October 17 is the 290th day of the year (291st in leap years). There are 76 days remaining until the end of the year.  (Photo: 1964 New York World’s Fair, which closed after a two-year run on October 17, 1965. Credit: Anthony Conti, CC BY-SA 2.0)

Today in History

• The Babylonian captivity of the Jews ends after nearly seventy years of exile (539 BCE)
• Johannes Kepler observes a supernova in the constellation Ophiuchus (1604 CE)
• The Regicides, the nine men who signed the death warrant of English monarch Charles I, are hanged, drawn, and quartered (1660 CE)
• Charles II sells Dunkirk to France for £20,000 (1662 CE)
• In the American Revolutionary War, British General Burgoyne surrenders at Saratoga (1777 CE) and General Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown (1781 CE)
• The London Beer Flood kills nine people (1814 CE)
• Guglielmo Marconi begins operating the first commercial transatlantic wireless service (1907 CE)
• Al Capone is convicted of income tax evasion (1931 CE)
• Albert Einstein flees Nazi Germany and moves to the United States (1933 CE)
• Queen Elizabeth II opens the first commercial nuclear power station in Cumbria (1956 CE)
• Chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer beats Donald Byrne in “the Game of the Century” (1956 CE)
• The 1964 New York World’s Fair closes after a two-year run (1965 CE)
• OPEC begins an oil embargo against western countries who helped Israel in its war with Syria (1973 CE)
• The 7.1 Loma Prieta earthquake hits San Francisco (1989 CE)
• Japanese exchange student 服部 剛丈 (Yoshihiro Hattori) is shot and killed for going to the wrong house in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for a Halloween party (1992 CE)
• Taipei 101 becomes the world’s tallest highrise (2003 CE)

Births

• John Wilkes, British radical politician (1725)
• Spring Byington, actress (1886 CE)
• Jean Arthur, actress (1900)
• Irene Ryan, Beverly Hills granny (1902)
• Nathanael West, screenwriter and novelist (1903)
• Cozy Cole, drummer (1909)
• Pope John Paul I, pontiff (1912)
• Jerry Siegel, Superman co-creator (1914)
• Arthur Miller, playwright (1915)
• Rita Hayworth, actress and pin-up girl (1918)
• Montgomery Clift, actor (1920)
• Tom Poston, actor and game show regular (1921)
• Charlie McClendon, football player and coach (1923)
• Julie Adams, Creature from the Black Lagoon victim (1926)
• Robert Atkins, diet doctor (1930)
• Jimmy Breslin, journalist (1930)
• Paxton Whitehead, actor (1937)
• Evel Knievel, motorcycle stuntman (1938)
• Gary Puckett, rocker (1942)
• Michael McKean, actor (1947)
• Robert Jordan (James Rigney, Jr.), fantasy novelist (1948)
• Margot Kidder, actress (1948)
• George Wendt, Cheers barfly (1948)
• Howard Rollins, actor (1950)
• Mae Jemison, first female African-American astronaut (1956)
• Alan Jackson, country singer (1958)
• Mike Judge, creator of Beavis and Butthead (1962)
• Norm Macdonald, comedian (1963)
• Ziggy Marley, reggae artist (1968)
• Wyclef Jean, rapper (1969)
• Eminem (Marshall Mathers III), rapper (1972)
• Randall Munroe, xkcd creator (1984)

Deaths

• Agrippina the Elder, wife of Germanicus and mother of Caligula (33)
• Frédéric Chopin, composer (1868)
• Julia Ward Howe, abolitionist (1910)
• J. Bruce Ismay, managing director of White Star Line and Titanic survivor (1937)
• 溥儀 (Pǔyí), last emperor of China (1967)
• S. J. Perelman, author (1979)
• Tennessee Ernie Ford, singer (1991)
• Joey Bishop, rat packer (2007)
• Levi Stubbs, Four Tops singer (2008)

Holidays

• Dessalines Day (Haiti)
• Feast of St. Margaret Alacoque (St. Lucia)
• Festival of Dussehra-Vijavadashmi (India)
• Festival of Hengest (UK)
• Four Prunes Day
• International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (International)
• Loyalty Day (Argentina)
• National Pasta Day (US)
• Rock Your World Day, for earthquake-themed songs (US, informal)
• St. John the Dwarf Feast Holiday
• Tawdry Fair Holiday (UK)
• Wear Something Gaudy Day (US, informal, from a Three’s Company episode)