Today in History - October 17
Return to home
For Asian History: https://www.asiaobserver.org/category/news/on-this-day-in-asian-history
532 Oct 17, Boniface II, 1st "German" Pope, died.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1244 Oct 17, The Sixth Crusade ended when an Egyptian-Khwarismian force almost annihilated the Frankish army at Gaza.
(HN, 10/17/98)
1346 Oct 17, English forces defeated the Scots under David II during the Battle of Neville's Cross, Scotland.
(HN, 10/17/98)
1483 Oct 17, The Reverend Dr. Tomas de Torquemada (1420-1498), the Grand Inquisitor of Castile, had his jurisdiction extended to Aragon.
(www.newadvent.org/cathen/14783a.htm)
1492 Oct 17, Columbus sighted the isle of San Salvador (Watling Island, Bahamas).
(http://tinyurl.com/774v3)
1529 Oct 17, Henry VIII of England stripped Thomas Wolsey of his office for failing to secure an annulment of his marriage.
(HN, 10/17/98)
1577 Oct 17, Cristofano Allori, Italian painter (Judith), was born.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1586 Oct 17, Philip Sidney (b.1554), English poet and diplomat, died in battle at 32. His work included “Astrophel and Stella" and “Defense of Poesy." In 2002 Alan Stewart authored “Philip Sidney: A Double Life."
(MC, 10/17/01)(SSFC, 1/20/02, p.M4)
1587 Oct 17, Francesco de' Medici (46) died 11 days after he fell ill and a few hours before his wife. In 2007 forensic experts reported evidence that they had died of arsenic poisoning. Francesco had ruled from 1574. By all accounts his wife had been his mistress while he was married to his first wife, who is also believed to have died of poisoning.
(AP, 1/3/07)
1651 Oct 17, Future King Charles II fled from England. [see Oct 15]
(MC, 10/17/01)
1691 Oct 17, Maine and Plymouth were incorporated in Massachusetts.
(HN, 10/17/98)
1707 Oct 17, German composer Johann S. Bach married his niece Maria Bach.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1725 Oct 17, John Wilkes (d.1797), English journalist, was born. He became a MP, Lord Mayor of London and called for independence of Britain's American colonies.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wilkes)
1739 Oct 17, King George II granted Thomas Coram, retired sea captain, a royal charter to establish "a hospital for the reception, maintenance and education of exposed and deserted young children."
(ON, 9/02, p.8)
1777 Oct 17, General John Burgoyne with British forces of 5,000 men surrendered to General Horatio Gates, commander of the American forces at Schuylerville, NY. In the fall of 1777, the British commander Gen'l. Burgoyne and his men were advancing along the Hudson River. After Burgoyne had retreated to the heights of Saratoga, the Americans stopped and surrounded them. The surrender was a turning point in the American Revolution, demonstrating American determination to gain independence. After the surrender, France sided with the Americans, and other countries began to get involved and align themselves against Britain.
(AP, 10/17/97)(HN, 10/17/98)(HNPD, 10/17/99)(SSFC, 6/30/02, p.C10)
1805 Oct 17, Vice Adm. Horatio Nelson wrote a letter to the governor, Rear Admiral John Knight just four days before the historic Battle of Trafalgar, in which Nelson was killed. In it Nelson declared he was "anxious for an Easterly wind," as that would encourage the enemy to leave port and finally face the British.
(Reuters, 7/13/10)
1806 Oct 17, Jean-Jacques Dessalines (b.1758), Emp. Jacques I of Haiti, was assassinated.
(www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/168.html)
1807 Oct 17, Britain declared it would continue to reclaim British-born sailors from American ships and ports regardless of whether they held US citizenship.
(AP, 10/17/07)
1808 Oct 17, The political rights of Jews was suspended in Duchy of Warsaw.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1813 Oct 17, Georg Buchner, German playwright (Danton's Death, Woyzeck), was born.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1814 Oct 17, Two giant porter vats at the Horse Shoe Brewery on London’s Tottenham Court Road burst when the securing hoops failed. The 25-foot-high vats were owned by Sir Henry Meux and. Several lives were lost along with an estimated 8,000-9,000 barrels of porter.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meux%27s_Brewery)(http://tinyurl.com/2v43jm)
1815 Oct 17, Napoleon (d.1821) arrived in St. Helena.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1821 Oct 17, Alexander Gardner, American photographer, was born. He documented the Civil War and the West.
(HN, 10/17/00)
1821 Oct 17, The Gambia became administered as a crown colony from Sierra Leone. Since then Banjul (Bathurst) has been its capital.
(http://www.vdiest.nl/gambia.htm)
1825 Oct 17, Franz Liszt's operetta Don Sanche premiered in Paris
(MC, 10/17/01)
1829 Oct 17, Delaware River and Chesapeake Bay Canal formally opened. The Chesapeake-Delaware Canal was 14 miles long.
(NG, Sept., 1939, p.379)(MC, 10/17/01)
1829 Oct 17, Sam Patch (~23), stunt diver, successfully dove 120 feet from a platform on Goat Island at Niagara Falls.
(MC, 11/13/01)(ON, 4/02, p.6)
1831 Oct 17, Felix Mendelssohn's 1st Piano concert in G premiered.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1837 Oct 17, Austrian composer Johan Nepomuk Hummel (b.1778) died in Weimar, Germany. His music reflects the transition from the Classical to the Romantic musical era.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Nepomuk_Hummel)
1849 Oct 17, Composer and pianist Frederic Chopin died in Paris of tuberculosis at the age of 39. The 1945 film “A Song to Remember" was about Chopin."
(HN, 10/17/00)(SFC, 11/25/02, p.A15)
1855 Oct 17, The Bessemer steel making process was patented.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1859 Oct 17, Childe Hassam (d.1935), American impressionist painter, etcher and illustrator, was born. His work included "St. Patrick's Day."
(WUD, 1994, p.649)(HN, 10/17/00)
1860 Oct 17, The British Open was 1st held at the Prestwick Golf Club in Scotland. The prize was a red leather belt with a silver buckle. The belt was retired in 1872 and replaced with a silver claret jug.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Championship)(WSJ, 7/21/00, p.W9)
1862 Oct 17, Battle of Leetown and Thoroughfare Gap, Va.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1863 Oct 17, General Ulysses S. Grant was named overall Union Commander of the West. [see Oct 16]
(HN, 10/17/98)
1864 Oct 17, Elinor Glyn, British novelist (3 Weeks), was born.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1871 Oct 17, President Grant suspended writ of habeas corpus in South Carolina in response to violence by the KKK. It applied to all arrests made by US marshals and federal troops in nine of the state’s western counties. By the end of November some 600 arrests were made.
(AH, 6/03, p.31)
1876 Oct 17, Henry Morton Stanley's expedition (to find the source of the Congo River) reached the Lualaba River.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1877 Oct 17, Brigadier General Alfred Terry met with Sitting Bull in Canada to discuss the Indians' return to the United States.
(HN, 10/17/99)
1883 Oct 17, A.S. Neill, British headmaster (Summerhill), was born.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1894 Oct 17, Ohio national guard killed 3 lynchers while rescuing a black man.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1895 Oct 17, Doris Humphrey, modern dance choreographer, was born.
(HN, 10/17/00)
1898 Oct 17, Shinichi Suzuki (d.1998), music teacher, was born.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1903 Oct 17, Nathanael West, novelist and screenwriter, was born. His work included “Miss Lonely Hearts" and “The Day of the Locust."
(HN, 10/17/00)
1904 Oct 17, Amadeo Peter Giannini (d.1949) founded the Bank of Italy, the predecessor to the Bank of America, on the Montgomery block in SF.
(SFC, 4/14/98, p.B4)(SSFC, 10/24/04, Par p.5)
1907 Oct 17, Guglielmo Marconi began offering limited commercial wireless telegraph service between Nova Scotia and Ireland.
(AP, 10/17/07)
1910 Oct 17, Julia Ward Howe, prominent American abolitionist, social activist, poet, died at her home in Rhode Island. She was the author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic". In 2016 Elaine Showalter authored “The Civil Wars of Julia Ward Howe. A Biography."
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Ward_Howe)(Econ, 2/20/15, p.74)
1912 Oct 17, John Paul I, [Albino Luciano], 263rd Roman Catholic pope (1978), was born.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1912 Oct 17, Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia declared war on Turkey. [see Oct 18]
(MC, 10/17/01)
1913 Oct 17, Zeppelin LII exploded over London, killing 28.
(HN, 10/17/98)
1914 Oct 17, John Mosely, recording expert and entrepreneur, was born.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1915 Oct 17, Arthur Miller, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, was born. His work included "Death of a Salesman" and "A View from the Bridge." In 2003 Martin Gottfried authored "Arthur Miller: His Life and Work."
(HN, 10/17/00)(SSFC, 9/28/03, p.M2)
1917 Oct 17, The 1st British bombing of Germany took place.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1918 Oct 17, Rita Hayworth, American actress, was born.
(HN, 10/17/98)
1918 Oct 17, The Hungarian Parliament terminated the union with Austria and declared the independence of the country.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_Austria-Hungary)
1918 Oct 17, Anton Dilger (B.1884), an American saboteur educated as a surgeon in Germany, died of Spanish flu in Spain. [see 1916] In 2007 Robert Koenig authored “The Fourth Horseman: One Man’s Mission to Wage the Great War in America."
(SSFC, 1/14/07, p.M2)
1918 Oct 17, Yugoslavia proclaimed itself a republic.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1919 Oct 17, The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) was chartered.
(AP, 10/17/08)
1920 Oct 17, Montgomery Clift, actor (From Here to Eternity), was born in Omaha, Neb.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1930 Oct 17, Jimmy Breslin, columnist and novelist (NY Post, News, Newsday), was born in Queens, NYC.
(HN, 10/17/00)
1931 Oct 17, Mobster Al Capone was convicted of income tax evasion and sentenced to 11 years in prison. He was released in 1939.
(AP, 10/17/97)
1933 Oct 17, Hugh Bancroft, president of Dow Jones & Co., died.
(www.nndb.com/people/348/000159868/)
1933 Oct 17, Due to rising anti-Semitism and anti-intellectualism in Hitler's Germany, Albert Einstein immigrated to the United States. He made his new home in Princeton, N.J.
(AP, 10/17/97)(HN, 10/17/98)
1934 Oct 17, "The Aldrich Family" premiered on radio.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1934 Oct 17, "Handsome" Harry Pierpont, bank robber, was executed in the electric chair in Columbus, Ohio, for the murder of Sheriff Jesse Sarber.
(Internet)
1938 Oct 17, Evel Knievel (d. Nov 30, 2007) was born as Robert Craig "Evel" Knievel, Jr. He became a US daredevil motorcycle stunt man, showman, entertainer, Member Motorcycle Hall of Fame and Guinness World Record Holder.
(HN, 10/17/98) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_Kneivel)
1939 Oct 17, Frank Capra's comedy-drama "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" premiered in the nation's capital.
