Today in History - September 17
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0642 Sep 17,
Arabs conquered Alexandria and destroyed the great library. Omar,
the second caliph, successor of Mohammed, conquered Alexandria, then
the capital of world scholarship.
(V.D.-H.K.p.103)(MC, 9/17/01)
0879 Sep 17, Charles III, [The
Simple], king of France (893-923), was born.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1179 Sep 17, Hildegard van
Bingen, mystic and composer (Ordo Virtutum), died at 81. The abbess
Hildegard concocted the Lingua Ignota, an artificial language. Her
work included the morality play "Ordo Virtutum."
(WSJ, 6/20/96, p.A16)(Wired, 8/96, p.84)(WSJ,
7/30/98, p.A16)(MC, 9/17/01)
1271 Sep 17, Wenceslas II, king
of Bohemia & Poland (1278-1305), was born.
(www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Wenceslas-II-of-Bohemia)
1394 Sep 17, In France King
Charles VI decreed as an irrevocable law and statute that
thenceforth no Jew should dwell in his domains. The decree was not
immediately enforced, a respite being granted to the Jews in order
that they might sell their property and pay their debts.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_France)
1562 Sep 17, The Council of
Trent took ecclesiastical canon.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1631 Sep 17, At the Battle of
Breitenfeld (Leipzig) Sweden’s King Gustaaf Adolf led a
Saxon-Swedish army and defeated Gen. Tilly.
(MC, 9/17/01)(PCh, 1992, p.231)
1743 Sep 17, Marquis Marie Jean
de Condorcet, French mathematician and philosopher, a leading
thinker in the Enlightenment, was born.
(HN, 9/17/98)
1652 Sep 17, Bonaventura
Elsevier, book publisher and merchant, died at about 69.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1683 Sep 17, Antonie van
Leeuwenhoek reported the existence of bacteria.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1691 Sep 17, The Massachusetts
Bay Colony received a new charter. [see Oct 17]
(MC, 9/17/01)
1709 Sep 17, Samuel Johnson,
lexicographer and writer (Boswell's Tour Guide), was born. [see Sep
18]
(MC, 9/17/01)
1730 Sep 17, Friedrich von
Steuben, Prussian and US inspector-general of Washington's army, was
born.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1745 Sep 17, Edinburgh was
occupied by Jacobites under Young Pretenders.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1762 Sep 17, Francesco Xaverio
Geminiani, composer, died at 74.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1766 Sep 17, Samuel Wilson, the
future Uncle Sam, was born in Menotomy Mass. Menotomy later became
Arlington. Samuel moved to Troy, New York, where he and his brother
set up meat packing plants which later provided food for the US Army
during the War of 1812.
(WC, Summer ‘97, p.3)
1771 Sep 17, Tobias George
Smollett, novelist (Adventures of Roderick Random), died at 50.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1776 Sep 17, The Presidio of SF
was formally possessed as a Spanish fort. The Spanish built the
Presidio on the hill where the Golden Gate Bridge now meets San
Francisco.
(WSJ, 9/17/96,
p.A12)(www.sfmuseum.org/hist6/founding.html)
1778 Sep 17, The 1st treaty
between the US and Indian tribes was signed at Fort Pitt.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1787 Sep 17, The Constitution
of the United States was completed and signed by a majority of
delegates (12) attending the constitutional convention in
Philadelphia. The US Constitution went into effect on Mar 4, 1789.
Clause 3 of Article I, Section 8 empowered Congress to "regulate
Commerce with foreign nations, among the several states, and with
the Indian Tribes." Two of the signers went on to become presidents
of the United States. George Washington, the president of the
Constitutional Convention, and James Madison both signed the
Constitution. The US Constitution is the world's oldest working
Constitution. James Mason of Virginia refused to sign the document
because he thought it made the federal government too powerful
believed that it should contain a Bill of Rights.
(HFA, '96, p.38)(AP, 9/17/97)(HN, 9/17/98)(WUD,
1994, p.314)(WSJ, 4/9/99, p.W17)(HNQ, 5/19/99)(WSJ, 3/31/06, p.A1)
1787 Sep 17, The US
Constitution included the Connecticut, or "Great," Compromise in
which every state was conceded an equal vote in the Senate
irrespective of its size, but representation in the House was to be
on the basis of the "federal ratio," an enumeration of the free
population plus three fifths of the slaves.
(SSFC, 11/2/03, p.M6)
1787 Sep 17, The "College of
Electors" (electoral college) was established at the Constitutional
Convention with representatives to be chosen by the states. Pierce
Butler of South Carolina first proposed the electoral college
system. [see Sep 13, 1788]
(SFC, 11/9/00, p.A14)(WSJ, 11/9/00, p.A26)
1787 Sep 17, The Electoral
College, proposed by James Wilson, was the compromise that the
Constitutional Convention reached. In 2004 George C. Edwards III
authored “Why the Electoral College Is Bad for America.”
(www.usconstitution.net/consttop_elec.html)(SSFC,
10/17/04, p.M3)
1795 Sep 17, Giuseppi Saverio
Rafaele Mercadante, composer, was born.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1796 Sep 17, President George
Washington delivered his "Farewell Address" to Congress before
concluding his second term in office. Washington counseled the
republic in his farewell address to avoid "entangling alliances" and
involvement in the "ordinary vicissitudes, combinations, and
collision of European politics." Also "we may safely trust to
temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies."
(WSJ, 5/31/96, p.A10)(WSJ, 6/17/96, p.A15)(HN,
9/17/98)
1803 Sep 17, Franz Xaver
Sussmayr, composer, died.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1819 Sep 17, Jean-Bernard-Leon
Foucault, physicist (pendulum proved Earth rotates), was born. [see
Sep 18]
(MC, 9/17/01)
1835 Sep 17, Charles Darwin
landed on Chatham in the Galapagos archipelago.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1849 Sep 17-18, Lt. J.H.
Simpson and R.H. Kern, Philadelphia artist, visited El Morro in New
Mexico during an exploration trip of new US territory. They copied
many of the inscription there.
(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F9)
1858 Sep 17, Dred Scott, US
slave (REV-decision Supreme court), died.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1859 Sep 17, The San Francisco
Call Bulletin published a notice on an inside page announcing that
Joshua Norton, formerly a prominent SF businessman, had proclaimed
himself Norton I, “Emperor of these United States.” Norton lived at
a rooming house at 624 Commercial St., where he paid 50 cents a
night for a modest room. Norton proclaimed himself Emperor of the
United States and Protector of Mexico with a proclamation delivered
to the offices of the San Francisco Bulletin. He annexed the whole
of the US and suspended the Constitution.
(HFA, ‘96, p.64)(G&M, 7/30/97, p.A24)(SFC,
9/17/09, p.A1)
1862 Sep 17, The Battle of
Antietam at Sharpsburg, Maryland, the bloodiest day in US history,
commenced. Fighting in the corn field, Bloody Lane and Burnside’s
Bridge raged all day as the Union and Confederate armies suffered a
combined 26,293 (23,585) casualties. New York Tribune reporter
George Smalley scooped the world with his vivid account of the
Battle of Antietam, also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg. During
the battle an entire Union corps spent most of the bloodiest single
day of the Civil War waiting to cross the creek over that bridge,
opposed by a contingent of Georgia riflemen. Late in the day
Gen. Ambrose Burnside sent his Union troops across the bridge in a
major disaster. The rest of the Union IX Corps followed, but by
day’s end, a Confederate flank attack sent the corps back across the
river. Over 23,000 [23,110] men, both Union and Confederate, were
killed or wounded. The battle resulted in about 10,000 Confederate
and 12,000 Union casualties. The next day, Robert E. Lee began his
retreat back across the Potomac River. 2,108 Union troops and 1,512
Confederates died. In 2002 James M. McPherson authored "Crossroads
of Freedom: Antietam: The Battle that changed the Course of the
Civil War."
(HN, 9/17/98)(HNPD, 9/17/98)(SFC, 7/7/96, T6)(AP,
9/17/97)(SFC, 9/22/01, p.A3)(WSJ, 9/12/02, p.D8)(WSJ, 9/17/02, p.D8)
1862 Sep 17, Sgt. William
McKinley and a single volunteer drove a wagon of hot coffee and warm
food through Confederate fire at Antietam to the men of the 23rd
Ohio regiment. Col. Rutherford B. Hayes promoted him to lieutenant
for his bravery and initiative.
(WSJ, 12/12/03, p.W9)
1862 Sep 17, Battle of
Cumberland Gap, Tenn., was evacuated by Federals.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1863 Sep 17, Union cavalry
troops clashed with a group of Confederates at Chickamauga Creek.
(HN, 9/18/99)
1863 Sep 17, The Robinson
family under widow Eliza Sinclair arrived in Honolulu. They had
moved to British Columbia from New Zealand in June, but were advised
to relocate to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii).
(www.clansinclairusa.org/articles/march2001/elizabeth.php)
1864 Sep 17, Gen. Grant
approved Sheridan's plan for Shenandoah Valley Campaign. "I want it
so barren that a crow, flying down it, would need to pack rations."
(MC, 9/17/01)
1864 Sep 17, Walter Savage
Landor, author, died.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1868 Sep 17, The Battle of
Beecher's Island began, in which Major George "Sandy" Forsyth and 50
volunteers held off 500 Sioux and Cheyenne in eastern Colorado.
(HN, 9/17/98)
1872 Sep 17, Phillip W. Pratt
patented his sprinkler system for extinguishing fires.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1877 Sep 17, William Henry Fox
Talbot (b.1800), British inventor, died. He pioneered instantaneous
photography and invented paper photography with the
negative-positive system now in use. Talbot produced the first book
with photographic illustrations, serialized as "The Pencil of
Nature," from 1844-1846. In 1980 Gail Buckland authored "Fox Talbot
and the Invention of Photography."
(AHD, 1971, p. 1312)(WSJ, 3/24/98, p.A20)(ON,
4/00, p.11)(SFC, 12/26/02, p.E9)
1878 Sep 17, Vincenzo
Tommasini, composer, was born.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1879 Sep 17, Andrew "Rube"
Foster, father of the Negro baseball leagues, was born.
(HN, 9/17/98)
1883 Sep 17, William Carlos
Williams, poet, playwright, essayist and writer who won a Pulitzer
prize for "Pictures from Breughel and Other Poems," was born.
(HN, 9/17/98)
1884 Sep 17, Charles Tomlinson
Griffes, composer (White Peacock), was born in Elmira, NY.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1895 Sep 17, Ethiopia’s Emperor
Menelik II issued a mobilization proclamation calling on men to
gather to resist the Italian army.
