TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Tuesday, Oct. 17, the 290th day of 2017. There are 75 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Oct. 17, 1931, mobster Al Capone was convicted in Chicago of income tax evasion. (Sentenced to 11 years in prison, Capone was released in 1939.)
On this date:
In 1610, French King Louis XIII, age nine, was crowned at Reims, five months after the assassination of his father, Henry IV.
In 1777, British forces under Gen. John Burgoyne surrendered to American troops in Saratoga, New York, in a turning point of the Revolutionary War.
In 1807, Britain declared it would continue to reclaim British-born sailors from American ships and ports regardless of whether they held U.S. citizenship.
In 1919, Radio Corp. of America was chartered.
In 1933, Albert Einstein arrived in the United States as a refugee from Nazi Germany.
In 1941, the U.S. destroyer Kearny was damaged by a German torpedo off the coast of Iceland; 11 people died.
In 1957, the movie “Jailhouse Rock,” starring Elvis Presley, had its world premiere in Memphis, Tennessee.
In 1967, Puyi, the last emperor of China, died in Beijing at age 61.
In 1979, Mother Teresa of India was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
In 1987, first lady Nancy Reagan underwent a modified radical mastectomy at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland.
In 1989, an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale struck northern California, killing 63 people and causing $6 billion worth of damage.
In 1992, Japanese exchange student Yoshi Hattori was fatally shot by Rodney Peairs in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, after Hattori and his American host mistakenly knocked on Peairs’ door while looking for a Halloween party. (Peairs was acquitted of manslaughter, but was ordered in a civil trial to pay more than $650,000 to Hattori’s family.)
Ten years ago:
President George W. Bush, raising Beijing’s ire, presented the Dalai Lama with the Congressional Gold Medal and urged Chinese leaders to welcome the monk to Beijing.
Five years ago:
Federal authorities in New York said a Bangladeshi student had been arrested in an FBI sting after he tried to detonate a phony 1,000-pound truck bomb outside the Federal Reserve building in Manhattan. (Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis was sentenced to 30 years in prison.)
One year ago:
A long-awaited offensive to retake the Iraqi city Mosul from the Islamic State group began with a volley of U.S.-led coalition airstrikes and heavy artillery bombardments on a cluster of villages east of the militant-held city. Orbital ATK’s unmanned Antares rocket blasted off from Wallops Island in Virginia on a supply mission to the International Space Station; it was the first flight of an Antares since a launch explosion in 2014.
Today’s Birthdays:
Actress Marsha Hunt is 100. Actress Julie Adams is 91. Country singer Earl Thomas Conley is 76. Singer Jim Seals (Seals & Crofts) is 75. Singer Gary Puckett is 75. Actor Michael McKean is 70. Actress Margot Kidder is 69. Actor George Wendt is 69. Actorsinger Bill Hudson is 68. Astronaut Mae Jemison is 61. Country singer Alan Jackson is 59. Movie critic Richard Roeper is 58. Movie director Rob Marshall is 57. Actor Grant Shaud is 57. Animator Mike Judge is 55. Rock siner-musician Fred LeBlanc (Cowboy Mouth) is 54. Actorcomedian Norm Macdonald is 54. Singer Rene’ Dif is 50. Reggae singer Ziggy Marley is 49. Actor Wood Harris is 48. Singer Wyclef Jean is 48. World Golf Hall of Famer Ernie Els is 48. Singer Chris Kirkpatrick (‘N Sync) is 46. Rapper Eminem is 45. Actress Sharon Leal is 45. Actor Matthew Macfadyen is 43. Rock musician Sergio Andrade is 40. Actress Felicity Jones is 34. Actor Chris Lowell is 33.
Thought for Today: “To talk to a child, to fascinate him, is much more difficult than to win an electoral victory. But it is also more rewarding.”—Colette, French author (1873-1954).