(AP, 10/17/99)
1940 Oct 17, California Gov. Culbert Olson commuted the prison sentence of Warren K. Billings, who spent 23 years in prison for his alleged role in the July 22, 1916, Preparedness Day bombing in San Francisco.
(SSFC, 1/4/15, DB p.42)
1941 Oct 17, The U.S. destroyer Kearney was damaged by a German U-boat torpedo off Iceland; 11 people were killed.
(AP, 10/17/08)
1941 Oct 17, Gen’l. Hideki Toho (1885-1948) became Premier and Minister of War in Japan. When the bellicose war minister and most powerful man in Japan, Army General Hideki Tojo, became prime minister, there no longer was a chance of avoiding war with Britain and the United States.
(WUD, 1944, p.1683)(HN, 2/21/98)
1942 Oct 17, In Switzerland Eduard von Steiger, Justice Minister and minister of police, told leaders of the Swiss Fatherland Assoc. that the government had decided on a “fundamental slowing" of Jewish immigration.
(SFC, 6/10/98, p.a10)
1943 Oct 17, British Liberators sank U-540 and U-631.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1944 Oct 17 Hans Krasa, Czech-Jewish composer, died at Auschwitz. The opera Brundibar by Krasa was 1st performed at a Prague orphanage. It had been intended for a 1938 government competition. It was later performed at the Terezin concentration camp.
(WSJ, 2/7/03, p.D8)
1945 Oct 17, Col. Juan Peron, the future president of Argentina, was released from prison after protests by trade unionists, ending a crisis that began with his forced resignation from his government posts and his arrest.
(AP, 10/17/06)
1949 Oct 17, Liu Wencai (b.1887), Chinese landlord from Sichuan province, died. He was depicted as the archetype of the exploiter of peasant farmers.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Wencai)(Econ, 6/25/11, SR p.11)
1951 Oct 17, The Egyptian army fired on British troops.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1956 Oct 17, The all-star movie "Around the World in 80 Days," produced by Michael Todd, had its world premiere in New York.
(AP, 10/17/06)
1956 Oct 17, The nuclear power station Calder Hall was opened in Britain. Calder Hall was the first nuclear station to feed an appreciable amount of power into a civilian network. In 2007 engineers began the planned decommissioning of the plant.
(HN, 10/17/98)(AP, 9/29/07)
1957 Oct 17, The movie "Jailhouse Rock," starring Elvis Presley, had its world premiere in Memphis, Tenn.
(AP, 10/17/07)
1957 Oct 17, French author Albert Camus won the Nobel Prize in literature.
(AP, 10/17/97)
1957 Oct 17, Britain's Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip visited the White House.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1958 Oct 17, The special "An Evening with Fred Astaire," the first major TV program produced on color videotape, aired on NBC.
(AP, 10/17/08)
1960 Oct 17, A grand jury found that the popular television game show Twenty-One had provided contestants with questions and answers before the live programs were broadcast.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1961 Oct 17, NY Museum of Modern Art hung Henri Matisse's "Le Bateau" upside-down It wasn't corrected until December 3rd.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1961 Oct 17, Paris police beat and killed dozens of Algerian demonstrators and threw some bodies into the Seine. Police commander Maurice Papon said some 30 bodies had been recovered from the Seine but that they had been killed in fighting between rival Algerian nationalist groups. In 1999 France agreed to open its archives on the issue. Police killed 210 Algerians who were protesting against police oppression and the curfew imposed against their community in Paris. On Oct 17, 2011, Algeria's post office issued a new stamp to commemorate the massacre. French Pres. Emmanuel Macron acknowledged that crimes had been committed.
(WSJ, 5/5/98, p.A1)(SFC, 5/6/99, p.A15)(Econ, 2/24/07, p.99)(AFP, 10/17/11)(SFC, 10/18/21, p.A4)
1962 Oct 17, The SF Giants lost to the NY Yankees 1-0 in the 7th game of the
World Series at Candlestick Park.
(SSFC, 10/14/12, DB p.46)
1964 Oct 17, In San Francisco some 350,000 people came out for the Columbus Day Parade and to see Pres. Lyndon Johnson.
(SSFC, 10/12/14, DB p.42)
1965 Oct 17, The musical "On A Clear Day You Can See Forever," with a score by Burton Lane and book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, opened on Broadway.
(AP, 10/17/05)
1966 Oct 17, Wieland Wagner, German opera director and grandson of Richard Wagner, died.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1967 Oct 17, "Hair," subtitled The American Tribal Love/Rock Musical, premiered off Broadway at the Public Theater. It moved to the Biltmore Theater on Broadway on April 29, 1968, where it stayed for 1,873 performances.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_(musical))
1967 Oct 17, American forces of the black Lion battalion walked into an ambush set by NV commander Vo Minh Triet and 61 were killed. In 2003 David Maraniss authored "They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America," which centered on this battle and a protest in Wisconsin on Oct 18.
(Econ, 11/22/03, p.82)(SSFC, 12/28/03, p.M3)
1967 Oct 17, In Oakland, Ca., police clubbed a bloody path through some 2500 anti-war demonstrators who had closed down the Oakland Armed Forces Examining Station.
(SSFC, 10/15/17, DB p.50)
1967 Oct 17, Aisin-Gioro Henry Puyi (61), the last emperor of China, died of cancer. Official reports said his death occurred while under persecution from ultra-leftists of the Cultural Revolution.
(SFC, 6/11/97, p.C16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Puyi)
1972 Oct 17, Bob Randall's play "6 Rooms Riv Vu," premiered in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6_Rms_Riv_Vu)
1972 Oct 17, The European Communities Act, an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, legislated for the accession of the United Kingdom to the European Communities (EC).
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Communities_Act_1972_%28UK%29)
1972 Oct 17, Peace talks between Pathet Lao and Royal Lao government began in Vietnam.
(HN, 10/17/98)
1975 Oct 17, A UN committee passed a resolution saying "Zionism is a form of racism." The resolution was reversed in 1991.
(www.heritage.org/Research/InternationalOrganizations/bg851.cfm)(Econ, 4/25/09, p.62)
1977 Oct 17, West German commandos stormed a hijacked Lufthansa jetliner that was on the ground in Mogadishu, Somalia, freeing all 86 hostages and killing three of the four hijackers.
(AP, 10/17/97)
1978 Oct 17, President Carter signed a bill restoring U.S. citizenship to Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
(AP, 10/17/98)
1979 Oct 17, Mother Teresa of India, head of the Missionaries of Charity, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her years of work on behalf of the destitute in Calcutta.
(SFC, 3/14/97, p.A13)(AP, 10/17/97)
1979 Oct 17, Pres. Carter signed legislation creating Dept. of Education.
(www.jimmycarterlibrary.org/documents/jec/chron.phtml)
1979 Oct 17, S.J. Perelman (b.1904), American humorist and screenwriter (Around the World in 80 Days), died at age 75.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._J._Perelman)
1980 Oct 17, Mt. St. Helens erupted 3 times in 24 hours, in Washington. The eruptions had begun May 18.
(HN, 10/17/98)
1981 Oct 17 - 1981, Oct 18, In San Francisco over 145,000 attended two concerts by the Rolling Stones at Candlestick Park.
(SSFC, 12/22/13, p.A14)
1982 Oct 17, Sam Shepard's "True West" premiered in NYC.
(www.cherrylanetheatre.org/historyMainstage.htm)
1986 Oct 17, The US Senate approved immigration bill prohibiting hiring of illegal aliens and offered amnesty to illegals who entered prior to 1982.
(http://tinyurl.com/yet49v)
1987 Oct 17, The 1st indoor World Series game took place at the Minnesota Metrodome.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_World_Series)
1987 Oct 17, First lady Nancy Reagan underwent a modified radical mastectomy at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland.
(AP, 10/17/97)
1988 Oct 17, Philip Morris Companies Inc. launched an $11.5 billion takeover bid for Kraft Inc.
(AP, 10/17/98)
1988 Oct 17, Israel's supreme court upheld a ban on Meyer Kahane's Kach Party as racist.
(www.washington-report.org/backissues/0799/9907081.html)
1989 Oct 17, The 7.1 Loma Prieta earthquake [Watsonville] hit the Bay Area minutes before the start of a World Series game at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park. 67 people died and 3,000 were injured. It caused $7 billion worth of damage. The Spreckels Temple of Music in Golden Gate Park was damaged and later restored. 28,000 structures were damaged and several freeways ruined. 42 people died on the Cypress Freeway. At the train station in SF Dr. Margaret McChesney commandeered a tour bus to take frightened passengers home and navigated the driver safely through barricades of cars and gangs of marauding youths on 3rd St. In 1999 new measuring methods changed the magnitude to 6.9.
(SFC, 4/15/96, A-6)(SFC, 10/17/96, A15)(SFC, 7/23/97, p.A13)(AP, 10/17/97)(AR, 9/12/98)(HN, 10/17/98)(SFC, 10/7/99, p.A21)
1990 Oct 17, The Cincinnati Reds opened up a two games-to-none World Series lead, beating the Oakland A’s 5-to-4.
(AP, 10/17/00)
1990 Oct 17, In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State James Baker said Iraqi President Saddam Hussein “must fail if peace is to succeed."
(AP, 10/17/00)
1991 Oct 17, The Atlanta Braves won their first National League pennant, defeating the Pittsburgh Pirates 4-to-0 in game seven of their playoff series.
(AP, 10/17/01)
1991 Oct 17, Tennessee Ernie Ford (b.1919), country singer (16 Tons), died in Reston, Va.
(AP, 10/17/01)(www.ernieford.com/Bio.htm)
1992 Oct 17, The Atlanta Braves defeated the Toronto Blue Jays in game one of the World Series, 3-to-1.
(AP, 10/17/97)
1992 Oct 17, Japanese exchange student Yoshi Hattori, 16, was shot and killed by Rodney Peairs in Center, La., after Hattori and his American host mistakenly knocked on Peairs' door while looking for a Halloween party. Peairs was acquitted of manslaughter, but in a civil trial was ordered to pay more than $650,000 in damages to Hattori's family.
(AP, 10/17/97)
1993 Oct 17, The Philadelphia Phillies defeated the Toronto Blue Jays, 6-4, evening the World Series at one game each.
(AP, 10/17/98)
1993 Oct 17, Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole, in a CBS interview, said he would offer legislation restricting President Clinton's authority to send troops to Haiti.
(AP, 10/17/98)
1994 Oct 17, Negotiators for the Angolan government and rebels agreed to a peace treaty to end their 19-year civil war.
(AP, 10/17/99)
1994 Oct 17, Leaders of Israel and Jordan initialed a draft peace treaty.
(AP, 10/17/99)
1995 Oct 17, The Cleveland Indians won the American League pennant by defeating the Seattle Mariners, 4-to-0, in game six of their playoff series.
(AP, 10/17/00)
1995 Oct 17, President Clinton told wealthy contributors at a Houston fund-raiser that “you think I raised your taxes too much. It might surprise you to know that I think I raised them too much, too"— a statement that drew criticism from both Republicans and Democrats.