(ON, 2/11, p.7)
1899 Sep 17, The 1st British
troops left Bombay for South Africa.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1902 Sep 17, U.S. troops were
sent to Panama to keep train lines open over the isthmus as
Panamanian nationals struggled for independence from Colombia.
(HN, 9/17/98)
1902 Sep 17, US protested
anti-Semitism in Romania.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1903 Sep 17, Turks destroyed
the town of Kastoria in Bulgaria, killing 10,000 civilians.
(HN, 9/17/98)
1907 Sep 17, Warren Earl
Burger, the 15th chief justice of the United States (1969-86), was
born in St. Paul, Minn.
(AP, 9/17/07)
1908 Sep 17, Orville Wright’s
passenger on a test flight was Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge. They
were circling the landing field at Fort Myer, Va., when a crack
developed in the blade of the aircraft’s propeller. Wright lost
control of the Flyer and the biplane plunged to the ground.
Selfridge became powered flight’s first fatality, and Wright was
seriously injured in the crash. But despite the tragic mishap, the
War Department awarded the contract for the first military aircraft
to Wright.
(HNPD, 9/16/98)
1911 Sep 17, Cigar-smoking
Calbraith Perry Rodgers (1879-1912) set off from Sheepshead Bay, New
York, on the first flight across America. Rodgers, sponsored by the
Vin Fiz grape drink company, flew the fragile Wright B biplane in
pursuit of a $50,000 prize offered to the first person to make a
transcontinental flight in 30 days or less. Rodgers failed to win
the prize because his 4,321-mile flight took 84 days—of which only 3
days, 10 hours and 4 minutes was actual flying time! His average
speed was 51.56 miles per hour. By the time he landed at Long Beach,
California, on November 5, Rodgers had made 70 crash landings,
suffered numerous minor injuries and had rebuilt his Vin Fiz so
completely that only one strut and the rudder were its original
equipment.
(HNPD, 9/18/98)(ON, 10/06, p.12)
1917 Sep 17, Some 20,000 iron
workers went on strike in SF, Oakland and Alameda in the biggest
strike ever on the Pacific Coast. Marines were sent to guard the
Union Iron Works and 32 men were arrested in street demonstrations.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W5)
1917 Sep 17, The German Army
recaptured the Russian [Latvian] Port of Riga from Russian forces.
(HN, 9/17/98)
1918 Sep 17, Chaim Herzog
(d.1997), president (Israel, 1983-93), was born in Belfast.
(www.pmo.gov.il/PMOEng/Government/Memorial/Presidents/Hertsog.htm)
1919 Sep 17, The US saluted
Gen. John J. Pershing and soldiers returning from WWI in a parade up
Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington DC.
(AH, 10/04, p.14)
1920 Sep 17, The American
Professional Football Association -- a precursor of the NFL -- was
formed in Canton, Ohio. 12 teams paid $100 each to join American
Prof Football Assn. Jim Thorpe was the first president. The name was
changed to the National Football League (NFL) in 1922. The NFL
merged with the AFL in 1970.
(AP, 9/17/97)(SFC, 7/11/98, p.B3)(HNQ,
11/19/00)(MC, 9/17/01)
1923 Sep 17, Hank Williams,
Sr., singer, songwriter and guitarist known for "Lonesome Blues" and
"Your Cheatin' Heart," was born.
(HN, 9/17/98)
1927 Sep 17, George Blanda, NFL
kicker and quarterback (Bears, Oilers, Raiders), was born in
Pennsylvania.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1928 Sep 17, Actor Roddy
McDowall (d.1998) was born in London. His films included "Lassie
Come Home," and "Cleopatra." His first movie at age 7 was "Murder in
the Family."
(SFEC, 10/4/98, p.B10)
1928 Sep 17, A hurricane hit
Lake Okeechobee, Florida. A levee broke and some 1,800 people
drowned. In 2003 the number dead was revised to at least 2,500. In
2003 Eliot Kleinberg authored “Black Cloud: The Great Florida
Hurricane of 1928.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1928_Okeechobee_Hurricane)(http://tinyurl.com/9z8o6)
1931 Sep 17, The 1st LP record
was demonstrated by RCA Victor in NYC. The venture failed.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1931 Sep 17, Anne Bancroft
(d.2005), film actress, was born as Anna Maria Italiano in NYC.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0000843/)
1934 Sep 17, RCA Victor
released 1st 33 1/3 rpm recording (Beethoven's 5th).
(MC, 9/17/01)
1935 Sep 17, Ken Kesey
(d.2001), author, was born in La Junta, Colo. His novels included
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Sometimes a Great
Notion."
(HN, 9/17/00)(SSFC, 11/11/01, p.A16)
1938 Sep 17, British premier
Neville Chamberlain left Munich.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1939 Sep 17, The Harry James
Orchestra and Frank Sinatra recorded "All or Nothing at All" for
Columbia Records.
(AP, 9/17/99)
1939 Sep 17, David H Souter,
107th Supreme Court Justice (1990- ), was born in Weir, NH.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1939 Sep 17, The German U-29
sank the British aircraft carrier Courageous, 519 died.
(http://www.naval-history.net/WW2CampaignsUboats.htm)
1939 Sep 17, The Soviet Union
attacked Poland, more than two weeks after Nazi Germany launched its
assault. They took 217,000 Poles prisoner and occupied eastern
Poland within a week with losses of 737 dead and 2,000 wounded. The
Polish submarine Orzel escaped from internment and went on to fight
the Germans against long odds.
(AP, 9/17/97)(DrEE, 10/26/96, p.4)(HN,
9/17/98)(MC, 9/17/01)
1940 Sep 17, Nazis deprived
Jews of possessions.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1940 Sep 17, Lithuanian
Activist Front or LAF (Lithuanian: Lietuvos aktyvistų frontas), a
short-lived resistance organization, was established after Lithuania
was occupied by the Soviet Union. The LAF was ferociously
anti-Polish and anti-Jewish.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_Activist_Front)(Econ,
2/12/11, p.60)
1942 Sep 17, US Army Lt. Gen.
Leslie R. Groves (1896-1970) made a temporary Brigadier General and
was placed in charge of the Manhattan Engineer District, which
became known as the Manhattan Project, the fledgling US atomic bomb
program.
(ON, 8/09,
p.7)(http://unjobs.org/authors/leslie-r.-groves)
1942 Sep 17, British Prime
Minister Winston Churchill met with Soviet Premier Josef Stalin in
Moscow as the German Army rammed into Stalingrad.
(HN, 9/17/98)
1944 Sep 17, Infantry glider
troops of the 82nd Airborne Division entered Holland. British and
American airborne troops parachuted into Holland to capture the
Arnhem bridge as part of Operation Market Garden. The plan called
for the airborne troops to be relieved by British troops, but they
were left stranded and eventually surrendered to the Germans. The
1974 book by Cornelius Ryan, "A Bridge Too Far," was based on this
operation and was made into the 1977 film.
(HN, 9/17/98)(HC, 12/12/01)(AP, 9/17/06)
1947 Sep 17, Jeff MacNelly,
political cartoonist, was born. He created the comic strip "Shoe."
(HN, 9/17/00)
1947 Sep 17, Jackie Robinson
was named Rookie of Year by Sporting News.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1947 Sep 17, James Forestall
(d.1949) was sworn in as first the U.S. Secretary of Defense as a
new National Military Establishment unified America’s armed forces.
(AP, 9/17/97)(HN, 9/17/98)(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.A4)
1948 Sep 17, Count Folke
Bernadotte (b.1895) of Sweden, the UN mediator for Palestine, was
assassinated in Jerusalem by members of the extreme Zionist Stern
Group. Yehoshua Zettler (d.2009 at 91), one of the founding members
of the group, masterminded the assassination.
(AP,
9/17/98)(www.us-israel.org/jsource/biography/Bernadotte.html)(AP,
5/25/09)
1949 Sep 17, The North Atlantic
Treaty Council (NATO) met for the 1st time.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1949 Sep 17, More than 130
people died when fire gutted the Canadian passenger steamer Noronic
at a pier in Toronto.
(AP, 9/17/99)
1951 Sep 17, Romanian bishop A.
Pacha of Timisoara was sentenced to 18 years.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1953 Sep 17, The 1st successful
separation of Siamese twins was performed.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1954 Sep 17, Rocky Marciano
retained possession of the world heavyweight boxing title. He
knocked out Ezzard Charles in the 8th round of their championship
bout.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1955 Sep 17, A US Convair B-36
bomber took off from Carswell AFB, Texas, becoming the first
aircraft in the world to fly with a nuclear reactor. Over the next 2
years the Convair Crusader made 47 flights.
(AH, 2/03, p.51)
1956 Sep 17, Black students
entered a Clay, Ky., elementary school.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1957 Sep 17, Two male attorneys
"stood in" as actress Sophia Loren and producer Carlo Ponti were
married by proxy in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Legal issues later forced
an annulment; the couple wed in Sevres, France, in 1966.
(AP, 9/17/07)
1957 Sep 17, The Thai army
seized power in Bangkok.
(HN, 9/17/98)
1959 Sep 17, The North American
Aviation X-15 rocket plane, piloted by Scott Crossfield, made its
first powered flight.
(HN, 9/17/98)(SFC, 4/21/06, p.B9)
1959 Sep 17, Typhoon Sara
killed 2,000 in Japan & Korea. 840 people were left dead or
missing in South Korea. [see Japan Sep 27]
(MC, 9/17/01)(SFC, 9/3/02, p.A3)
1960 Sep 17, Cuba nationalized
US banks.
(www.uscubacommission.org/history3.html)
1961 Sep 17, The situation
comedy "Car 54, Where Are You?" premiered on NBC. Al Lewis (d.2006)
played Officer Schnauzer opposite Fred Gwynne’s Officer Francis
Muldoon. The series ran to 1963.
(AP, 9/17/01)(SSFC, 2/5/06, p.A2)
1961 Sep 17, In Turkey PM Adnan
Menderes (b.1899) was hanged following the 1960 military coup.
(Econ, 6/14/08,
p.65)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adnan_Menderes)
1962 Sep 17, The first federal
suit to end public school segregation was filed by the U.S. Justice
Department.
(HN, 9/17/98)
1962 Sep 17, U.S. space
officials announced the selection of nine new astronauts, including
Neil A. Armstrong, who became the first man to step onto the moon.
