Edison (right) demonstrating the kinetograph (motion picture camera), with the assistance of George Eastman, who helped develop the film used in the early motion picture machines.
October 17th, 1905
October Manifesto: issued by Tzar Nicholas II of Russia.
Wikipedia.org Painting: October Manifesto; Demonstration 17 October 1905 by Ilya Repin.
October 17th, 1912
Causes of World War I:
1912 - First Balkan War; Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia declare war on the Ottoman Empire, joining Montenegro.
World War I:
1917 - First British bombing of Germany.
Wikipedia Photo: Trenches on the Western Front; a British Mark IV Tank crossing a trench; Royal Navy battleship HMS Irresistible sinking after striking a mine at the Battle of the Dardanelles; a Vickers machine gun crew with gas masks, and German Albatros D.III biplanes. National Archives and Records Administration.
October 17th, 1919
RCA is incorporated as the Radio Corporation of America.
Wikipedia Original Dixieland Jass Band - 1917 ● Victor Talking Machine Company (The Gramophone Company) and its later RCA incarnation. (The dog (part Bull Terrier, part Fox Terrier) did not find a home with Edison, but he did go on to become one of the most recognizeable images in the history of advertising.)
October 17th, 1931
Al Capone convicted of income tax evasion.
Wikipedia Photo: Al Capone Chicago Gangster; Historic courtroom at 2600 S. California Avenue, Chicago, IL; Al Capone (in white hat) emerged from a federal building in Chicago after his trial on Dec. 10, 1931. The gangster was convicted of five counts of tax evasion and failing to file a return. Associated Press.
October 17th, 1933
Albert Einstein flees Nazi Germany and moves to the United States.
Wikipedia Picture: Albert Einstein Nobel Prize in Physics; Einstein at the age of three in 1882; The mathematician, physicist 1947; Einstein's theory of special relativity; Albert and Elsa Einstein in 1933; Conrad Habicht, Olympia Academy founders, Maurice Solovine and Einstein.
October 17th, 1941
World War II:
1941 - German U-boat attacks an American ship for the first time.
1943 - Burma Railway (Death Railway / Burma-Thailand Railway) is completed.
Wikipedia Photo: Bombing of Dresden in World War II; August Schreitmüller's sculpture 'Goodness' surveys Dresden after a firestorm started by Allied bombers in 1945.
USS Bunker Hill was hit by kamikazes piloted by Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa and another airman on 11 May 1945. 389 personnel were killed or missing from a crew of 2,600; Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, who flew his aircraft into the USS Bunker Hill during a Kamikaze mission on 11 May 1945; Kamikaze Missions - Lt Yoshinori Yamaguchi's Yokosuka D4Y3 (Type 33 Suisei) "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the non-self-sealing port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and/or smoke 25 November 1944.
German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944), credit German History in Documents and Images GHDI.
Eastern Front (World War II); Germans race towards Stalingrad. August 1942; Soviet children during a German air raid in the first days of the war, June 1941, by RIA Novosti archive; Soviet sniper Roza Shanina in 1944. About 400,000 Soviet women served in front-line duty units Caucasus Mountains, winter 1942/43; Finnish ski patrol: the invisible enemy of the Soviet Army with an unlimited supply of skis; Men of the German Engineers Corps cross a river which is swollen after the first autumn rains, to strengthen bridges linking the German positions on the central front in Russia. by Keystone / Getty Images. October 1942; Russian snipers fighting on the Leningrad front during a blizzard. Photo by Hulton Archive / Getty Images, 1943; German soldiers surrendering to the Russians in Stalingrad, the soldier holding the white flag of surrender is dressed in white so that there could be no doubt of his intentions, a Russian soldier is on the right of the photograph. by Keystone / Getty Images, January 1943. Burma Railway (Death Railway / Burma-Thailand Railway), Burma-Thailand POW. credit Defence.gov.au, Imperial War Museum, ANZAC Day Commemoration Committee of Queensland.
October 17th, 1941
World War II: Holocaust;
1941 - German troops execute the male population of the villages Kerdyllia in Serres, Greece.
1943 - Sobibor extermination camp is closed.
Wikipedia Photo: World War II, The Holocaust. Sources: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum USHMM, History 1900s, Internet Masters of Education Technology IMET, Techno Friends, Veterans Today, Concern.
October 17th, 1977
Aircraft hijacking:
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.
Wikipedia Photo: Hijacked Sudan passenger jet lands in Libya, August 27, 2008; Amsterdam false alarm revives airplane hijacking memories, Passengers leave a Vueling plane at a field near Amsterdam Airport after a hijack scare last week that led the Netherlands to scramble F-16 fighter jets, September 2, 2012 Reuters; Egypt Air flight 648 was hijacked in November 1985 by the terrorist Abu Nidal organisation, credit AP; Cockpit section of Pan Am 103 wreckage following a mid-air explosion, December 21, 1988; 747 Pan Am airliner that exploded and crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland, with 259 passengers on board in 1988; Debris lies in a deep gash through the town of Lockerbie, Scotland, caused by the crash of Pan Am flight 103, credit AP; Flight 175 hits the WTC South Tower. The picture was taken from a traffic helicopter. credit: WABC 7/ Salient Stills; Hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston crashes into the South Tower of the World Trade Center and explodes at 9:03 a.m. on September 11, 2001 in New York City, credit Spencer Platt / Getty Images.
October 17th, 1979
Mother Teresa awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Wikipedia Photo: Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic religious congregation, which in 2012 consisted of over 4,500 sisters and is active in 133 countries.
October 17th, 1989
Earthquake:
1989 - Loma Prieta earthquake; a magnitude earthquake hits the San Francisco Bay Area and causes 57 deaths directly (and 6 indirectly).
Wikipedia Image: Preliminary Determination of Epicenters / Aleppo Syria; Anchorage, Alaska - March 28, 1964 Prince William Sound USA earthquake and tsunami; 8.9 Mega Earthquake Strikes Japan; Tsunami Swirls Japan's Ibaraki Prefecture March 12 2011. credit NOAA / NGDC, NOAA National Geophysical Data Center, USGS, National Geographics.
October 17th, 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.
Wikipedia Photo: On January 4th, 2010, Burj Khalifa officially opened as the tallest manmade structure in the world; On October 17th, 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.