(AP, 10/17/00)
1995 Oct 17, The gasoline additive MTBE showed up in a second drinking water well in Santa Monica. The city was later forced to shut down half of its water well supply due to MTBE.
(SFC, 9/15/97, p.A10)
1995 Oct 17, A bomb exploded aboard a Paris subway car, wounding 29 people.
(AP, 10/17/00)
1995 Oct 17, In Sri Lanka the army started the 1st phase of an effort to take full control of the Jaffna peninsula. Shelling and bombing against civilians often occurred.
(SFC, 7/24/96, p.A9)
1996 Oct 17, The Atlanta Braves won the National League Championship Series, beating the St. Louis Cardinals.
(AP, 10/17/97)
1996 Oct 17, In Leland, Miss. Aaron White, a black TV repairman received a gunshot wound to the head and was killed. It was claimed that a white police narcotics officer shot Mr. White, while the police claimed that Mr. White shot himself. On Oct 31 angry citizens rioted after marching on the local police dept. when local officials agreed to only speak with the march organizers.
(SFC, 11/1/96, p.A17)
1996 Oct 17, Berthold Goldschmidt, German-born Jewish composer and conductor, died at 93 in England.
(www.scena.org/columns/lebrecht/030115-NL-goldschmidt.html)
1996 Oct 17, In France a one-day strike was held by about 1.6 million public employees, a third of the total public service sector. French unemployment stood at 12.5%.
(SFC, 10/18/96, A14)
1996 Oct 17, In Russia Pres. Boris Yeltsin dismissed Alexander Lebed from his post as national security chief, one day after the former general was accused by a rival of building his own rogue army.
(SFC, 10/18/96, A1)(AP, 10/17/97)
1996 Oct 17, In Slovakia some 10,000 people demonstrated against Culture Minister Ivan Hudec for firing National Theater director Dusan Jamrich. Slovak artists claim that the government is increasingly authoritarian.
(SFC, 10/18/96, C6)
1997 cOct 17, The new $180 million New Jersey Performing Arts Center opened in Newark.
(WSJ, 10/21/97, p.A20)
1997 Oct 17, The US Army used a Miracl (medium infra-red advanced chemical laser developed by TRW) laser beam to hit the MISTI-3 satellite in orbit. The laser test was prohibited by Congress in 1985, but the ban expired in 1995. The test failed to be recorded by sensors on the satellite.
(SFC, 10/21/97, p.A2)(WSJ, 10/24/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 17, Tosco Corp. asked the California Air Resources Board to move away from the use of MTBE as a gasoline fuel additive due to possible contamination of ground water.
(SFC, 10/30/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 17, The remains of revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara (1928-1967) were laid to rest in his adopted Cuba in Santa Clara, 30 years after his execution in Bolivia.
(SFC, 10/18/97, p.A10)(AP, 10/17/98)
1998 Oct 17, The New York Yankees beat the San Diego Padres in the first game of the Baseball World Series 9 to 6.
(SFC, 10/22/98, p.D1)
1998 Oct 17, Jon Postel (55), an influential Internet pioneer, died. Since 1968 he had directed the network’s Internet assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) that allowed computers to be matched with web addresses. Two weeks before he died he submitted the framework for a new organization to succeed the IANA, a non-profit entity (ICANN) with an internationally diverse board of directors.
(WSJ, 10/19/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 10/22/98, p.A22)(Econ, 11/19/05, p.68)
1998 Oct 17, Chilean officials lodged a formal complaint to Britain over the arrest of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who arrested in a London medical clinic following a request from Spain for his extradition.
(SFEC, 10/18/98, p.A1)
1998 Oct 17, In Malaysia Azizah Ismail, wife of Anwar Ibrahim, joined some ten thousand protestors demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Mohamad.
(SFEC, 10/18/98, p.A20)
1998 Oct 17, In Nigeria a pipeline explosion near the town of Jesse killed some 700 people. Authorities believed that scavenger’s tools sparked the explosion.
(SFC, 10/19/98, p.a1)(SFC, 10/20/98, p.A8)(SFC, 10/21/98, p.C2)(AP, 10/17/08)
1999 Oct 17, US negotiators proposed to Russia an alteration to the 1972 ABM treaty to allow construction of defensive systems.
(SFC, 10/18/99, p.A5)
1999 Oct 17, The FBI reported that serious crimes reported to police declined for seventh straight year in 1998 and murder and robbery rates reached 30-year lows.
(AP, 10/17/00)
1999 Oct 17, Former nurse Orville Lynn Majors was convicted of murdering six patients at a western Indiana hospital; the jury deadlocked on a seventh count. Major is serving a 360-year prison sentence.
(AP, 10/17/00)
1999 Oct 17, In Niger the 1st round of the presidential election was held.
(WSJ, 10/18/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 17, In Pakistan Gen'l. Musharraf announced a unilateral reduction of troops on the India border, the establishment of a military-technocrat ruling council, and an eventual return to civilian rule. He unveiled a 7-point agenda to save the nation.
(SFC, 10/18/99, p.A10)(http://tinyurl.com/ruuth)
1999 Oct 17, In Yemen Abu Hassan, "a nom de guerre" for the head of the Islamic Army of Aden and Abyan, was executed.
(SFC, 10/29/00, p.A10)
2000 Oct 17, The New York Yankees followed the Mets into the World Series, beating the Seattle Mariners 9-to-7 and winning the American League championship series four games to two.
(AP, 10/17/01)
2000 Oct 17, Al Gore and George W. Bush held their 3rd and last TV debate from St. Louis with a town hall format.
(WSJ, 10/17/00, p.A1)
2000 Oct 17, The month long Los Angeles transit authority strike ended following negotiations brokered by Jesse Jackson.
(SFC, 10/18/00, p.A3)
2000 Oct 17, In Britain the London to Leeds train derailed at Hatfield and 4 people were killed with 70 injured.
(SFC, 10/18/00, p.A14)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatfield_rail_crash)
2000 Oct 17, In Chechnya it was reported that mines planted by rebels killed 4 Russian soldiers.
(SFC, 10/18/00, p.A26)
2000 Oct 17, Ending an emergency summit in Egypt, Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed to publicly urge an end to a burst of bloody conflict and to consult within two weeks on restarting the ravaged Mideast peace process.
(SFC, 10/18/00, p.A1)(AP, 10/17/01)
2000 Oct 17, Montenegro Pres. Milo Djukanovic refused to take part in national institutions with Serbia until the Montenegro-Serbia relationship is redefined.
(SFC, 10/18/00, p.A12)
2001 Oct 17, Peter Carey won his 2nd Booker Prize for his novel “True History of the Kelly Gang," a fictional account of the 19th century Australian outlaw.
(SFC, 10/18/01, p.B3)
2001 Oct 17, Pres. Bush departed on a diplomatic mission to China following a stop in Sacramento, Ca.
(SFC, 10/17/01, p.A5)
2001 Oct 17, Federal officials reported that the anthrax strains in New York and Florida appeared to be identical. The House and 6 congressional office buildings were closed for tests after over 30 Senate staff members tested positive for exposure to spores.
(SFC, 10/18/01, p.A1)(WSJ, 10/18/01, p.A1)
2001 Oct 17, Some 100 US land and sea-base planes hit targets that included Kandahar and Mazar-e-Sharif.
(SFC, 10/18/01, p.A3)
2001 Oct 17, Researchers at Lucent’s Bell Labs reported the development of a tiny new transistor made of a simple cluster of organic molecules.
(SFC, 10/18/01, p.D2)(WSJ, 10/18/01, p.B8)
2001 Oct 17, Jay Livingston (86), film and TV composer, died in LA. He worked with lyricist Ray Evans and together won 3 Academy Awards for best song, which included “Que Sera Sera" in 1956.
(SFC, 10/19/01, p.D5)
2001 Oct 17, In Afghanistan Taliban forces seized UN food warehouses in Kabul and Kandahar.
(SFC, 10/18/01, p.A3)
2001 Oct 17, Rehavam Zeevi, Israeli tourist minister, was shot dead at the Hyatt Regency in East Jerusalem. The PFLP claimed responsibility and Yasser Arafat promised to hunt down the perpetrators. Hambi Quran, Basel al-Asmar, Ahmed Gholmy and Majdi Rimawi were later convicted for the murder. Ahmed Saadat, head of the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was imprisoned in Jericho. In 2007 Hamdi Quran was sentenced to 100 years in prison for gunning down the minister as well as bombing and shooting attacks against Israelis. In 2008 Bassel Asmar was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder, attempted murder and belonging to a terror organization.
(SFC, 10/18/01, p.A1)(SFC, 4/30/02, p.A16)(AP, 3/7/06)(AP, 2/6/08)
2001 Oct 17, In the Philippines gunmen abducted an Italian priest, Giuseppe Pierantoni (45), in Dimataling, Zamboanga del Sur. He was freed Apr 8, 2002.
(WSJ, 10/18/01, p.A1)(SFC, 4/8/02, p.A7)
2001 Oct 17, Russia announced military cuts that would eliminate a navy base in Vietnam and a radar station in Cuba.
(WSJ, 10/18/01, p.A1)
2002 Oct 17, Timothy Belden, former Enron executive, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors. Belden admitted to giving grid operators false information and shipping power from within California out of state and selling it back at higher prices.
(SFC, 10/18/02, p.A1)
2002 Oct 17, Ira Einhorn, the '70s hippie guru who had fled to Europe after being charged with murder, was convicted in Philadelphia of killing his girlfriend, Holly Maddux, and stuffing her corpse in his closet a quarter-century earlier. He was later sentenced to life without parole.
(AP, 10/17/03)
2002 Oct 17, Israeli tanks fired artillery shells and machine guns after coming under attack by anti-tank missiles, killing at least 6 Palestinians and wounding more than 40 in the southern Gaza town of Rafah.
(AP, 10/17/02)(SFC, 10/18/02, p.A18)
2002 Oct 17, In the Philippines bombings in Zamboanga killed 7 people and injured 152. Militants of Abu Sayyaf were suspected.
(SFC, 10/18/02, p.A10)
2003 Oct 17, Pres. Bush stopped in Tokyo and thanked PM Junichiro Koizumi for aid to Iraq.
(WSJ, 10/17/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 17, The US House and Senate voted to spend some $87 billion earmarked for securing peace and eliminating terrorist threats in Iraq and Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/17/04)
2003 Oct 17, In Chicago government workers trapped in a burning downtown office tower frantically dialed 911 as they tried to make their way through smoke-filled staircases and hallways. 13 were found unconscious amid the smoke, 6 of them dead.
(AP, 10/18/03)
2003 Oct 17, A new family of frogs was reported from the western India. The purple, burrowing frog family, named Nasikabatrachus sahydrensis, appeared to date back some 200 million years.
(SFC, 10/17/03, p.A10)
2003 Oct 17, In eastern Afghanistan a bomb blew up a pickup truck on a dirt road, killing four people, and two Afghan soldiers were killed in a land mine explosion in the country's south.