(AP, 9/17/02)
1963 Sep 17, "The Fugitive,"
starring David Janssen, premiered on ABC. Kimble was cleared on the
Aug 29, 1967, and narrator William Conrad announced "the day the
running stopped." In 1993 Ed Robertson authored the companion book
""The Fugitive Recaptured." In 1993 a film was made based on the TV
series with Harrison Ford as Kimble.
(AP, 9/17/98)(WSJ, 10/16/00, p.A32)
1964 Sep 17, The situation
comedy "Bewitched" premiered on ABC-TV.
(AP, 9/17/99)
1965 Sep 17, "The Smothers
Brothers Show", debuted on CBS TV.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1966 Sep 17, "Mission
Impossible" premiered on CBS. Greg Morris (1934-1996) played Barney
Collier, the technical wizard. Its theme music was written by Lalo
Schifrin. The series ran until 1973.
(SFC, 8/28/96, C2)(SI-WPC, 12/6/96)(AP, 9/17/01)
1966 Sep 17, Fritz Wunderlich,
charismatic German tenor (Stuttgart 1955-58), died at 35 from
falling down stairs, two months short of his Met Opera debut.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1967 Sep 17, "Mission
Impossible" premiered on CBS-TV. [see Sep 17, 1966]
(MC, 9/17/01)
1972 Sep 17, "M*A*S*H" (MASH)
premiered on CBS-TV.
(AP, 9/17/97)
1973 Sep 17, Charles Horman, a
US free-lance journalist, was arrested by Chilean security forces.
His body was found months later. In 1999 US intelligence complicity
was reported based on newly declassified material. Horman and Frank
Teruggi worked for a newsletter that reprinted articles and
clippings from American newspapers critical of US policy. Teruggi
was also killed. The 1982 film "Missing" was based on their story.
In 2003 retired security officer Rafael Gonzalez (64) became the 1st
person formally charged for the murder.
(SFC, 10/9/99, p.A14)(SFEC, 2/13/00, p.A19)(AP,
12/11/03)
1976 Sep 17, The California
Supreme Court ruled that the Univ. of California’s special
admissions policy giving preference to minority applicants is
unconstitutional. Allan Bakke had claimed he was the victim of
reverse discrimination when he was denied admission to the UC Davis
Medical School.
(SFC, 9/14/01, WB p.6)
1976 Sep 17, NASA publicly
unveiled the space shuttle Enterprise at ceremonies in Palmdale,
Calif.
(AP, 9/17/97)(HN, 9/17/98)
1978 Sep 17, In the 30th Emmy
Awards winners included “All in the Family,” Ed Asner and Sada
Thompson.
(www.imdb.com/title/tt0341210/)
1978 Sep 17, US Pres. Carter,
Menachem Begin of Israel and Anwar Sadat of Egypt signed agreements
at Camp David, Md. Israel promised to withdraw gradually from Sinai
and to establish some form of autonomous Palestinian territory on
the West Bank. Sadat’s astrologer, Hasan al-Tuhami, was the only
person Sadat trusted. In the Camp David Accord "Israel was the
winner and Egypt the Loser." Thus wrote Boutros Boutros-Ghali in his
1997 book: "Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem: A Diplomat’s Story of the
Struggle for Peace in the Middle East."
(WUD, 1994, p.1691)(TL, 1988, p.119)(SFC, 6/2/97,
p.D5)(SFC, 4/24/98, p.A17)
1978 Sep 17, The International
Banking Act of 1978 was enacted. It permitted a foreign bank to
select its home state from among the US states in which it operated
branches and agencies on the grandfather date. If a foreign bank's
office that was established or applied for prior to June 27, 1978,
is a branch as defined in the International Banking Act, then it is
grandfathered as a branch.
(WSJ, 11/19/04,
p.A8)(www.bankersonline.com/regs/211/211-601.html)
1978 Sep 17, Rolf Gunther, East
German priest, died from self immolation.
(http://stasi-in-zwickau.de/K/Kaebisch/Pfarrer-Rolf-Guenther/index.htm)
1979 Sep 17, Gov. Jerry Brown
appointed Steven Lachs as California's 1st admittedly gay judge.
(www.aaronsgayinfo.com/timeline/time70.html)
1980 Sep 17, The musical Les
Miserables opened at the Palais des Sports in Paris. Boublil &
Schonberg composed the music.
(SI-WPC, 12/6/96)(www.hugo-online.org/070402.htm)
1980 Sep 17, Former Nicaraguan
president Anastasio Somoza was assassinated in Paraguay. Enrique
Gorriaran Merlo, Argentine super-guerilla, claimed responsibility.
Merlo was captured in Mexico in 10/95 and extradited to Argentina
where he had multiple charges against him.
(AP, 9/17/97)(WSJ, 4/25/96, p.A-1)
1980 Sep 17, South Korea
opposition leader Kim Dae-jung was sentenced to death. In 1981 the
sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in Seoul.
(http://tinyurl.com/3a4q4z)
1983 Sep 17, Vanessa Williams
of New York became the first black contestant to be crowned "Miss
America." The following July, she also became the first Miss America
to resign in the wake of her Penthouse magazine scandal.
(AP, 9/17/98)
1984 Sep 17, Oil heir Gordon P.
Getty, with a fortune of $4.1 billion dollars, was named the richest
person in the US. There were a dozen billionaires in the US at the
time.
(http://tinyurl.com/33chls)
1984 Sep 17, Progressive
Conservative leader Brian Mulroney took office as Canada's 18th
prime minister.
(AP, 9/17/99)
1986 Sep 17, The Senate
confirmed the nomination of William H. Rehnquist to become the 16th
chief justice of the United States.
(AP, 9/17/97)
1986 Sep 17, A bomb attack in
Paris killed 5 people. This began a 10 month series of bomb attacks
in France attributed to Lebanese and Armenian terrorists.
(http://tinyurl.com/y4fl69)
1987 Sep 17, The city of
Philadelphia, birthplace of the U.S. Constitution, threw a big party
to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the historic document.
(AP, 9/17/97)
1988 Sep 17, South Korea opened
the XXIV Olympiad in Seoul. Closing ceremonies for the summer
Olympics were held on October 2. North Korea refused to participate.
Cuba and Nicaragua stayed away in solidarity.
(WSJ, 4/12/08,
p.R2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_Summer_Olympics)
1988 Sep 17, Haitian President
Henri Hamphy was ousted in a coup; Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril declared
himself president the following day.
(AP, 9/17/98)
1989 Sep 17, In the 41st Emmy
Awards winners included LA Law, Cheers, Dana Delany & Candice
Bergen.
(http://imdb.com/Sections/Awards/Emmy_Awards/1989)
1989 Sep 17, Hurricane Hugo
slammed into several Caribbean islands, including St. Croix, which
was the hardest hit. The 4 day sweep through the Caribbean killed
62.
(AP, 9/17/99)
1990 Sep 17, Defense Secretary
Dick Cheney sacked Air Force chief of staff General Mike Dugan for
openly discussing contingency plans to launch massive air strikes
against Baghdad and target Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
personally.
(AP, 9/17/00)
1990 Sep 17, Supreme Court
nominee David H. Souter concluded three days of testimony before the
Senate Judiciary Committee.
(AP, 9/17/00)
1991 Sep 17, The first flight
of the McDonnell Douglas C-17 military cargo transport took place.
(NPub, 2002, p.25)
1991 Sep 17, The U.N. General
Assembly opened its 46th session, welcoming new members Estonia,
Latvia, Lithuania, North and South Korea, the Marshall Islands and
Micronesia.
(AP, 9/17/01)
1992 Sep 17, A federal judge
overturned the impeachment of former U.S. District Judge Alcee
Hastings, saying he did not receive a fair trial by the Senate,
which convicted him in 1989 of perjury and conspiracy.
(AP, 9/17/97)
1992 Sep 17, Special prosecutor
Lawrence Walsh called a halt to his five-and-a-half-year probe of
the Iran-Contra scandal.
(AP, 9/17/97)
1992 Sep 17, Feodor Chaliapin
Jr. (87), actor (King's Whore), died after illness.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0149923/)
1993 Sep 17, President Clinton
urged China to cancel an underground nuclear test, assuring the
Beijing government it had nothing to fear from the world's other
atomic powers.
(AP, 9/17/98)
1994 Sep 17, Heather Whitestone
of Alabama was crowned "Miss America," the first deaf woman to win
the title.
(AP, 9/17/97)
1994 Sep 17, As some 20
warships sat off the coast of Haiti, former President Jimmy Carter,
Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and retired Gen. Colin Powell arrived in the
Caribbean nation in an 11th-hour bid to avert a U.S.-led invasion.
(AP, 9/17/99)
1994 Sep 17, Fifty-six miners
confirmed killed in a gas blast at the Nanshan coal mine,
northeastern Heilongjiang province.
(www.thestandard.com.hk/stdn/std/China/GB16Ad02.html)
1994 Sep 17, Sir Karl Popper
(b.1902), Austrian-born philosopher of science, died.
(http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper)
1995 Sep 17, A 3-year old girl,
Stephanie Kuhen, was shot dead in Los Angeles when the car she was
riding in driven by Timothy Stone made a wrong turn into a dead-end
alley in Cypress Park, and happened on a gang setting. Her 2-year
old brother was wounded in the foot. Accused of the murder were
Manuel Rosales Jr., Augustin Lizama, Hugo David Gomez, Marcos
Antonio Luna and Anthony Gabriel Rodriguez. A 6th defendant, Marvin
Pech, was expected to testify for the prosecution.
(SFC, 5/14/96, A-20)
1995 Sep 17, Hong Kong held its
last legislative election before the 1997 takeover by China, with
some of Beijing’s fiercest critics the big winners.
(AP, 9/17/00)
1996 Sep 17, A nonpartisan
commission recommended that Ross Perot be denied a spot in
presidential debates, saying he had no realistic shot at winning the
White House; Perot vowed to sue.
(AP, 9/17/97)
1996 Sep 17, The Clinton
Administration and 15 timber companies struck a deal to protect
old-growth forest in Oregon and Washington. The companies will log
substitute groves less critical to fish and wildlife.
(SFC, 9/18/96, p.A2)
1996 Sep 17, Spiro Agnew (b.
Nov 9, 1918), former governor of Maryland and US vice president
(1969-1973), died in Berlin, Md., at age 77.
(SFC, 9/18/96, p.A1)(AP, 9/17/97)
1996 Sep 17, In Montserrat the
Soufriere Hills volcano erupted for 48 minutes.
(SFEC, 10/6/96, T11)
1996 Sep 17, In Bosnia Alija
Izetbegovic led the polls to become chairman of the new 3-member
presidency. Serbian nationalist Momcilo Krajisnik and Croat
nationalist Kresimir Zubak won their respective regions.