(AP, 10/19/03)
2003 Oct 17, Bolivia's Pres. Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada (“Goni") resigned in a letter to Congress. VP Carlos Mesa, a moderate political unknown, took over the presidency. As one of Bolivia's top journalists, Mesa wrote a best-selling book, "Entre urnas y fusiles" (Between the Ballot Box and the Rifle), about the many presidents in this country's often tumultuous history. Lozada and Jose Sanchez Berzain, the former defense minister, fled to the US. In 2007 suits were filed in the US against Lozada and Berzain men for their October crackdown on protestors that left 67 people dead.
(Econ, 10/16/04, p.34)(www.boliviasolidarity.org/takeaction/latestactions/sanfran)
2003 Oct 17, The EU pushed ahead with efforts to build its own defense arm but sought to ease U.S. concerns by insisting the plan would neither duplicate nor undermine NATO.
(AP, 10/17/03)
2003 Oct 17, German lawmakers approved an $18 billion tax cut for next year and reductions in jobless benefits.
(AP, 10/17/03)
2003 Oct 17, In Iraq the deaths of 4 soldiers brought to 101 the number killed since Pres. Bush declared the end of major combat on May 1.
(SFC, 10/18/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 17, Taiwanese officials celebrated the completion of the world's tallest skyscraper after crews installed the pinnacle on the 1,676-foot-tall building.
(AP, 10/17/03)
2004 Oct 17, Betty Hill (85), who claimed that she and her husband, Barney, had been abducted, examined and released by extraterrestrials in 1961, died in Portsmouth, N.H.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2004 Oct 17, Organizers of a campaign by French non-government organizations said African chicken farmers risk ruin from massive imports of European frozen poultry at less than a third of their prices.
(AP, 10/17/04)
2004 Oct 17, Belarus voters went to the polls to decide whether to abolish presidential term limits and allow the authoritarian president to run for a third term in 2006. Opposition leaders accused the government of arresting exit-poll takers and turning away election observers.
(AP, 10/17/04)
2004 Oct 17, Effective as of today Brazil's air force will be allowed to shoot down small planes suspected of carrying drugs under a law meant to stem the flow of cocaine.
(AP, 10/15/04)
2004 Oct 17, US forces battled insurgents around Fallujah. Militants ambushed and killed nine Iraqi policemen returning from training in Jordan. A suicide driver in Baghdad killed at least 7 people. More than 200 detainees were released from Abu Ghraib prison after a security review deemed them no longer a threat.
(AP, 10/17/04)(SFC, 10/18/04, p.A1)
2004 Oct 17, Jordan's military prosecutor indicted Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, one of the most wanted insurgents in Iraq, and 12 other alleged Muslim militants for an alleged al-Qaida linked plot to attack the U.S. Embassy in Amman and Jordanian government targets.
(AP, 10/17/04)
2004 Oct 17, The Tawhid and Jihad group, a militant group led by terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, declared its allegiance to Osama bin Laden.
(AP, 10/18/04)
2004 Oct 17, Military helicopters doused a 730-foot office tower in Caracas' Parque Central complex, one of Venezuela's tallest buildings, bringing under control a blaze that many feared would cause the tower to collapse.
(AP, 10/17/04)
2005 Oct 17, The American magazine Conference unveiled the top 40 magazine covers of the last 40 years. The top rating went to Rolling Stone for its 1/22/81 cover of John Lennon and Yoko Ono lying in bed.
(www.magazine.org/Press_Room/13806.cfm)
2005 Oct 17, The FBI reported that US murders fell to 16,137 in 2004, 391 fewer than in 2003 and that the overall violent crime rate hit a 3-year low.
(WSJ, 10/18/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 17, Serono Laboratories, a Swiss drug-maker, pleaded guilty to US federal conspiracy charges and agreed to pay $740 million for kickbacks to doctors for the AIDS drug Serostim and for manipulating a test for AIDS patients.
(SFC, 10/18/05, p.E1)
2005 Oct 17, General Motors Corp. and the United Auto Workers reached a tentative agreement that will help the embattled automaker lower its health care costs even as GM reported a whopping $1.6 billion loss for the third quarter.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Commodities brokerage Refco Inc. said it had filed for bankruptcy protection as it struck a deal to sell its core futures brokerage business to a group of private equity investors for $768 million. BAWAG, Austria’s 4th largest bank, gave Refco a top-up loan of 350 million euros just hours before the bankruptcy. In 2007 it was revealed that Wolfgang Flottl, a hedge fund manager, had his investments sour in 1997 causing BAWAG to lose over $1 billion. The losses were hid from auditors for 7 years. Helmut Elsner, former boss of BAWAG (1995-2003), faced charges along with 8 others for the bank’s near collapse.
(Reuters, 10/17/06)(Econ, 5/6/06, p.72)(WSJ, 1/25/06, p.A1)(Econ, 7/21/07, p.73)
2005 Oct 17, Idaho state and federal health officials are trying to get to the bottom of nine reported cases of suspected sporadic CJD in Idaho this year.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, It was reported that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pledged $15 million for the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley, the world's largest institution dedicated to preserving Information Age artifacts.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Two days of U.S.-Chinese trade talks ended with no response by China to an ambitious American proposal to reform its financial sector and open its markets wider to foreign products, while also moving faster on currency reforms.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Dr. Marvin Chodorow (b.1913), former professor of physics at Stanford Univ., died. He expanded on the 1937 invention of the klystron tube, an early form of the driver for microwave power, and increased its power from a few hundred watts to millions of watts.
(www.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/2005/pr-chodorow-102605.html)
2005 Oct 17, In southern Afghanistan US-led coalition forces killed four police officers after mistaking them for militants during an operation in the Maywand district of Kandahar province. Elsewhere militants shot dead a police intelligence officer as he was walking in Zabul province.
(AP, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 17, An Azerbaijani opposition leader was arrested in Ukraine and scores of his supporters were detained by police. Tensions rose in Azerbaijan in the run-up to next month's parliamentary election.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Radovan Karadzic, former Bosnian-Serb leader and war-crimes fugitive, released a 6th collection of poems titled “Under the left Breast of the Century."
(SFC, 10/19/05, p.A2)
2005 Oct 17, The British government announced that smoking will be banned at all workplaces as well as pubs and restaurants in Northern Ireland from April 2007.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, China’s Shenzhou 6 capsule carrying astronauts Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng landed before dawn by parachute in China's northern grasslands after a five-day mission.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Ba Jin (100), one of China's most revered communist-era writers who attacked the evils of the pre-revolutionary era in novels, short stories and essays, died of cancer in Shanghai. He is best known for his 1931 novel "Family," the story of a disintegrating feudal household. Ba Jin also translated the Russian writers Ivan Turgenev and Pyotr Kropotkin.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, The EU urged Croatia and Greece to expedite tests on dead birds as concerns rose over the westward spread of avian flu.
(WSJ, 10/18/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 17, The European Union unblocked $87 million in development aid for Haiti, ending a freeze imposed almost five years ago because of allegedly flawed elections in the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Deutsche Bank AG and private bank Sal. Oppenheim said they would acquire a combined 14% stake in China's Hua Xia Bank in a deal worth 272 million euros ($326.4 million).
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Iraq's former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and other secular leaders announced a new coalition they said unites moderate Sunnis, Shiites and other political groups to run in December's parliamentary elections.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, In western Iraq 2 US Marines were killed in fighting near the Jordanian border. Insurgents shot and killed Ayed Abdul Ghani, an adviser to one of Iraq's top Sunni Arab officials, as he drove to work in Baghdad.
(AP, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 17, US warplanes and helicopters bombed two western villages, killing an estimated 70 militants near a site where five American soldiers died in a weekend roadside blast, the military. Residents said at least 39 of the dead were civilians.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Israel suspended negotiations with the Palestinian Authority on issues such as prisoner releases and slapped tough travel restrictions on the West Bank after Palestinian gunmen killed three Israelis and wounded five a day earlier.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Japanese PM Junichiro Koizumi enraged China and South Korea by visiting Tokyo's Yasukuni war shrine.
(AP, 10/17/06)
2005 Oct 17, Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel Rahman Shalgam rejected a call by US President George W. Bush for Tripoli to spare the lives of five Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death for infecting hundreds of Libyan children with the AIDS virus.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Dutch police arrested 45 members of the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang and seized an assortment of weapons during nationwide raids on the group's clubhouses. Prosecutors said those arrested face charges of murder, extortion, intimidation and weapons and drug trafficking.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Russian state security agents arrested a senior tax official as he was handed a $1 million bribe in a plush Moscow hotel. The arrest was announced the next day as corruption watchdog Transparency International published its annual survey showing graft in Russia had worsened to put it on the same level as Sierra Leone, Niger and Albania.
(AP, 10/18/05)(Econ, 10/22/05, p.53)
2005 Oct 17, Abdi Hassan Awale, who once served as Somalia's interior minister, was arrested on suspicion of war crimes while attending a conference in Sweden. He is suspected of being a militia leader during the Oct 3, 1993, "Black Hawk Down" battle that left 18 Americans dead.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, South Africa's government vowed to press ahead with legislative attempts to take greater control of the nation's diamonds and weaken the grip of diamond-producer De Beers, dismissing arguments that this could disrupt global markets and lead to job losses.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2006 Oct 17, President Bush signed legislation authorizing tough interrogation of terror suspects and smoothing the way for trials before military commissions. The Military Commissions Act virtually abolished the right of any non-American deemed an enemy combatant to challenge his indefinite detention before American courts.
(AP, 10/17/06)(Econ, 5/26/07, p.30)
2006 Oct 17, Pres. George W. Bush signed the Military Lending Act, capping loan rates to service members at 36%.
(http://tinyurl.com/yby24l9f)(Econ, 4/8/17, p.67)
2006 Oct 17, Pres. Bush signed into law a bill to provide grant money for the Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor. In September Congress had declared a swathe of coastline from North Carolina to Florida the Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, in an effort to preserve the region’s distinctive black culture and creole language.
(www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6283153)(Econ, 2/2/08, p.42)
2006 Oct 17, The United States said it plans to take in about 10,000 Burundian refugees from Tanzania, many of whom fled their landlocked nation as far back as 1972.
(Reuters, 10/18/06)
2006 Oct 17, The US FDA approved Januvia, a novel pill for Type 2 diabetes made by Merck. Type 2 diabetes affects about 20 million Americans.
(AP, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 17, Actor Wesley Snipes was indicted for cheating the US government out of nearly $12 million in false refund claims and not filing for 6 years. On Feb 1, 2008, a federal jury in Florida acquitted Snipes (45) of the most serious charges but convicted him on 3 of 6 lesser charges and said he must pay up to $17 million in back taxes plus penalties and interest.
(SFC, 10/18/06, p.A2)(SFC, 2/2/08, p.A2)
2006 Oct 17, The Chicago Mercantile Exchange announced plans to acquire the Chicago Board of Trade for about $8 billion.
(WSJ, 10/18/06, p.A1)(Econ, 10/21/06, p.86)
2006 Oct 17, It was reported that teams of scientists from the Dubna nuclear research center in Moscow and Livermore Lawrence National Laboratory in California had detected element 118 after bombarding californium with calcium ions in a Russian cyclotron.
(SFC, 10/17/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 17, The 300 millionth US resident was born at 4:46 am according to a US Census Bureau estimate. The 200 million mark was reached in 1967. The 400 million mark was expected around 2043.
(SFC, 10/18/06, p.B3)(Econ, 10/14/06, p.29)
2006 Oct 17, Megan Meier (b.1992) of Missouri committed suicide following a series of cruel messages on the MySpace online social network. In 2008 Lori drew (49) of Missouri was indicted for perpetrating an online hoax, which led to Meier’s suicide. Drew was convicted on Nov 26 of only three minor offenses for her role in the Internet hoax. The federal jury could not reach a verdict on the main charge against 49-year-old Lori Drew, conspiracy, and rejected three other felony counts of accessing computers without authorization to inflict emotional harm. A final decision on the verdicts was still pending in 2009.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megan_Meier_suicide_controversy)(SFC, 5/16/08, p.A4)(AP, 11/27/08)(Econ, 7/11/09, p.232)
2006 Oct 17, Rapper Fabolous was shot as he stood at a Manhattan parking garage, spurring a sequence of events that left him both hospitalized in stable condition and under arrest.
(AP, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 17, Miriam Engelberg, cartoonist and writer, died in SF. She had recently authored “Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person."
(SFC, 10/20/06, p.B9)
2006 Oct 17, Christopher Glenn (68), CBS News correspondent, died in Norwalk, Conn.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2006 Oct 17, In southern Afghanistan British troops pulled out of the Musa Qala district in Helmand province. A US-led coalition airstrike killed a suspected midlevel Taliban commander and up to 15 other militants. Suspected Taliban militants destroyed an oil tanker transporting fuel for NATO-led peacekeepers and killed its driver in southern Kandahar province's Spin Boldak district.
(AP, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 17, Australia's worsening drought was driving farmers to suicide. Scientists and politicians said government funds should be used to help them leave increasingly unviable land.
(AFP, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 17, Bahrain said Lateefa al-Geood, a British-educated civil servant, has become the first-ever female to serve as an elected member of the parliament. 18 women were among 221 candidates vying for seats in the 40-member assembly in the Nov. 25 vote. Al-Geood was the only candidate who registered to run in her region.
(AP, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 17, In Brazil some 200 Indians from the Xikrin tribe, wielding war clubs and bows and arrows, stormed an Amazon mining complex at the company town of Carajas, shutting it down in an apparent demand for more compensation from CVRD, the world's largest iron ore miner. The Indians left after 2 days.
(AP, 10/18/06)(AP, 10/19/06)
2006 Oct 17, A Chinese court ruled that journalist Yang Xiaoqing was exempt from serving the remainder of his sentence but would not overturn the lower court's conviction. Xiaoqing, convicted of extortion for exposing local corruption, was released on bail last month.
(AP, 10/21/06)
2006 Oct 17, A UN report recommended that recommended that East Timor’s former interior minister Rogerio Lobato, military chief Taur Matan Ruak, and several others be prosecuted for illegal distribution of weapons and be held accountable for unrest that gripped capital Dili this year. The 79-page report also called for a further investigation into former PM Mari Alkatiri to determine whether he should face criminal charges.
(Reuters, 10/18/06)
2006 Oct 17, In Ecuador with 60% of the vote counted, Rafael Correa was all-but tied with Alvaro Noboa, each with about 25%.
(AP, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 17, The EU said it felt obliged to back limited sanctions against Iran's nuclear program after Tehran refused to halt uranium enrichment as a condition to start negotiations.
(Reuters, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 17, In eastern Honduras a military truck plunged off a cliff, killing five soldiers and injuring 12.
(AP, 10/18/06)
2006 Oct 17, Indonesian television broadcast the photo of Sudjiono Timan, a fugitive convicted of embezzling millions of dollars in state funds as part of a new campaign against corruption. Timan, was sentenced in absentia to 15 years in jail for embezzling $140 million after his bank received emergency funds meant to bail out banks crippled during Indonesia's 1998 financial crisis. This was the first installment of a weekly TV program exposing people convicted of corruption, which remains endemic at all levels of government.
(AP, 10/19/06)
2006 Oct 17, Iceland said it would resume commercial whaling after a nearly two-decade moratorium, defying a worldwide ban on hunting the mammals for their meat.
(AP, 10/18/06)
2006 Oct 17, In Iraq attacks left Iraqis dead and 16 more corpses turned up in Baghdad. 8 US soldiers and one Marine were killed by roadside bombs and enemy fire in and around Baghdad.
(AP, 10/18/06)(WSJ, 10/18/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 17, Israeli troops shot and killed 5 Palestinians, including 2 young stone-throwers, in the West Bank town of Qabatiyeh.
(AP, 10/17/06)(WSJ, 10/18/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 17, The Italian bank Sanpaolo won a five-way race for control of Bank of Alexandria, the first Egyptian bank to be privatized in a selloff worth 1.6 billion dollars.
(AFP, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 17, In Italy a subway train rammed into another train halted at the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II station in central Rome, killing at least one person and injuring 236.
(AP, 10/17/06)(WSJ, 10/18/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 17, Kenya reported its first case of polio in 22 years at a refugee camp near the Somali border as the United Nations appealed for urgent help to cope with a surge in refugees from Somalia.
(AFP, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 17, In central Mexico an explosion in an area packed with small fireworks factories Capulhuac, 20 miles west of Mexico City, left four people dead and a man with severe burns. In western Mexico 14 people were killed when a passenger bus crashed into the back of a tractor trailer. A spark touched off an explosion aboard a gasoline tanker ship at Pemex's Pajarito marine terminal in the city of Coatzacoalcos, killing eight people and injuring nine others.
(AP, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 17, The US State Department said that the last landmines and unexploded ordnance blocking Mozambique's vital Sena Railway line have been removed, thanks largely to some $13 million (€10 million) in US aid. The mine action assistance was launched in 2002. Under the US Humanitarian Mine Action Program approximately 46 million dollars have been given in aid to Mozambique since 1993.
(AFP, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 17, North Korea said it considered UN sanctions aimed at punishing the country for its nuclear test "a declaration of war," as Japan and South Korea reported the communist nation might be preparing a second explosion.
(AP, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 17, Philippine media groups accused the president's husband of trying to muzzle a critical press by filing a string of libel cases against 43 journalists and publishers.
(AP, 10/18/06)
2006 Oct 17, Sri Lankan fighter jets pounded two suspected Tamil Tiger bases and a camp.
(AP, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 17, A former Janjaweed fighter in London recounted to the BBC how the Sudanese government has actively supported the militia that is accused of genocide against non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur.
(AFP, 10/18/06)
2007 Oct 17, President Bush attended a ceremony in which the Dalai Lama was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, Congress’ highest civilian honor. China lodged an official protest over the honoring of the Dalai Lama in Washington, while bluntly rejecting US President George W. Bush's advice on how to handle the Tibet issue.
(AFP, 10/16/07)(WSJ, 10/18/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 17, The US Supreme Court stopped the execution of Virginia death row inmate Christopher Scott Emmet (36). Legal experts said the move signals a nationwide halt to lethal injections until the court decides in 2008 whether the procedure violates constitutional standards.
(SFC, 10/18/07, p.A15)
2007 Oct 17, Teresa Brewer (b.1931), singer, died at her home in New Rochelle, NY. She had a big hit with “Music, Music, Music" in 1950.
(SFC, 10/19/07, p.A11)
2007 Oct 17, Joey Bishop (b.1918), comedian and the last surviving member of Frank Sinatra’s legendary Rat Pack, died. In 2002 Michael Seth Starr authored the biography “Mouse in the Rat Pack: The Joey Bishop Story."
(SFC, 10/19/07, p.A11)(AP, 10/17/08)
2007 Oct 17, Taliban used heavy machine guns and rocket propelled grenades to ambush a US-led coalition patrol in southern Afghanistan that wounded nine troops. In the east, a roadside bomb on a police vehicle close to the border with Pakistan killed an officer and wounded three others in Khost province.
(AP, 10/18/07)
2007 Oct 17, In Australia a group of children playing in a suburban Sidney park opened a suitcase they found floating in a pond and discovered the body of a youngster inside.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Hundreds of police agents swooped in on drug gangs in two Rio de Janeiro shantytowns, setting off gunbattles that killed 12 people, including an officer and a boy (4).
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, In Cambodia Alexander Trofimov (41), the Russian chairman of Koh Puos Investment Group Ltd., was charged with debauchery, a Cambodian legal offense covering sexual abuse of children. He was detained in the southern resort town of Sihanoukville and accused of raping at least six girls. In September last year, the Cambodian government gave Trofimov's company permission to develop an island near Sihanoukville into a tourist resort.
(AP, 11/16/07)
2007 Oct 17, In Costa Rica and agreement was reached by which the US government and environmental groups will trim $26 million off Costa Rica's debt rolls in exchange for the country spending the same amount on tropical forest conservation.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Fiji's coup leader Voreqe Bainimarama pledged to hold elections in early 2009 as Pacific countries welcomed the move and vowed to continue pressing for progress at a regional summit.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, A Greek-flagged cargo ship carrying coal sank in the northern Greek port of Thessaloniki after colliding with Panama-flagged Dubai Guardian. The captain of the Diamond 1 was killed.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, In Indonesia's Papua region rival tribes armed with bows and arrows clashed close to a US-owned gold mine, killing eight people.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Iran hanged eight men and one woman on murder charges in the notorious Evin Prison in northern Tehran.
(AP, 10/18/07)
2007 Oct 17, A roadside bomb exploded near a police patrol, killing at least seven officers in a Shiite area south of Baghdad. A suicide bomber driving an explosives-laden truck struck a checkpoint manned by Kurdish forces in Diyala province. The attack in a mountainous area near the Iranian border killed 2 Kurdish soldiers and wounding more than 10 others. A bomb exploded near a residential building in the predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Zafaraniyah, killing two civilians and wounding two others. US troops captured 15 suspected militants in operations targeted al-Qaida in Tikrit, Ramadi, Baqouba and Mosul. Those captured were accused of helping smuggle foreign fighters and weapons into Iraq, including five with alleged connections to Syrian-based extremists.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Israeli troops killed a Hamas gunman in a battle in southern Gaza.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, A man opened fire in a courtroom in northern Italy, seriously wounding his estranged wife and killing her brother before being shot to death by police.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Investigators began raids on Japanese companies accused of corruption in projects to remove chemical weapons abandoned in China during World War II. The allegations involve the illegal diversion of some of the $199 million the government has disbursed since 2004 to help dispose of 400,000 chemical weapons that retreating Japanese troops left in northeast China at war's end. China has said poisons have leaked from the weapons and killed about 2,000 people since 1945.
(AP, 10/19/07)
2007 Oct 17, Myanmar's military junta acknowledged that it detained nearly 3,000 people during a crackdown on recent pro-democracy protests, with hundreds still remaining in custody.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, A clash between Hamas security forces and members of a large Gaza clan affiliated with the rival Fatah party left four people dead.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Interfax reported that Russia has charged a lieutenant colonel in the security service and 8 others for the Oct 7, 2006, slaying of anti-Kremlin journalist Ann Politkovskaya.