(SFC, 9/18/96, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/20/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 17, In Mexico Razhy
Gonzalez, editor of the small Contrapunto weekly, was abducted in
Oaxaca.
(SFC, 9/19/96, p.A10)
1997 Sep 17, Pres. Clinton
rejected a proposed tobacco deal and planned to outline his own
policy.
(SFC, 9/17/97, p.A3)
1997 Sep 17, Pres. Clinton
announced that the US would not sign the int’l. treaty banning
anti-personnel land mines after 89 nations rejected US demands to
water down the accord. 89 nations endorsed the pact.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.A1) (AP, 9/17/98)
1997 Sep 17, The US House of
Representatives voted themselves a $3,000 pay increase, the
equivalent of a 2.3% raise on $133,600. It was termed a
cost-of-living increase and was opposed by the Senate.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.A3)(WSJ, 9/25/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 17, Montana passed a
new law, effective Dec 17, that makes the entire state an offshore
banking center, allowing foreign interests to anonymously stash
their cash. Depositors could not be US citizens and a minimum of
$200,000 was required.
(SFC,12/17/97, p.A1)(SFEC, 1/18/98, p.A18)
1997 Sep 17, Dr. Sam Sheppard's
body (subject of the TV show "The Fugitive") was exhumed in
Cleveland, Ohio, for DNA test.
(www.courttv.com/archive/trials/sheppard/timeline_ctv.html)
1997 Sep 17, Bernard Richard
Skelton (Red Skelton, b.1913), comic clown and actor, died at age 84
in Rancho Mirage, Calif. He made his debut on radio and Broadway in
1937 and appeared in 43 films. In 1979 Arthur Marx wrote his
biography.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.C2)(AP, 9/17/98)
1997 Sep 17, From Indonesia it
was reported that government spending was slashed and projects for
power plants and roads were put on hold in order to keep the economy
on an even keel.
(WSJ, 9/17/97, p.A17)
1997 Sep 17, The German Red
Cross estimated that the famine in North Korea might be killing
10,000 children every month.
(WSJ, 9/17/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 17, In Macedonia the
mayor of Gostevar, Rufi Osmani, was sentenced to 13 years in prison
on charges of inciting ethnic hatred in the July riots.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.A11)
1997 Sep 17, A U.N. helicopter
slammed into a fog-shrouded mountain in central Bosnia and burst
into flames, killing German diplomat Gerd Wagner, five Americans and
six others.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.A12)(AP, 9/17/98)
1997 Sep 17, In Vietnam Tran
Duc Luong (60) was nominated to be the country’s president. Vice
Prime Minister Phan Van Khai (64) was nominated to be the new prime
minister. A week later Luong was elected by the National Assembly
and Khai was confirmed as premier.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.A11)(WSJ, 9/25/97, p.A1)
1998 Sep 17, In Apollo,
Pennsylvania, nuclear-processing plant operators were ordered to pay
8 cancer-stricken victims $36.5 million.
(WSJ, 9/18/98, p.A1)
1998 Sep 17, David Chain of
Texas was killed by a falling redwood tree logged by Earl Ammons
near the Headwaters Forest near Eureka, Ca. Chain's family filed
suit in 1999 against Pacific Lumber. In 2004 Patrick Beach authored
"A Good Forest for Dying: The Tragic Death of a Young Man on the
Front Lines of the Environmental Wars."
(SFEC, 3/14/99, p.A1)(SFC, 9/13/99, p.A28)(SSFC,
4/11/04, p.M1)
1998 Sep 17, In Burma 10
dissidents voted to annul all laws passed by the junta in the last
10 years after constituting themselves as the elected parliament of
1990.
(WSJ, 9/18/98, p.A1)
1998 Sep 17, In Israel a
Palestinian youth, Iyad Hashem (17), was killed in a drive-by
shooting on the West Bank.
(WSJ, 9/18/98, p.A1)(SFC, 9/18/98, p.A13)
1998 Sep 17, In Kenya the
Central Bank took over the Trust Bank due to insufficient funds, the
2nd closure in 10 days.
(WSJ, 9/21/98, p.A22)
1998 Sep 17, In Ensenada,
Mexico, 20 people were shot and 19 were killed by gunmen. The
victims included 8 children. Fermin Castro (38), aka "The Ice Man,"
was the principal target and leader of one of 6 gangs linked to the
Arellano Felix drug cartel. Castro, a native Pai Pai Indian, was
tortured before being shot and was in a coma. In Dec. Tijuana police
arrested Hector Flores Esquivias and Cruz Medina Perez, the wife of
gang leader Marinez Gonzalez. In 2008 US immigration officials in
Los Angeles arrested Jesus Ruben Moncada (33), believed to be one of
the Ensenada gunmen, and turned him over to Mexican authorities.
(WSJ, 9/18/98, p.A1)(SFC, 9/18/98, p.A1)(SFC,
10/17/98, p.A12)(SFC, 12/5/98, p.A13)(SFC, 8/25/08, p.A3)
1999 Sep 17, President Clinton
lifted key parts of the US trade embargo against North Korea
following North Korea's pledge to refrain from testing long-range
missiles.
(SFC, 9/18/99, p.A1)(AP, 9/17/00)
1999 Sep 17, Jesse Gelsinger
(18) of Tucson died after he participated in a Univ. of Pennsylvania
gene therapy experiment. His liver had been injected with a virus
carrying a corrective gene 4 days earlier. An FDA investigation
showed that Gelsinger should never have participated due to entry
criteria. In Jan the FDA halted all human gene therapy experiments
at Penn.
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.A7)(SFC, 12/10/99, p.A14)(SFC,
1/22/00, p.A3)
1999 Sep 17, In Argentina a
botched holdup in Villa Ramallo left 2 hostages dead and a 3rd
wounded. A gunman was also killed and 2 arrested in the 20-hour
standoff that was covered live on TV.
(SFC, 9/18/99, p.A11)
1999 Sep 17, Japan inaugurated
its $400 million Subaru telescope on Mount Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Subaru
is the Japanese word for the constellation Pleiades.
(SFEC, 9/19/99, p.A21)
1999 Sep 17, In Pakistan
opposition politicians and the Christian community accused the
government of colluding with Maulana Ajmal Qadri, leader of the
Jamiat-Ulema-e-Islam, who had called for the killing of legislators
who oppose Islamic law in Pakistan.
(SFC, 9/17/99, p.D6)
2000 Sep 17, In Sydney,
Australia, swimmer Tom Dolan of the United States won the 400-meter
individual medley.
(AP, 9/17/01)
2000 Sep 17, In Brazil gangs of
armed gunmen broke into jails and freed over 200 inmates. 2 breaks
occurred in Sumare and Santa Isabel. A 3rd took place the next day
in Sao Paolo.
(SFC, 9/19/00, p.A10)
2000 Sep 17, In Chechnya
attackers gunned down Col. Shamil Azayev, deputy chief of police in
Vedeno.
(SFC, 9/18/00, p.A9)
2000 Sep 17, In Colombia
government troops engaged FARC rebels at Dabeiba. The offensive had
started Sep 13 and high casualties were reported. ELN rebels
kidnapped about 54 people from roadside restaurants near Cali.
(SFC, 9/18/00, p.A9)(SFC, 11/1/00, p.A17)
2000 Sep 17, In Guinea a UN
worker, Mensah Kpognon, was killed in Macenta where attackers also
burned down the military garrison. Gunmen from Liberia were blamed.
A second worker, Sapeu Laurence Djeya, was also kidnapped in the
raid, and later released.
(SFC, 9/18/00, p.A8)(SFC, 9/29/00, p.D2)(AP,
9/17/01)
2000 Sep 17, In India 7 people
were killed after police opened fire in Ahmedabad in Gujarat state
following mob violence during municipal elections.
(SFC, 9/18/00, p.A9)
2000 Sep 17, In Israel Prime
Minister Barak signed orders to privatize El Al. He had recently
pledged public transport on the Sabbath within 2 months and had the
cabinet begin the legal process for removing citizens’ religion from
identity cards.
(SFC, 9/18/00, p.A9)
2000 Sep 17, In Korea a
ground-breaking ceremony was held at Imjingak for a railroad to
connect the capitals of North and South Korea.
(SFC, 9/18/00, p.A9)
2000 Sep 17, In the Philippines
military forces said 6 Abu Sayyaf guerrillas were killed and 20
arrested. The pursuit continued.
(SFC, 9/18/00, p.A8)
2000 Sep 17, In Sri Lanka
government troops captured Chavakachcheri, 6 miles east of Jaffna. 4
soldiers and 1 officer were reported killed.
(SFC, 9/18/00, p.A9)
2001 Sep 17, President Bush
said the United States wanted terrorism suspect Osama bin Laden
"dead or alive." President Bush visited a mosque in Washington as he
appealed to Americans to get back to everyday business and not turn
against their Muslim neighbors.
(AP, 9/17/02)
2001 Sep 17, The US Federal
Reserve cut interest rates by .5% to 3%. The discount rate at 2.5%
reached its lowest point level since 1959.
(WSJ, 9/18/01, p.A1)
2001 Sep 17, Six days after
9/11, stock prices nose-dived but stopped short of collapse in an
emotional, flag-waving reopening of Wall Street. The DJIA fell
684.81 to 8,920.70. The Nasdaq fell 115 to 1,579.
(WSJ, 9/18/01, p.A1)(SFC, 9/18/01, p.A1)(AP,
9/17/06)
2001 Sep 17, "The Late Show
with David Letterman" returned to CBS with guests Dan Rather and
Regis Philbin.
(AP, 9/17/02)
2001 Sep 17, In Afghanistan
Islamic clerics demanded proof from the US that Osama bin Laden was
responsible for the Sep 11 terrorist attacks. They also requested
that the Organization of Islamic Conference, a group of over 50
Muslim countries, make a formal demand for bin Laden’s handover.
(SFC, 9/18/01, p.A1)
2001 Sep 17, In Chechnya rebels
shot down a Russian Mi-8 helicopter. 2 generals and 8 colonels were
killed. An attack at Gudermes left 10 Russian soldiers dead. 15
rebels were reported killed.
(SFC, 9/18/01, p.B10)
2001 Sep 17, Macedonia approved
the deployment of a modest NATO security force.
(WSJ, 9/18/01, p.A1)
2001 Sep 17, Pakistan virtually
shut down its 1,560-mile border with Afghanistan. Some 1.2 million
Afghan refugees in the North-West Frontier Province were confined to
dozens of camps in the region.
(SFC, 9/18/01, p.A8)
2001 Sep 17, Yasser Arafat
ordered his forces to observe a cease-fire as Israel began to
observe its Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana. In clashes 1 Palestinian
was killed and 15 wounded, while 4 Israelis were wounded.
(SFC, 9/18/01, p.B10)
2001 Sep 17, In South Korea
negotiators for the North and South concluded 2 days of talks and
agreed on an exchange of family visits. The North agreed to soon
begin construction on its side of a railroad to link the 2 sides.
(SFC, 9/18/01, p.B10)
2001 Sep 17, In Taiwan tropical
storm Nari flooded Taipei and other cities. At least 66 people were
killed.
(WSJ, 9/19/01, p.A1)
2002 Sep 17, US Constitution
Day: Article 1, Section 8: "The power to declare war rests with
Congress."
(SFC, 9/15/02, p.D4)
2002 Sep 17, The United States
and its key global partners in Middle East peacemaking agreed to try
to establish a provisional Palestinian state next year.
(AP, 9/17/02)
2002 Sep 17, The US "Religious
Congregations & Membership: 2000" study was released. It counted
some 62 million Catholics as the top of 15 faiths and listed the
Mormons as the fastest growing with 4.2 million members.
(SFC, 9/18/02, p.A3)
2003 Sep 17, NBA star Patrick
Ewing announced his retirement as a player.
(AP, 9/17/03)
2002 Sep 17, Elizabeth Coblentz
(66), Amish cooking columnist, died. Her cook books included "The
Amish Cook Cookbook" and "An Amish Christmas."
(SFC, 9/23/02, p.B5)
2002 Sep 17, The foreign
secretaries of Belize and Guatemala announced a proposed border
settlement in their countries. The proposal retains the border
between the two countries established in a 1959 treaty, which
Guatemala has rejected, and suggests a series of measures aimed at
sharing resources.
(AP, 9/19/02)
2002 Sep 17, UN Weapons
inspectors and Iraqi officials agreed to meet in Vienna in 10 days
to complete arrangements for the inspectors' return. The UN said
Iraq had abandoned its illegal surcharges in the oil-for-food
program.
(AP, 9/17/02)(WSJ, 9/18/02, p.A1)
2002 Sep 17, Kim Jong-il
apologized to Japanese PM Junichiro Koizumi for abductions of
Japanese citizens and offered concessions on security issues of
global concern. Both leaders exchanged apologies. Of 11 Japanese on
an official North Korea list of those who were kidnapped in the
1970s and 1980s, only 4 were still alive. Details of the kidnapped
were made public Oct 2. North Korea announced that it will
indefinitely extend its moratorium on missile testing as part of the
North Korea-Japan Pyongyang Declaration signed during a meeting
between Japanese PM Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim
Jong Il.
(AP, 9/17/02)(SFC, 10/3/02,
p.A8)(www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/dprkchron.asp)
2002 Sep 17, In Paraguay police
fired tear gas and water cannons to clear thousands of
anti-government demonstrators from the capital's main square,
injuring at least 40 protesters.
(AP, 9/17/02)
2002 Sep 17, Rwanda began
withdrawing troops from eastern Congo as part of an agreement signed
with the Congolese government to end the four-year civil war in
Africa's third-largest nation.
(AP, 9/17/02)
2003 Sep 17, Wesley Clark, the
retired general with a four-star military resume but no political
experience, decided to become the 10th Democratic presidential
candidate.
(Reuters, 9/16/03)
2003 Sep 17, Three former
executives of Merrill Lynch & Co. were indicted on fraud charges
related to Enron Corp.
(SFC, 9/18/03, p.B3)
2003 Sep 17, Dick Grasso,
Chairman of the NY Stock Exchange, resigned following a public
outcry over his $139.5 million retirement pay package.
(WSJ, 9/18/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 17, Microsoft Chairman
Bill Gates said his foundation would donate $51 million to create 67
small high schools in NYC. It was part of a larger plan by the city
to create 200 small high schools to replace struggling large ones.
(SFC, 9/18/03, p.A3)
2003 Sep 17, Iran's leading
dissident cleric, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri,
criticized the country's hard-line Islamic leaders, saying they
should submit to elections and allow the country's young people to
choose their future.
(AP, 9/17/03)
2003 Sep 17, An audiotape
purporting to carry the voice of Saddam Hussein, broadcast on Arab
television, called on Iraqis to fight the American occupation.
(AP, 9/17/04)
2003 Sep 17, The imprisoned
leader of a Peruvian rebel group said his group has given up armed
conflict and now wants to become a political movement. Victor Polay,
in a published interview, acknowledged that the Tupac Amaru
Revolutionary Movement has been defeated.
(AP, 9/17/03)
2003 Sep 17, Spain's leading
investigating judge, Baltasar Garzon, issued the first known
indictment against Osama bin Laden in the Sept. 11 attacks.
(AP, 9/17/04)
2003 Sep 17, In Sri Lanka 19
million people shared space with about 3,000 wild elephants. As
forests dwindled the huge beasts entered villages to forage in
garbage dumps for food.
(AP, 9/17/03)
2004 Sep 17, In SF Barry Bonds
became the first new member of baseball’s homerun 700 club in 31
years, joining Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron. Timothy Griffith (21), was
stabbed to death in a fight after the game. Rafael Antonio Cuevas
(22) was arrested Oct 1. On Oct 27 the homerun ball was auctioned
for $804,129. On Oct 10, 2008, Cuevas was sentenced 16 years to life
for 2nd degree murder and ordered to pay a fine of $10,000.
(SFC, 9/18/04, p.A1)(SFC, 10/2/04, p.B4)(SFC,
10/28/04, p.B1)(SFC, 10/11/08, p.B2)
2004 Sep 17, The violent
remains of Hurricane Ivan pounded a large swath of the eastern
United States, drenching an area from Georgia to Ohio. Ivan left 70
dead in the Caribbean and 40 dead in the US including 4 in Alabama,
16 in Florida, 4 in Georgia, 4 in Louisiana, 3 in Mississippi, and 8
in North Carolina.
(AP, 9/17/04)(SFC, 9/18/04, p.A16)
2004 Sep 17, In Afghanistan
suspected Taliban rebels killed two tribal elders who were
encouraging participation in elections.
(AP, 9/18/04)
2004 Sep 17, Tropical Storm
Jeanne lashed the Dominican Republic with wind and rain that
triggered mudslides and collapsed walls before it weakened to a
tropical depression and headed toward the Bahamas. Eight were killed
across the Caribbean.
(AP, 9/17/04)
2004 Sep 17, The main Chechen
rebel Web site, Kavkaz-Center, posted what it said was an e-mail
from Basayev, claiming his "Riyadus Salikhin Martyrs' Brigade" was
responsible for the bombings of two passenger jets last month, a
suicide bombing outside a Moscow subway station and the school siege
in the southern city of Beslan.
(AP, 9/17/04)
2004 Sep 17, Backed by 4,000
police officers, the Colombian government seized control of the
nation's largest pharmacy chain, saying its creation and expansion
had been funded by cocaine trafficking.
(AP, 9/17/04)
2004 Sep 17, A suicide car
bomber slammed into a line of police cars sealing off a Baghdad
neighborhood as American troops rounded up dozens of suspected
militants, capping a day of violence across Iraq that left at least
53 dead. Sheikh Abu Anas al-Shami, a spiritual leader of a group of
militants, was killed when a missile hit the car in which he was
traveling.
(AP, 9/17/04)(SFC, 9/18/04, p.A1)(SFC, 9/23/04,
p.A18)
2004 Sep 17, Mexico and Japan
signed a free trade agreement that Mexicans hope will ease their
reliance on the United States while encouraging Japan to build more
factories there. PM Junichiro Koizumi wrapped up a four-day Latin
American trip then headed for New York to pitch for a permanent
Japanese seat on the UN Security Council.
(AP, 9/17/04)
2004 Sep 17, President Vladimir
Putin said Russia was "seriously preparing" for pre-emptive strikes
against terrorists, as Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev took
responsibility for a school hostage-taking and other attacks that
had claimed more than 430 lives.
(AP, 9/17/05)
2004 Sep 17, Officials in
Singapore reported that a soil-borne bacterial infection called
melioidosis has killed 24 people there this year, making it more
deadly than SARS or bird flu. The illness, also known as Whitmore's
Disease, is listed by the U.S. government as a potential biological
weapon but Singapore government officials said there was no sign it
had been spread intentionally.
(Reuters, 9/17/04)
2004 Sep 17, Gunmen killed a
Venezuelan oil engineer and six soldiers near the border with
Colombia in an attack that officials suspected was carried out by
Colombian rebels.
(AP, 9/19/04)
2005 Sep 17, US Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice told Libya the US was committed to closer
relations with its former enemy, which promised to work harder to
fight terrorism.
(AP, 9/17/05)
2005 Sep 17, Dow Jones, under
chief executive Peter Kann, launched a new “Weekend” edition of the
Wall Street Journal. Over 30 members of the Bancroft family owned
30% of Dow Jones shares and 62% of its voting rights.
(Econ, 9/17/05, p.63)
2005 Sep 17, A Chicago commuter
train was going almost 60 mph above the speed limit just before it
derailed, killing two people and injuring dozens.
(AP, 9/18/05)
2005 Sep 17, The UN urged
Afghans to defy rebel violence and turn out in large numbers to vote
in landmark legislative elections. Fierce battles near the capital
and elsewhere killed nine militants and three policemen.
(AP, 9/17/05)
2005 Sep 17, Chile’s Pres.
Lagos signed a reform of the constitution that deleted what he
called “authoritarian enclaves” left in place from the dictatorship.
(Econ, 9/17/05,
p.38)(www.americas.org/item_21936)
2005 Sep 17, In China the
13-part TV series “Wise Man Takes All” premiered. It was backed by
Vincent Lo, a Hong Kong and Chinese property tycoon, who modeled it
after rival Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice.”
(Econ, 9/17/05, p.67)
2005 Sep 17, A French special
forces soldier was killed and one was seriously wounded when their
vehicle struck a mine while patrolling in southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 9/18/05)
2005 Sep 17, Germany’s 172nd
Oktoberfest opened and will run to Oct 3.
(AP, 5/17/05)
2005 Sep 17, The Indonesian
government signed a contract with state oil company Pertamina and US
oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp to develop Cepu block.