(WSJ, 10/18/07, p.A1)(Reuters, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Irdris Osman, the head of UN food agency operations in the violence-wracked Somali capital, was taken away by 50 to 60 heavily armed government security officers who had stormed the UN compound in Mogadishu. Osman was freed on Oct 23. Overnight, at least 8 civilians and one policeman died during a battle between Islamic insurgents and policemen.
(AP, 10/17/07)(AP, 10/23/07)
2007 Oct 17, In South Africa the leaders of Brazil, India and South Africa vowed to push the interests of poor nations in stalled international trade talks and said any agreement would have to benefit the developing world.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Sudan's former southern rebels said they would rejoin the national government to work through a stalemate on implementing a 2005 peace deal which ended Africa's longest civil war.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, on a visit to Turkey, said that Damascus would back a possible Turkish incursion into northern Iraq to crack down "against terrorist activities" there.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Turkey’s Parliament gave the government a one-year window in which to launch cross-border offensives against Turkish Kurd rebels who've been conducting raids into Turkey. The vote removed the last legal obstacle to an offensive.
(AP, 10/18/07)(AP, 10/20/07)
2007 Oct 17, Pope Benedict XVI named 23 new cardinals, tapping two Americans, the patriarch of Baghdad, and archbishops from five continents to join the elite ranks of the "princes" of the Roman Catholic Church.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2008 Oct 17, The Bush administration named the beluga whale in Alaska’s Cook Inlet an endangered species, despite opposition from Gov. Palin. Only 375 beluga whales remained there as opposed to some 1,300 in the 1970s. In 2011 a US federal judge upheld the listing.
(SFC, 10/18/08, p.A3)(SFC, 11/22/11, p.A6)
2008 Oct 17, US drug czar John Walters said that Mexico's drug cartels are crossing the border to kidnap and kill inside the United States, and promised that an anti-drug aid package to help Mexico to fight the gangs will be ready soon.
(AP, 10/17/08)
2008 Oct 17, Harvard Univ. announced a gift of $45 million and 31 major works of art from 1936 alumna Emily Rauh Pulitzer for the Harvard Art Museum. It was the largest gift in the history of the museum.
(SFC, 10/18/08, p.E3)
2008 Oct 17, In Philadelphia college student Jocelyn Kirsch (23) was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay more than $100,000 in restitution. She and her former boyfriend, Edward Anderton, had stolen the identities of friends and neighbors in 2006 and 2007 to net more than $116,000 in goods and services. Anderton’s sentence was pending.
(AP, 10/17/08)
2008 Oct 17, Mervyn’s, a Hayward, Ca., based retailer, said it plans to liquidate its remaining 149 locations and shutter the business after the holiday season.
(SFC, 10/18/08, p.C1)
2008 Oct 17, Pfizer Inc. said it has reached agreements to end up to 92% of personal injury lawsuits relating to anti-inflammatory drugs Bextra and Celebrex, linked to elevated risks of heart attacks and stroke, at a cost of $894 million.
(SFC, 10/18/08, p.A2)
2008 Oct 17, George M Keller (b.1923), former head of Standard Oil of California (1981-1988), died at his home in Palo Alto, Ca. He oversaw the 1984 merger with Gulf Oil to form Chevron Corp.
(SFC, 10/18/08, p.B1)
2008 Oct 17, Levi Stubbs (72), Four Tops frontman, died at his home in Detroit. His dynamic and emotive voice drove such Motown classics as "Reach Out (I'll Be There)" and "Baby I Need Your Loving."
(AP, 10/17/08)
2008 Oct 17, In Afghanistan a bomb in Paktika province killed two civilians. A two-day battle in Wardak province left 20 militants dead. NATO-led forces assaulted the insurgent stronghold with airstrikes 40 miles west of Kabul.
(AFP, 10/18/08)(AP, 10/20/08)
2008 Oct 17, Two Indonesian fishing crew picked up in Australian territorial waters with 14 refugees on their boat were charged with people smuggling.
(Reuters, 10/17/08)
2008 Oct 17, Some 30 leaders of French-speaking nations attended a 3-day summit of French-speaking nations in Quebec City, Canada. The focus was dominated by the world's financial woes.
(AFP, 10/17/08)
2008 Oct 17, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov opened one of Europe's biggest mosques in the rebuilt capital of the southern Russian region, saying it was proof Russian rule and Islam can go together. The mosque, named "The Heart of Chechnya" and constructed by Turkish builders, can host up to 10,000 worshippers.
(AP, 10/17/08)
2008 Oct 17, A bomb planted near a Baghdad mosque killed three Shiite worshippers as they were leaving prayers. Iraqi mosques used the Muslim week's holy day to address recent attacks against Christians.
(AP, 10/17/08)
2008 Oct 17, In Mexico 334 police officers were ousted in ciudad Juarez after they failed psychological, background and other checks as part of a clean-up campaign meant to root out officers who are corrupt or cooperating with drug traffickers. The border city sent police recruiters across the country as it tries to replace nearly half a police force gutted by firings and retirements.
(AP, 10/18/08)
2008 Oct 17, In northwest Pakistan troops backed by helicopter gunships and artillery pounded militant positions, killing 60 fighters and wounding many others near the town of Matta in the Swat Valley.
(AP, 10/18/08)
2008 Oct 17, In southern Thailand a 25-year-old man was shot dead in a gunfight with security officials after the arrests of five other suspected militants.
(AFP, 10/18/08)
2008 Oct 17, Turkish warplanes carried out successful airstrikes inside Iraq on the main bases used by Kurdish rebels. The air strikes on Qandil Mountain killed 25 Kurdish rebels and wounded many more. Earlier in the day, the military said it intercepted Kurdish rebel radio chatter indicating that up to 35 guerrillas had been killed in clashes with troops earlier this week in southeastern Sirnak province.
(AP, 10/17/08)(AP, 10/24/08)
2008 Oct 17, The UN added Japan, Austria, Turkey, Mexico and Uganda as members to the 10 non-permanent seats of the Security Council, replacing Belgium, Indonesia, Italy, Panama and South Africa.
(AP, 10/17/08)
2009 Oct 17, In Oakland, Ca., 3 people died when their car flipped during a sideshow in the early hours. The Nissan in the crash was said to have been in a hyphy train, like a conga line on wheels with cars weaving and speeding in unison.
(SSFC, 10/18/09, p.C3)
2009 Oct 17, In Virginia Morgan Harrington (20), a Virginia Tech student, disappeared folowing a Metallica in Charlottesville. A farmer found her remains three months later in a hayfield.
(SFC, 10/1/14, p.A12)
2009 Oct 17, In Brazil drug traffickers shot down a police helicopter during a gunbattle between rival gangs. The weekend gang fight in Rio de Janeiro left 3 police officers killed, and continued into the week leaving at least 32 people dead.
(SSFC, 10/18/09, p.A8)(AP, 10/21/09)(AP, 10/22/09)(Econ, 10/24/09, p.42)
2009 Oct 17, In Iraq a suicide bomber driving a dynamite-laden truck destroyed a key bridge on a highway used by the departing US military outside Ramadi. An attack on an Iraqi army convoy just outside of the city of Fallujah killed four Iraqi soldiers and wounded 14. Attackers threw hand grenades at an Iraqi army patrol near Kirkuk, killing two civilians and wounding two others. In Mosul 2 policemen and one civilian were killed in three unrelated incidents.
(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 17, The West Africa regional bloc ECOWAS imposed an arms embargo against Guinea, accusing the ruling military junta for "mass human rights violations" during anti-government protests last month.
(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 17, In Honduras ousted President Manuel Zelaya said negotiations over the coup are in "suspense" after the rival factions rebuffed each other's proposals and his foreign minister called the internationally brokered talks a failure.
(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 17, Members of the Maldives' Cabinet donned scuba gear and used hand signals at an underwater meeting staged to highlight the threat of global warming to the lowest-lying nation on earth.
(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 17, Mexican police in Tijuana found a man's nude, mutilated body hung by the neck from an expressway overpass, the 2nd such grisly discovery in 9 days. Police reported finding the mutilated body of a woman in a reservoir in another part of Tijuana. The woman's hands and head were missing. A shootout between gunmen and police killed one officer and a gunman and wounded two policemen. Tijuana investigators found five assault rifles and vests with federal prosecutors' insignia in three vehicles thought used by the attackers.
(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 17, It was reported that an increasing number of children in Africa are being accused of witchcraft by pastors of evangelical Christianity and then tortured or killed, often by family members. Pastors were involved in half of 200 cases of "witch children" reviewed by the AP, and 13 churches were named in the case files. Campaigners against the practice said around 15,000 children have been accused in two of Nigeria's 36 states over the past decade and around 1,000 have been murdered.
(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 17, More than 30,000 Pakistani soldiers launched a ground offensive against al-Qaida and the Taliban's main stronghold along the Afghan border, in the country's toughest test yet against a strengthening insurgency. The operation was expected to last around two months. At least 11 suspected insurgents were killed in jet bombings, while a bomb hit a security convoy, killing one soldier and wounding three others. 4 soldiers were killed and 12 wounded in exchanges of fire elsewhere in the region. The plan was to capture and hold an area where an estimated 10,000 insurgents were headquartered and reinforced with about 1,500 foreign fighters, most of them of Central Asian origin.
(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 17, In the Philippines a propeller-driven plane on a test flight crashed and burst into flames in a suburb of Manila, killing at least four people onboard.
(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 17, In Puerto Rico gunmen opened fire into a bar in Toa Baja shortly before midnight and killed seven people, injuring 20 others. On Oct 27 Wilfredo Semprit Santana, the owner of the bar, was arrested and charged with drug trafficking.
(AP, 10/18/09)(AP, 10/27/09)
2009 Oct 17, In Spain a huge crowd rallied in Madrid against a bill to ease restrictions on abortion, a vivid and emotional show of how the issue remains sensitive two decades after abortion was legalized in this traditionally Roman Catholic country.
(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 17, In western Sudan 3 peacekeepers were wounded, two of them seriously, when their vehicle came under fire in the Darfur region.
(AFP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 17, In Thailand some 17,000 "Red Shirt" supporters of Thaksin Shinawatra rallied in Bangkok to pressure the Thai government over their petition seeking a royal pardon for the fugitive former prime minister.
(AP, 10/17/09)
2010 Oct 17, The New York Times reported that possibly hundreds of members of Iraq's Awakening Councils, a group affiliated with the US military, have switched their loyalty to Al-Qaeda.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, The Washington Post reported that the United States believes some Chinese firms are helping Iran improve its missile technology and develop nuclear weapons and has asked Beijing to prevent such activity.
(AFP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, In Arizona a commercial tour bus drifted off a highway near Meadview and rolled over several times killing 2 people and injuring several others.