(AP, 9/17/05)
2005 Sep 17, The US military
said that coalition forces in Mosul had arrested two alleged leaders
of the al-Qaida in Iraq terrorist group. The military also said that
Iraqi forces and US troops killed two insurgents and captured six in
the city of Tal Afar.
(AP, 9/17/05)
2005 Sep 17, In Iraq a suicide
car bomb wrecked three vehicles in a US convoy near Abu Ghraib
prison, and insurgents fired seven mortar shells at the jail and
used grenades to damage three armored vehicles in another American
convoy in the area.
(AP, 9/17/05)
2005 Sep 17, A car bomb near an
outdoor market in a Shiite village east of Baghdad killed at least
30 people. At least 40 people were killed across Iraq.
(SSFC, 9/18/05, p.A14)
2005 Sep 17, In Iraq insurgents
assassinated Faris Nasir Hussein, a Kurdish member of parliament.
(AP, 9/18/05)
2005 Sep 17, In Japan DPJ
(Democratic Party of Japan) members, stunned by the loss of a third
of their 177 seats in the lower house of parliament, chose Seiji
Maehara (43) as their new leader.
(Econ, 9/24/05, p.50)
2005 Sep 17, PM Helen Clark's
ruling Labor Party pulled slightly ahead in New Zealand's general
election, despite a surge in support for the conservative
opposition. A new political party representing New Zealand's Maori
won 4 of 7 Parliament seats set aside for indigenous people in
elections dominated by an opposition party's vow to scrap Maori
privileges.
(AP, 9/17/05)
2006 Sep 17, In California a
fire in Los Padres National Forest crossed 60,589 acres, or about 93
square miles, since it began on Labor Day. Containment was estimated
at 15%.
(AP, 9/18/06)
2006 Sep 17, Time Warner Inc.
said it is selling AOL Germany's Internet access business to Telecom
Italia SpA for about $870 million.
(AP, 9/18/06)
2006 Sep 17, In South Carolina
Vinson Filyaw (36) was arrested and charged with raping a
14-year-old girl. Filyaw had abducted the girl on Sep 6 and kept her
in an underground bunker. The girl was rescued Sep 16 after she used
Filyaw’s cell phone to send a text message to her mother.
(SFC, 9/18/06, p.A4)
2006 Sep 17, Elizabeth
Blackburn (57), a biochemist at UCSF, was named winner of the Lasker
Award for Basic Medical Research. She shared $100,000 the award with
Carol W. Greider, a former graduate student, and Jack W. Szostak
(53), a Harvard geneticist and longtime collaborator. Their
discoveries included proteins called telomeres that cap the ends of
chromosomes and regulate the longevity and death of human and animal
cells.
(SSFC, 9/17/06, p.B1)
2006 Sep 17, Five Duquesne
basketball players were shot and wounded during an apparent act of
random violence on campus. As of 2007 two alleged gunmen and two
women who allegedly helped facilitate the shooting awaited trial.
(AP, 9/17/07)
2006 Sep 17, Patricia Kennedy
Lawford (82), the sister of President John F. Kennedy and ex-wife of
actor Peter Lawford, died in New York City.
(AP, 9/17/07)
2006 Sep 17, A top NATO general
said Operation Medusa, an offensive aimed at driving Taliban
militants out of their safe havens in southern Afghanistan, has been
"successfully completed." In southern Afghanistan a suicide bomber
plowed his explosive-laden vehicle into a Canadian military convoy,
killing one civilian and wounding five.
(AP, 9/17/06)
2006 Sep 17, In northern
Austria a Czech bus veered off a road and into a ditch, killing 4
people and injuring 38.
(AP, 9/17/06)
2006 Sep 17, Iran's president
made his first visit to Venezuela, seeking to strengthen ties with a
government that also opposes the US.
(AP, 9/17/06)
2006 Sep 17, In Iraq a series
of attacks, including two suicide car bombings in the northern city
of Kirkuk, killed 24 people and wounded dozens. A series of near
simultaneous mortar and bomb attacks targeting police patrols in
Fallujah killed 4 people, including two policemen, and wounded 10.
In Baghdad a bomb left in plastic bag exploded on the central
commercial Jumhouriyah street, killing two civilians and wounding 8.
The bullet-riddled bodies of 4 unidentified men were found in
separate neighborhoods in east Baghdad. Another two bodies were
found in the Tigris river in central Baghdad. Both had been shot,
and one had been decapitated. Another blindfolded and bound body was
found dumped in a river in the city of Kut. Ahmed Riyadh al-Karbouli
(25), an Iraqi journalist, was killed in Ramadi.
(AP, 9/17/06)(AP, 9/19/06)
2006 Sep 17, The Israeli
Cabinet authorized an inquiry into the government's handling of the
recent war in Lebanon, capping weeks of disagreements over the scope
of the investigation.
(AP, 9/17/06)
2006 Sep 17, A strong typhoon
swept toward southwestern Japan with fierce winds and heavy rains,
leaving at least 8 people dead or missing and injuring dozens more.
(AFP, 9/17/06)
2006 Sep 17, Voters in
Moldova's breakaway Trans-Dniester region overwhelmingly approved a
referendum for the separatist government's bid to eventually join
Russia.
(AP, 9/18/06)
2006 Sep 17, A Nigerian
military transport aircraft, traveling from Abuja to the southern
town of Obudu, went down in the southeast with a group of military
officers on board. 12 of 17 people were killed and most were senior
military personnel.
(AP, 9/18/06)
2006 Sep 17, Sister Leonella
Sgorbati, an Italian nun, was shot dead at a hospital in Mogadishu
by Somali gunmen, hours after a leading Muslim cleric condemned Pope
Benedict XVI for his remarks on Islam and violence. The nun's
bodyguard and a hospital worker were also killed.
(AP, 9/17/06)(AP, 9/21/06)
2006 Sep 17, Sri Lanka's Tamil
Tiger rebels accused government soldiers in concert with
paramilitary units of killing nearly 100 civilians in the island's
embattled Jaffna peninsula this month. Sri Lanka's navy gunboats and
war planes bombed a suspected Tamil Tiger arms ship.
(AFP, 9/17/06)
2006 Sep 17, Peace activists
around the world staged a day of action to highlight the "forgotten
war" in Darfur where tens of thousands of people have been killed
and more than 2 million left homeless.
(AP, 9/17/06)
2006 Sep 17, In Sweden PM
Goeran Persson, head of the minority Social Democrat government for
10 years, faced Fredrik Reinfeldt (41), who led the four-party
Alliance for Sweden, after a campaign focused on getting Swedes back
into the job market. The center-right opposition, vowing to
streamline Sweden's famed welfare state, ousted the Social
Democratic government with 48.1% of the vote, ending 12 years of
leftist rule. Fredrik Reinfeldt (41), head of the main opposition
Moderate Party, became prime minister. He authored the 1993 book
"The Sleeping Nation," in which he criticized the cradle-to-grave
welfare state. Fredrik Reinfeldt renamed his party the “New
Moderates.”
(AP, 9/17/06)(Econ, 9/23/06, p.16)(Econ, 9/23/06,
p.60)
2006 Sep 17, Pope Benedict XVI
said that he was "deeply sorry" about the angry reaction to his
recent remarks about Islam, which he said came from a text that
didn't reflect his personal opinion.
(AP, 9/17/06)
2007 Sep 17, President Bush,
seeking to avert a possible confirmation fight over a more partisan
candidate, chose retired federal judge Michael B. Mukasey to replace
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
(AP, 9/17/07)
2007 Sep 17, A US soldier in
Kansas filed a lawsuit alleging a pattern of practices that
discriminate against non-Christians in the military. A superior had
threatened to file military charges against Spec. Jeremy Hall after
he tried to convene a meeting for atheists and non-Christians.
(SFC, 9/19/07, p.A3)
2007 Sep 17, During a forum at
the University of Florida, Andrew Meyer, a student with a history of
taping his own practical jokes, was Tasered by campus police and
arrested after repeatedly trying to question Massachusetts Sen. John
Kerry.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2007 Sep 17, Microsoft lost its
appeal of a European antitrust order that obliges the technology
giant to share communications code with rivals, sell a copy of
Windows without Media Player and pay a $613 million fine, the
largest ever by EU regulators.
(AP, 9/17/07)
2007 Sep 17, The Roman Catholic
Diocese of Pittsburgh said it has created a $1.25 million fund to
settle 32 lawsuits alleging abuse or injury by priests.
(AP, 9/17/07)
2007 Sep 18, In the SF Bay area
the East Bay Regional Park District approved a $6.63 million deal to
add the 1,476-acre Tyler Ranch to its holdings.
(SFC, 9/19/07, p.B1)
2007 Sep 17, Volunteers
worldwide collected debris from beaches and waterways in a 22nd
annual effort. A report by Ocean Conservancy in 2008 said 7.2
million items were gathered weighing 6 million pounds.
(AP, 4/15/08)
2007 Sep 17, In southern
Afghanistan a suicide bomber on foot entered a government office and
blew himself up in the Nad Ali district center in Helmand province,
killing 8 people, including 4 policemen. In Helmand province a
gunbattle in Garmser district killed six suspected Taliban, while 9
others died in an airstrike in Kajaki district. An explosion killed
a NATO soldier and wounded another.
(AP, 9/17/07)(AP, 9/18/07)
2007 Sep 17, In London,
England, panicky depositors converged on Northern Rock branches for
a third day to grab savings from the beleaguered mortgage lender,
the latest victim of a global credit crunch.
(AFP, 9/17/07)
2007 Sep 17, Sotheby's canceled
a London auction Set for Sep 18 after Alisher Usmanov, a Russian
tycoon paid about 25 percent more than the estimated price for the
art collection of the late cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. A
government agency "presented some guarantees to Sotheby's that this
transaction would be in the interest of the Russian Federation."
(AP, 9/18/07)
2007 Sep 17, A new report said
voracious beetles, that have ravaged more than 9 million hectares
(35,000 square miles) of British Columbia's forests, have wiped out
about 40 percent of the infested region's marketable pine trees.
(Reuters, 9/17/07)
2007 Sep 17, China and the
Democratic Republic of Congo signed a draft accord in which China
would lend $5 billion to modernize Congo’s decrepit infrastructure
and rich but deteriorated mining sector. Congo’s government later
announced that Chinese state-owned firms would build or refurbish
various railways, roads and mines at accost of $12 billion.
(Reuters, 9/18/07)(Econ, 3/15/08, SR p.3)
2007 Sep 17, German police
arrested Augustin Ngirabatware, a former Rwandan minister, wanted by
the International Tribunal on genocide charges related to Rwanda’s
1994 conflict. He was charged with genocide and crimes against
humanity in October 2008 and pleaded not guilty. In 2009 prosecutor
Wallace Kapaya said he has proof Ngirabatware stole money donated by
the World Bank and IMF as well as cash from lenders including
Austria, Switzerland, Germany, the US, Belgium and Canada to buy
weapons and transport for the extremist Hutu militia known as the
Interahamwe. Ngirabatware is the son-in-law of Felician Kabuga,
Rwanda's most wanted genocide suspect.
(AP, 9/20/07)(AP, 9/23/09)
2007 Sep 17, The Iraqi
government said that it was revoking the license of an American
security firm accused of involvement in the deaths of eight
civilians in a firefight that followed a car bomb explosion near a
State Department motorcade. Blackwater has an estimated 1,000
employees in Iraq, and at least $800 million in government
contracts. A suicide bomber detonated his explosives-laden car near
a busy market in Baghdad, killing three people and wounding 10 in an
attack that apparently targeted a police patrol.
(AP, 9/17/07)
2007 Sep 17, The Mozambican
government authorized soldiers to gun down wild animals who are seen
as a threat to human beings after a new report highlighted an
increase in the number of deadly attacks.
(AFP, 9/17/07)
2007 Sep 17, Nepal's political
leaders held emergency talks with former rebel Maoists to try to
persuade the ultra-leftists not to storm out of the government and
launch nationwide protests.
(AFP, 9/17/07)
2007 Sep 17, Pakistan’s
Election Commission announced a rule change that would apparently
allow President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to seek a new, five-year term
while still serving as army chief.
(AP, 9/17/07)
2007 Sep 17, Saudi Arabia
announced it has signed a 4.43 billion pound (8.86 billion dollar)
deal to buy 72 Eurofighter planes, after tortuous negotiations on
one of the largest ever British export orders.
(AP, 9/17/07)
2007 Sep 17, In Scotland a jury
at Glasgow's High Court found Mohammed Atif Siddique (21) guilty of
four offenses under British terrorism laws and a separate offense of
breaching the peace, carried out between March 1, 2003, and April
13, 2006. This included causing a disturbance by telling fellow
students he planned to become a suicide bomber.
(AP, 9/18/07)(AP, 2/9/10)
2007 Sep 17, Sierra Leone
election officials declared opposition candidate Ernest Bai Koroma
has won the presidential run-off.
(AP, 9/17/07)
2007 Sep 17, Lars Vilks, a
Swedish cartoonist who depicted Islam's Prophet Muhammad with the
body of a dog, said that police have taken him to a secret location
and told him he cannot return home following a death threat from
al-Qaida in Iraq.
(AP, 9/17/07)
2007 Sep 17, Ukrainian
officials signed a $505 million contract with a French-led
consortium for construction of a new shelter for the Chernobyl
reactor, the site of the word's worst nuclear accident.
(AP, 9/17/07)
2007 Sep 17, President Hugo
Chavez threatened to take over any private schools refusing to
submit to the oversight of his socialist government, a move some
Venezuelans fear will impose leftist ideology in the classroom.
(AP, 9/17/07)
2008 Sep 17, The Bush
administration released $100 million in disaster relief to West
coast salmon fisherman, $70 million less that was approved by
Congress. About $63 million will go to California, $25 million to
Oregon and $12 million to Washington state.
(SFC, 9/18/08, p.A8)
2008 Sep 17, US federal
prosecutors unsealed charges against alleged members of a global
network procuring potentially sensitive electronic components for
Iran. 8 companies and 8 people, including Iranian, Malaysian and
British nationals were charged with violating a US embargo the
restricts certain goods to Iran.
(WSJ, 9/18/08, p.A10)
2008 Sep 17, The US Coast Guard
intercepted a submarine-like vessel carrying 7 tons of cocaine about
400 miles south of the Mexico-Guatemala border. The Coast Guard sank
the vessel after determining it was too unstable to be towed to
port.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 17, The US non-profit
“Do Something” group launched an IPO to raise $8 million. The
15-year-old organization promoted volunteerism among American
teenagers.
(Econ, 9/13/08, p.72)
2008 Sep 17, Gold prices rose
$70 to close at $850.50, its biggest one-day price jump ever.
(SFC, 9/18/08, p.C3)
2008 Sep 17, In SF the large
“Wall Drawing #935” and “Wall Drawing #936,” conceived by Sol LeWitt
(1928-2007) and painted by his assistants in 1999, were painted over
at the SF Museum of Modern Art. The museum retained the sole right
for their reproduction.
(SFC, 9/19/08, p.E1)
2008 Sep 17, Philip Morris
International said that it succeeded in its tender offer to acquire
Canada's No. 2 cigarette maker Rothmans Inc.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 17, A roadside blast
in eastern Afghanistan killed four US coalition soldiers and an
Afghan. In Kabul US Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressed
"personal regret" for recent US airstrikes that killed Afghan
civilians, and pledged more accurate targeting in future. French
Defense Minister Herve Morin said years of under-investment in
defense by European countries was to blame for a critical shortage
of international forces in Afghanistan.
(AFP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 17, Barclays PLC said
it may pick up some of Lehman Brothers assets and employees in
Europe and Asia, on top of the British bank's deal to acquire key
U.S. operations from the failed investment bank.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 17, A packed "Bird's
Nest" National stadium witnessed the formal end of the Beijing
Paralympic Games, bringing down the curtain on a glittering 12-day
sports extravaganza.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 17, A German court
convicted 3 Turkish men of siphoning $25 million from the Deniz
Feneri charity, which raised fund to ostensibly help needy Muslims.
(Econ, 9/20/08, p.69)
2008 Sep 17, In northern
Lebanon a gunfight between two rival Christian groups has left two
people dead and three wounded.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 17, A second riot in
three days at an infamous Tijuana prison left close to 2 dozen
people dead and 12 injured. 2 American inmates were among the dead.
Inmates at La Mesa prison rioted again because they have not been
given food or water since Sep 14, when a separate riot led to the
deaths of at least three inmates.
(AP, 9/18/08)(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 17, Armed Nigerian
militants, who have declared an "oil war" in the restive south of
the country, claimed to have blown up a major pipeline in their
latest attack on oil installations in the region. A spokesman for
Nigeria's state oil company said that militant attacks are now
cutting the country's daily oil production by about 1 million
barrels a day, 40 percent of what the country produced before the
militant campaign began three years ago.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 17, A CIA
missile strike in South Waziristan killed 6 people as US Adm. Mike
Mullen assured Pakistan’s leaders that the US respects Pakistan’s
sovereignty.
(SFC, 9/19/08, p.A6)
2008 Sep 17, Russian President
Dmitry Medvedev signed friendship treaties with Georgia's breakaway
regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and promised them the backing
of Russia's armed forces.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 17, Thai lawmakers
turned to Somchai Wongsawat, the brother-in-law of deposed leader
Thaksin Shinawatra, to be the new prime minister, setting up a
showdown with protesters determined to tear down his political
legacy.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 17, Ukrainian PM Yulia
Tymoshenko said she would not resign as required following the
collapse of the country's ruling pro-Western coalition.
(AFP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 17, Suspected
militants armed with automatic weapons, rocket-propelled grenades
and at least one suicide car bomb assaulted the US Embassy in the
Yemeni capital. The coordinated attack killed 17 people, including
six assailants. The dead included Susan Elbaneh (18), a US citizen
from Lackawanna, N.Y., who was recently wed in Yemen in an arranged
marriage, along with her Yemeni husband as they stood outside the
embassy.
(AP, 9/17/08)(AP, 9/18/08)(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 17, In Zimbabwe a
government-controlled newspaper said key aspects of the new
power-sharing deal won't go in effect until next month, adding to
concerns that President Robert Mugabe's agreement to cede some power
for the first time in 28 years will founder.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2009 Sep 17, Pres. Obama said
he is abandoning Bush-era plans for a long-range missile defense
system based in Poland and the Czech Rep. Czechs and Poles expressed
rancor and relief that Obama was scrapping plans for the US missile
defense shield on their territories, reflecting deep divisions over
a proposal that had angered Russia.
(AP, 9/17/09)(SFC, 9/18/09, p.A7)
2009 Sep 17, In Connecticut
Raymond Clark III (24) was arrested at a hotel and charged with
murdering Annie Le (24), whose body was found on Sep 13, stuffed in
the wall of a research building at Yale on what would have been her
wedding day. On March 17, 2011, Clark pleaded guilty to killing Le
and faced 44 years in prison.
(AP, 9/17/09)(SFC, 3/18/11, p.A4)
2009 Sep 17, In Washington
state Phillip Arnold Paul (47), a criminally insane killer, escaped
during a field trip to the Spokane County Fair that his mental
hospital organized. Paul was committed after he was acquitted by
reason of insanity in the 1987 slaying of an elderly woman, whose
body he soaked in gasoline to throw off search dogs. Paul was
re-captured on Sep 20.
(AP, 9/19/09)(SFC, 9/21/09, p.A6)
2009 Sep 17, In Kabul,
Afghanistan, a suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives
into two Italian military vehicles killing six of those aboard and
wounding four. 10 Afghan civilians were also killed. A US service
member and a Canadian soldier died in separate roadside bomb
explosions in the south.
(AP, 9/17/09)(AP, 9/18/09)
2009 Sep 17, In London the
musical play “Enron,” written by Lucy Prebble, opened at the Royal
Court Theater.
(Econ, 10/10/09, p.90)
2009 Sep 17, In Britain the
Communication Workers Union called for a national walkout following
a rolling program of local postal strikes that began in July. The
strikes over higher pay and job security have already caused a
backlog of 20 million letters and parcels, about a quarter of the
Royal Mail's daily volume.
(AP, 9/17/09)
2009 Sep 17, Chinese state
media said nine people have been killed and nine others are missing
after Typhoon Koppu roared into the southern province of Guangdong.
A knife-wielding man stabbed two guards to death and wounded 14 near
Beijing's Tiananmen Square. The attacker, a 46-year-old man, was
drunk at the time.
(AP, 9/17/09)(AP, 9/19/09)
2009 Sep 17, In China a
knife-wielding man stabbed two guards to death and wounded 14 near
Beijing's Tiananmen Square. The attacker, a 46-year-old man, was
drunk at the time.
(AP, 9/19/09)
2009 Sep 17, An Egyptian judge
convicted two American couples of human trafficking in an illegal
adoptions case and sentenced them to two years in prison. The trial
highlighted bureaucratic entanglements and murky legislation on
adopting children in the predominantly Muslim country.