(SFC, 10/18/10, p.A5)
2010 Oct 17, In New York Danroy "D.J." Henry (20), a college football player driving away from the scene of a fight, ended up dead hours after the team's homecoming game, struck in a burst of police gunfire that pierced his windshield in the Westchester County hamlet of Thornwood. He was shot and killed by Westchester Police Officer Aaron Hess outside Finnegan’s Grill. A grand jury later cleared Hess of wrongdoing in the shooting.
(AP, 10/19/10) (Yahoo News, 7/30/20)
2010 Oct 17, Afghanistan issued a statement issued by the president's office saying that private security firms will not only be able to operate inside international compounds, but also travel with diplomats and work as protection for international military installations. A NATO service member was killed by a bomb blast in the south. Afghan and Western officials said that fraud was pervasive in the Sep 18 elections and that 25% or 800,000 to a million votes would be likely thrown out. air strikes killed a Taliban "military leader" and 15 other insurgents in the northern province of Baghlan. A Taliban prisoner, Mullah Muhebullah, was found shot dead while under US guard in an Afghan holding facility. Pfc. David Lawrence (20) was soon placed under custody in a criminal investigation of Muhebullah’s death.
(AP, 10/17/10)(SFC, 10/18/10, p.A3)(AFP, 10/19/10)(SFC, 12/1/10, p.A6)
2010 Oct 17, In Afghanistan about this time 3 Taliban leaders secretly met with Pres. Karzai in an effort to weaken the Haqqani network, the US-led coalition's most vicious enemy.
(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 17, In Brazil three men broke into the home of Wanderley dos Reis, the owner of a small newspaper in Sao Paulo state, and shot and killed him.
(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 17, In southeastern Brazil a bus carrying people back from a sports festival for special needs athletes fell from a bridge into a river, killing 11 and injuring nearly 30.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Congo's first lady, Olive Lembe Kabila, led thousands of women marching in the country's volatile east to demand an end to a wave of mass rapes. 3 residents were killed when soldiers looted homes in Congo's South Kivu province.
(AP, 10/17/10)(AP, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 17, In Haiti 2 inmates were shot to death trying to escape from the roof of the quake-damaged national penitentiary. A third was trampled to death inside during a prison riot. Police officials familiar with the prison said some inmates had escaped.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, In northern India an argument over sacrificing goats during a Hindu festival triggered a stampede that killed 10 people in a packed temple.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Iran's Pres. Ahmadinejad endorsed the idea of new talks with the international community over his country's nuclear program, while warning that negotiations would fail if the West does not clearly come out against Israel's suspected nuclear arsenal.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Iran freed Reza Taghavi (71), an Iranian-American businessman. The next day he said he had spent some of his more than two years in prison alongside protesters detained in Iran's postelection crackdowns and praised his first taste of freedom as a blessing "no one can imagine." Taghavi, who regularly visits Iran to conduct business and see family, had been jailed for 29 months for passing $200 to someone suspected of links to a rebel group known as Tondar, which seeks to topple the Islamic system and was implicated in the mosque bombing.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, In Iraq two policemen and two gunmen were killed in gunfights between security forces and armed groups attempting to rob Baghdad jewelry stores. 5 gunmen escaped.
(AP, 10/17/10)(SFC, 10/18/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 17, In Kuwait some 100 people stormed the offices of privately owned Scope TV’s studios and destroyed its equipment after the channel aired shows critical of the ruling Al Sabah family.
(SFC, 10/19/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 17, The Mexican Navy said two men were killed in a confrontation with marines in Tamaulipas state. A Sonora state police officer was found dead, apparently from a blow to the head, alongside the road in Benito Juarez municipality. Ciudad Juarez gunmen burst into a home where a family was having a party. 3 women and 2 men died at the scene, and a man and a woman died at the hospital. Assailants attacked a second home in the neighborhood minutes later, killing 2 men.
(AP, 10/17/10)(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 17, In Morocco world leaders at the World Policy Conference (WPC) in Marrakech examined frameworks for global governance ahead of a G20 summit in Seoul, with UN chief Ban Ki-Moon stressing no single power could tackle key issues alone.
(AFP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, A Nigerian government spokesman said a Dubai court found cause to honor an extradition request for former Delta state Gov. James Ibori, a prominent politician in the ruling People's Democratic Party. Authorities have said Ibori faces charges over stealing $292 million in state funds while in office.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, In Pakistan gunmen killed at least 25 people in Karachi over the past 24 hours, raising tensions in Pakistan's largest city as voters cast ballots to replace a provincial lawmaker murdered in August.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Two Palestinians were killed and a third wounded in a pre-dawn Israeli air strike north of Gaza City. The Israeli military said the air force had struck a "squad of terror operatives who were preparing to fire rockets from the northern Gaza Strip into Israel."
(AFP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Thousands of Thailand's anti-government "Red Shirts" joined a mass rally in the latest large-scale demonstration by the movement in recent weeks.
(AFP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed Australia's first saint, canonizing Mary MacKillop (1842-1909), a 19th-century nun. The Vatican also declared five other saints in an open-air Mass attended by tens of thousands. Brother Andre (1845-1937), a Canadian, Italian nuns Giulia Salzano and Battista Camilla da Varano, and Spanish nun Candida Maria de Jesus Cipitria y Barriola were also canonized.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, The official Vatican newspaper said that beer-swilling, doughnut-loving Homer Simpson and son Bart are Catholics, and what's more, it says that parents should not be afraid to let their children watch "the adventures of the little guys in yellow." Executive producer Al Jean told Entertainment Weekly the next day he was in "shock and awe" at the latest assertion, adding that the Simpsons attend the "Presbylutheran" First Church of Springfield. "The Simpsons" is the longest-running prime-time TV series in the United States and is now in its 22nd season.
(Reuters, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 17, Vietnamese officials said more flooding has killed at least 14 people and forced around 78,000 people to be evacuated from their homes in the centre of the country.
(AFP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Zambian police said managers at a Chinese-run coal mine who shot at workers protesting poor working conditions will be charged with attempted murder. 12 workers at Collum Coal Mine in the southern town of Sinazongwe were injured a day earlier when mainly Chinese managers fired randomly at the protesting workers.
(AFP, 10/17/10)
2011 Oct 17, Lowe's Cos Inc, a home improvement retailer, said it is closing 20 of its US locations, eliminating nearly 2,000 jobs and slashing store-openings to improve profitability.
(Reuters, 10/17/11)
2011 Oct 17, In northern Afghanistan a suicide bomber targeted a car carrying Sayed Ahmad Sadat the chief of National Directorate of Security (NDS) for Faryab province, wounding six intelligence officials and killing a child. Sadat died of his injuries on Oct 26.
(AFP, 10/17/11)(AP, 10/26/11)
2011 Oct 17, Austrian officials said an investigation will be launched into claims by 2 women that they and 18 other girls at the Schloss Wilhelminenberg foster home, run by the city of Vienna, were raped in the 1970s. The sisters, now 47 and 49, alleged the abuse began when they were 6 and 8, and ended in their early teens. 343 former foster children who were wards of the city have turned to Weisser Ring, non-governmental victims' organization, with reports of being abused at the Schloss Wilhelminenberg alone since investigations began last year.
(AP, 10/17/11)(AP, 10/18/11)
2011 Oct 17, British security group G4S agreed to buy Denmark-based facilities company ISS for £5.2 billion, creating the world's largest security and facilities firm.
(AFP, 10/17/11)
2011 Oct 17, Canadian scientists announced that a contagious and lethal fish virus has been detected for the first time in wild Pacific salmon. The European strain of the virus had only been identified before in farm-raised Atlantic salmon.
(Reuters, 10/20/11)
2011 Oct 17, In the Central African Republic 2 rebel groups, that signed a cease fire on Oct 8, said they had left the central town of Bria. One of them asked for humanitarian aid for civilians.
(AFP, 10/18/11)
2011 Oct 17, Chile said it is giving nearly 57,000 18-year-olds one month to report for potential military duty. The government said it needs to fill gaps in its armed forces because a nationwide student protest movement has reduced the number of volunteers it usually gets. Attending a university does not enable young Chileans to avoid the draft.
(AP, 10/18/11)
2011 Oct 17, In western China Tenzin Wangmo (20), a Tibetan nun, committed self-immolation in a call for religious freedom and the return of the Dalai Lama. She was the 9th Tibetan to commit self-immolation and the first women to kill herself in this way.
(SFC, 10/18/11, p.A4)
2011 Oct 17, A senior Egyptian Justice Ministry official said that the two sons of ousted President Hosni Mubarak have an estimated $340 million in Swiss bank accounts.
(AP, 10/17/11)
2011 Oct 17, In Greece strikes halted ferries to the local islands and trash continued to pile in Athens for a 16th straight day as unions fought against austerity measures.
(SFC, 10/18/11, p.A4)
2011 Oct 17, In Italy Rev. Roy Bourgeois, a US Catholic priest who supports ordination for women, was detained by police after marching to the Vatican to press the Holy See to lift its ban on women priests.
(AP, 10/17/11)
2011 Oct 17, In Jordan PM Marouf al-Bakhit (64) resigned after a majority of 70 out of 120 parliamentarians called for his ouster. Jordan's King Abdullah II designated Awn al-Khasawneh (61), a well-known international judge, as the new prime minister.
(AP, 10/17/11)
2011 Oct 17, The offices of a Liberian radio station were set ablaze, in the wake of an arson attack on the ruling party headquarters and opposition discontent over poll results.
(AFP, 10/17/11)
2011 Oct 17, Libyan fighters raised the new government's flag over the desert oasis of Bani Walid and hailed an exodus of regime families from the only other redoubt of Moamer Kadhafi's forces, his hometown Sirte. For a 2nd straight day NATO announced no hits in its air war.
(AFP, 10/17/11)
2011 Oct 17, Pakistani paramilitary forces raided a militant hideout in the rugged Khyber tribal region near the Afghan border, sparking fighting that killed 9 soldiers and 10 insurgents.
(AP, 10/17/11)
2011 Oct 17, In the Philippines Rev. Fausto Tentorio (59), an Italian Catholic priest who was about to travel to a clergy meeting, was shot dead in his southern parish in Arakan town, North Cotabato province. He was the third Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions missionary to be killed on southern Mindanao Island. In 2017 A Justice Department panel led by Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Peter Ong recommended murder complaints be filed against a dozen suspects, including the militiamen and two army commanders.
(AP, 10/17/11)(AP, 11/10/17)
2011 Oct 17, Somalia's al-Shabab militant group threatened Kenya with suicide attacks, saying Nairobi's skyscrapers would be destroyed and its tourism industry ruined in an ominous warning one day after Kenyan troops poured into Somalia.
(AP, 10/17/11)
2011 Oct 17, Swaziland's King Mswati III announced a major cabinet reshuffle in a move his critics say is aimed at punishing those who do not toe the line. Amongst those fired was Justice Minister David Matse who refused to fire an independently minded High Court judge, Thomas Masuku, earlier this month.
(AFP, 10/18/11)
2011 Oct 17, Five Syrian soldiers were killed during clashes with gunmen suspected to be army defectors in the flashpoint central province of Homs. 2 civilians were also killed. UN chief Ban Ki-moon urged President Bashar al-Assad to immediately stop the killings of civilians.