(AP, 9/17/09)
2009 Sep 17, In southern
Germany an 18-year-old student armed with an ax and knives lobbed
Molotov cocktails at his Carolinum High School in the Bavarian town
of Ansbach, wounding eight pupils and a teacher before he was shot
and arrested by police. In 2010 the student, identified as Georg R,
was convicted of 47 counts of attempted murder and order to 9 years
in youth detention and psychiatric care.
(AP, 9/17/09)(AP, 4/29/10)
2009 Sep 17, Armed Indonesian
police stormed an Islamic militant hideout in a raid that killed
fugitive terror mastermind Noordin Mohammed Top (41) and 3 other
militants in central Java. Putri Munawaroh (21) was wounded and
arrested after police raided her house, sparking the gunbattle. In
2010 she was sentenced to 3 years in prison for harboring
terrorists.
(AFP, 9/17/09)(AP, 7/29/10)
2009 Sep 17, Myanmar's junta
announced amnesty to 7,114 convicts at prisons across the country,
but it was not immediately known if they included political
detainees.
(AP, 9/17/09)
2009 Sep 17, Pakistan's
military killed 10 insurgents and said it had arrested Sher Muhammad
Qasab, a militant commander accused of beheading troops in the
northwestern Swat Valley.
(AP, 9/17/09)
2009 Sep 17, In
Pakistan-controlled Kashmir a speeding bus, whose driver apparently
was eager to break his daylong Ramadan fast, spun out of control and
plunged off a mountainous road, killing 25 people and injuring 30
others.
(AP, 9/17/09)
2009 Sep 17, Serbian men
brutally attacked Brice Taton (28), a French soccer fan, in front of
a downtown cafe in the Serbian capital before Partizan Belgrade's
Europa Cup match against Toulouse. On Jan 25 a Belgrade court
convicted 14 Serbs of the fatal beating of Taton. Two of the
convicted remain at large and were tried in absentia.
(AP, 1/25/11)
2009 Sep 17, In Somalia
Islamist insurgents drove two stolen UN cars loaded with explosives
onto the main base of African Union peacekeepers and triggered
massive blasts that a witness said killed 21 people, including 4
suicide bombers, 16 officials from the government and AMISOM, the AU
peacekeeping force, and the Burundian deputy commander of the force.
Islamist insurgents said the attack was in revenge for a US commando
raid that killed an al-Qaida operative. An hour later missiles were
fired from the AU base strike rebel-controlled areas of Mogadishu,
killing seven people and wounded 16. It was later suspected that one
of the suicide bombers was a Somali-American teenager, Omar Mohamud
(18), of Seattle, Wa.
(AP, 9/17/09)(AP, 9/18/09)(AP, 9/25/09)
2009 Sep 17, Spanish National
Court Judge Ismael Moreno indicted three alleged ex-Nazi death camp
guards, who are or were longtime residents of the United States,
charging them with being accessories to genocide and crimes against
humanity. Moreno issued international arrest warrants for the three:
Johann Leprich, Anton Tittjung and Josias Kumpf. The 18-page
indictment says Kumpf apparently lives now in Austria and other two
in the US.
(AP, 9/17/09)
2009 Sep 17, Spanish oil major
Repsol YPF said it had discovered oil off the coast of Sierra Leone,
its first find in the west African nation, along with its
Australian, American and British partners.
(AFP, 9/17/09)
2009 Sep 17, Ugandan cricket
authorities said Six Ugandan cricketers are missing in Canada after
playing in a qualifying tournament for next year's World Cup.
(AP, 9/17/09)
2010 Sep 17, President Obama
announced that legal scholar Elizabeth Warren will lead the efforts
to found the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) created
by the new financial reform law.
(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, In New Mexico
scientist Pedro Leonardo Mascheroni (75) and his wife Marjorie Roxby
Mascheroni (67), who both once worked at Los Alamos National
Laboratory, were arrested after an FBI sting operation. They were
charged with offering to help develop a nuclear weapon for
Venezuela.
(AP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 17, California’s
budget stalemate officially became the longest in state history,
surpassing the 78-day record of 2008.
(SFC, 9/17/10, p.A1)
2010 Sep 17, Chevron Corp.
rejected new estimates of damages in the jungles of Ecuador that
rose to a range of $40 to $90 billion. The suit stemmed from
operations by Texaco from 1972-1990 when it managed a drilling
consortium. Chevron bought Texaco in 2001.
(SFC, 9/18/10, p.D3)
2010 Sep 17, Afghan officials
said 19 election-related kidnappings have the country despite
tightened security on the eve of a parliamentary poll the Taliban
has vowed to disrupt. In northern Kunduz Afghan and NATO-led troops
killed a Taliban commander who was planning election attacks. It was
reported Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty this week started
distributing 20,000 free radio sets to Afghans, including those in
distant mountain villages and refugee camps. The operation, which
will last for several weeks, will cost $500,000.
(Reuters, 9/17/10)(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, In southern
Afghanistan Corporal Dipprasad Pun, a Nepalese soldier in the
British army, fired more than 400 rounds, launched 17 grenades and
detonated a mine to repel the Taliban assault on his checkpoint near
Babaji in Helmand Province. In 2011 Pun was awarded the Conspicuous
Gallantry Cross (CGC).
(http://xnepali.com/gurkha-the-queen-awarded-bravery-medal-to-dipprasad-pun/)
2010 Sep 17, Bat Khurts, a key
figure in Mongolia's National Security Council, was detained as he
flew into London's Heathrow airport, for allegedly abducting a
Mongolian murder suspect in 2003. On Feb 18, 2011, a British judge
ruled that Khurts can be extradited to Germany.
(AFP, 2/18/11)
2010 Sep 17, Cuba's Roman
Catholic Church revealed the names of four more political prisoners
to be released into exile in Spain, bringing to 36 the number freed
and sent off the island under an agreement with President Raul
Castro's government.
(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, India deployed
soldiers on the streets of protest-hit Kashmir to restore order, as
three more people were shot dead by security forces during violent
demonstrations.
(AFP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, Israel reiterated
its refusal to extend curbs on settlement building that expire this
month, despite US pressure and Palestinian threats to walk out of
peace talks. Israeli troops killed Abu Shilbaya (37), a Hamas
militant and local leader of its armed wing, during a raid in the
northern West Bank town of Tulkarm. Some 3,000 Hamas loyalists
gathered to march in Abu Shilbaya's funeral.
(AFP, 9/17/10)(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, Israel came to a
virtual standstill at sundown as Jews began observing the start of
the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, the 25 hours of fasting and
contemplation known as Yom Kippur.
(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, Japan's PM Naoto
Kan named a new cabinet, including a hawkish foreign minister to
handle an escalating row with China.
(AFP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, The Mauritanian
army launched an offensive against the North African branch of
al-Qaida in neighboring Mali. At least 12 militants died and five
Mauritanians were killed in the operation, which was launched
inside northern Mali with permission.
(AP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 17, In Mexico gunmen
burst into a bar in Ciudad Juarez and killed 6 men and a woman. Over
4,000 people have died in the city over the last 2 years as a turf
war continued between the Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels. Gunmen
kidnapped 9 police officers investigating a death in the southern
state of Guerrero. The headless bodies of two of the lawmen were
found near El Revelado, the community where the police group was
kidnapped. 6 more were found Sep 19 in a ravine. One survivor was
located in Acapulco. Troops killed three suspected drug cartel
gunmen in a gunbattle and also freed a kidnap victim near the
industrial city of Monterrey.
(SFC, 9/18/10, p.A2)(AP, 9/18/10)(AP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 17, Hurricane Karl hit
Mexico’s Gulf Coast. At least 16 people were killed after several
days of flooding and mudslides.
(SFC, 9/18/10, p.A3)(SFC, 9/18/10, p.A6)(AP,
9/20/10)
2010 Sep 17, New Zealand
politician David Garrett (52), a lawmaker with the minor Act Party,
resigned from his party after admitting he stole a dead baby's
identity to obtain a false passport 26 years ago. Garrett said he
never used the false passport and eventually destroyed it.
(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, Nigeria’s Pres.
Goodluck Jonathan, current chair of the Economic Community of West
African States (ECOWAS), said Guinea-Bissau risks sliding into
anarchy unless a security solution, including taming the military,
is found in the coup-prone west African nation.
(AFP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, Nigeria’s national
security adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan resigned to compete
against his boss to become the ruling party's candidate in next
year's presidential election.
(AFP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 17, In Pakistan 48
people died in a dispute over access to water in the Kurram region.
Fighting near the border with Afghanistan between two tribes, one
Sunni and the other Shia, has killed 102 people over the last two
weeks.
(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, A Rwandan court
sentenced an opposition leader to life in prison for recruiting
rebels to fight President Paul Kagame's government. Deo Mushayidi, a
former ruling party member, was also convicted of obtaining a
passport through fraud and spreading rumors to incite civil
disobedience for which he received shorter terms.
(AFP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, Spain approved a
request to ask that South Africa extradite former Rwandan army chief
Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, who is wanted on charges of genocide and
for the murder of four Spaniards in Rwanda in the 1990s. Nyamwasa
fled to South Africa in February after abandoning his post as
Rwanda's envoy to India. Four months later he was shot in the
stomach outside his home in an upmarket Johannesburg suburb.
(AFP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 17, A Sri Lankan
military court convicted Sarath Fonseka, the former army chief who
ran for president on the opposition ticket, of fraud. He could be
sentenced to jail time. Three containers filled with explosives
meant for road construction detonated outside a police station in
eastern Sri Lanka, killing 25 people, most of them police officers.
Police the next day said Improperly stored detonators likely
triggered the dynamite explosion.
(AP, 9/17/10)(AP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 17, On the island of
St. Lucia a gunman walked into PM Stephenson King’s home-district
office and killed a man who was waiting to see the government
leader.
(AP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 17, In St. Maarten two
major parties expected to dominate the election of 15 parliamentary
representatives who will lead the Dutch territory when it becomes an
autonomous country next month. St. Maarten and Curacao will become
countries within the Dutch kingdom when the Netherlands Antilles are
dissolved Oct. 10. The islands of Saba, St. Eustatius and Bonaire
will become special Dutch municipalities and respond directly to the
Dutch government.
(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, In Sudan 13 people
travelling to mourn victims of a bus crash drowned when their boat
capsized in Sudan's White Nile state.
(AFP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 17, In Zimbabwe about
300 civil servants marched through Harare demanding higher pay and
benefits from money the state earned through recent diamond
auctions.
(AFP, 9/17/10)
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