(AFP, 10/17/11)
2011 Oct 17, Uganda police fired tear gas at protesters in Kampala demonstrating against high food prices and corruption.
(SFC, 10/18/11, p.A2)
2011 Oct 17, In Yemen one protester was killed and seven wounded when Saleh loyalists opened fire on a demonstration in Taez. A family of five were killed when a rocket hit their home in north Sanaa. At least 18 people were killed on Sanaa in fighting between troops loyal to Pres. Saleh and rival forces.
(AFP, 10/18/11)(SFC, 10/18/11, p.A2)
2012 Oct 17, The FBI arrested 21-year-old Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, a banker’s son from Bangladesh, after he tried to detonate a fake 1,000-pound (454-kilogram) car bomb at the Federal Reserve Bank in NYC. On Feb 7, 2013, Nafis pleaded guilty to terrorism charges. On Aug 9, 2013, Nafis was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
(AP, 10/18/12)(SFC, 2/8/13, p.A16)(SFC, 8/10/13, p.A4)
2012 Oct 17, Los Angeles authorities arrested county assessor John Noguez, a top aide and a campaign contributor, as part of a probe into alleged influence peddling and slashing of property taxes for political allies.
(SFC, 10/18/12, p.C3)
2012 Oct 17, In the SF Bay Area Barbara Latiolais (58) was strangled to death by Cody Nicosia (18) and Christian Birdsall (16). The teens set fire to the home following her murder and robbery. Both teens were arrested on Oct 25.
(SFC, 10/27/12, p.C1)
2012 Oct 17, In eastern Afghanistan a suicide car bomber blew up his vehicle near the gate of a US-Afghan combat outpost, wounding 10 Afghan soldiers.
(AP, 10/17/12)
2012 Oct 17, In Argentina former Gen. Mario Benjamin Menendez (82) was arrested for his role at the La Escaulita torture center in Tucuman province which he helped run in 1975. In 1982 Menendez served as the military governor of the Falkland Islands during Argentina’s brief occupation.
(SFC, 10/19/12, p.A2)
2012 Oct 17, Bahrain detained four people for defaming the island's king with Twitter posts in a case that is likely to test the limits of expression in the violence-wracked Gulf nation. The four will be held for seven days pending trial.
(AP, 10/18/12)
2012 Oct 17, Scotland Yard confirmed in a statement that the Metropolitan Police will no longer permit tattoos on the face, hands or which appear above the collar line.
(AP, 10/17/12)
2012 Oct 17, Two British parliamentary committees said they planned to quiz tax officials about how Starbucks was able to avoid paying tax on 1.2 billion pounds of sales since 2009.
(Reuters, 10/17/12)
2012 Oct 17, In Egypt a top parliamentarian suspended the editor-in-chief of a state-owned newspaper for publishing a report deemed an offense to the military.
(AP, 10/18/12)
2012 Oct 17, France's foreign minister Laurent Fabius said Syria's air force is using so-called barrel bombs — makeshift weapons consisting of containers stuffed with TNT — to heavily damage neighborhoods. Fabius met with representatives of about 20 countries to share details about a secret French aid program and encourage others to join it.
(AP, 10/17/12)
2012 Oct 17, In Iraq a roadside bomb hit a police patrol in western Baghdad, killing two policemen and wounding two others. Another bomb went off in a grocery market in southern Baghdad, killing two civilians and wounding seven. A third bomb exploded in a market in the city's east killing one person and wounding six others.
(AP, 10/17/12)
2012 Oct 17, In Kenya a terror suspect threw a grenade at officers, wounding four of them in the Mombasa area. Three suspects were killed in the clash.
(AP, 10/17/12)
2012 Oct 17, Libyan authorities identified Ahmed Abu Khattala, a leader of the Benghazi-based Islamist group Ansar al-Shariah, as commander in the Sep 11 attack that killed US ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. At least six people died and 80 were wounded on the first day of renewed fighting at Bani Walid after negotiations failed to hand over the suspects for the death of a well-known anti-Gadhafi rebel.
(SFC, 10/18/12, p.A4)(AP, 10/18/12)
2012 Oct 17, Russian investigators opened a criminal probe against leftist leader Sergei Udaltsov and several other activists for allegedly plotting mass riots in a new sign of a widening crackdown on Russia's opposition.
(AP, 10/17/12)
2012 Oct 17, In Sri Lanka Selvarasa Pathmanathan (57), a key suspect wanted over the assassination of Gandhi in May 1991, was released from detention. He had been arrested in 2009 in Malaysia for procuring weapons for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
(SFC, 10/18/12, p.A4)
2012 Oct 17, Lakhdar Brahimi, the international envoy to the Syrian conflict, called on President Bashar Assad's regime to take the lead in a cease-fire during a major Muslim holiday later this month, calling it a "microscopic" step toward ending a crisis that he said could consume the whole region.
(AP, 10/17/12)
2013 Oct 17, Florida Congressman Bill Young (82) died after 42 years of service. He had channeled hundreds of million of dollars via earmarks to his district and state.
(Econ, 2/15/14, p.29)(AP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 17, A global index on modern slavery said some 30 million people are enslaved worldwide, trafficked into brothels, forced into manual labour, victims of debt bondage or even born into servitude. Almost half were in India.
(Reuters, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, The first ladies of Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast sealed an agreement to fight the growing child trafficking trade between the two west African nations.
(AFP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, Canadian police arrested at least 40 protesters opposed to shale gas development in New Brunswick after vehicles were set ablaze and a shot was fired.
(AFP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, In France hundreds of pupils blocked high schools in the Paris region and joined protests after Leonarda Dibrani, a 15-year-old girl, was taken off a school bus on Oct 9 and deported to Kosovo.
(AP, 10/16/13)(Reuters, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, Indonesian police shot dead Suardi, a suspected militant, and arrested two others, in an ongoing clampdown on terrorism. All three were said to be part of a network led by Abu Uswah, who allegedly taught bomb-making and was shot dead in a raid in January.
(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 17, In northern Iraq a suicide bomber blew up his explosives-laden car among houses in the Shabak village of al-Mouafaqiyah near Mosul, killing at least 15 people. Attacks on Shi'ite Muslims killed at least 61 people across the country.
(AP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, Moroccan police drove back 400 African migrants who tried to rush across the country's border into the Spanish territory of Ceuta.
(AFP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, Mozambique government forces killed two fighters from rebel group Renamo in clashes on the first anniversary of their leader's return to the bush.
(AFP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, Pakistani officials said a Pakistani Ranger was killed by "unprovoked firing" by Indian troops along the disputed northwestern India-Pakistan border. An Indian Border Security Force officer said their forces retaliated after being fired on by the Pakistani side. Another Pakistani soldier was killed by militants in South Waziristan.
(AP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, In Saudi Arabia some 1.4 million Muslim pilgrims from 188 countries started to leave Mecca at the end of what authorities hailed as a successful and incident-free hajj. The hajj now brings in $16.5 billion, about 3% of Saudi GDP.
(AFP, 10/17/13)(Econ, 10/12/13, p.74)
2013 Oct 17, In South Africa a senior union official at a Lonmin mine in Marikana was shot dead.
(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 17, In South Sudan 5 people including four children were killed in a market when explosives left over from decades of civil war were accidentally set off on the outskirts of Juba.
(AFP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, Spanish police said they have arrested 17 people for their role in stealing watches worth 23 million euros ($31 million) in Dec 2012, resolving one of the country's biggest jewelry heists.
(AP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, The Syrian government said it has turned over to the United Nations Carl Campeau, a Canadian staffer, who went missing eight months ago in the Golan Heights, accusing rebels of having kidnapped him. Gen. Jameh Jameh, a top military intelligence officer was killed in clashes in Deir al-Zou.
(AFP, 10/17/13)(AP, 10/18/13)(SFC, 10/18/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 17, In Tunisia Islamist militants killed two policemen in clashes in the northeastern city of Goubellat.
(Reuters, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, The UN General Assembly elected five new members to the Security Council. The uncontested seats included Chad, Chile, Lithuania, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia.
(AP, 10/17/13)
2014 Oct 17, Pres. Obama named Ron Klain, a former chief of staff to VP Biden, as the administration’s point man on Ebola.
(SFC, 10/18/14, p.A8)
2014 Oct 17, The United States said it has issued entry bans to several Hungarians suspected of corruption, including people connected to the government.
(AP, 10/17/14)
2014 Oct 17, Indiana police found the body of Afrika Hardy (19) in a Motel 6 in Hammond. Police the next day arrested Darren Vann (43) of Gary. Vann confessed and told where the bodies of other women would be found. The body of Anith Jones of Merrillville, missing since Oct 8, was found the next day. Five more bodies were found on Oct 19.
(SFC, 10/20/14, p.A5)(SFC, 10/21/14, p.A6)
2014 Oct 17, Hurricane Gonzalo crushed trees, flattened power lines and damaged Bermuda's main hospital during an hours-long battering, but the tiny, wealthy British territory suffered no deaths.
(AP, 10/18/14)
2014 Oct 17, China’s Vice President Li Yuanchao called on China and Vietnam to enhance political trust and manage maritime disputes in a meeting with Vietnamese Defense Minister Phung Quang Thanh in Beijing.
(AP, 10/18/14)
2014 Oct 17, In CongoDRC Ugandan rebels hacked and clubbed to death 10 women, 8 children and 4 men in the town of Eringeti.
(AFP, 10/18/14)
2014 Oct 17, Hong Kong riot police battled with thousands of pro-democracy protesters for control of the city’s streets.
(SFC, 10/18/14, p.A2)
2014 Oct 17, India’s environment minister said a new air quality index has been launched to help citizens understand complex pollution data and its implications for their health.
(Reuters, 10/17/14)
2014 Oct 17, The Iraqi government imposed a curfew in the western city of Ramadi over fears that the Islamic State group might try to advance on the strategically important city. Car bombs exploded in three crowded areas of Baghdad, killing at least 23 people.
(AP, 10/17/14)(AFP, 10/17/14)
2014 Oct 17, It was reported that Iraqi pilots who have joined Islamic State in Syria are training members of the group to fly in three fighter jets captured from the Syrian military. In eastern Syria a US-led coalition airstrike on a gas distribution facility in Khasham, Deir el-Zour province, a stronghold of the Islamic State group, set off a series of secondary explosions and killed at least 8 people.
(Reuters, 10/17/14)(AP, 10/18/14)
2014 Oct 17, Meeting in Milan, Italy, Russia and Ukraine made progress towards resolving a row over gas supplies, but European leaders said Moscow had to do much more to prop up a fragile ceasefire and end fighting in eastern Ukraine.
(Reuters, 10/17/14)
2014 Oct 17, A Lebanese soldier was killed as a military bus came under fire in the country's north, in the 4th such deadly attack in less than a month.
(AP, 10/17/14)
2014 Oct 17, Lesotho's king convened parliament for the first time since an alleged coup attempt in August as the southern African country strives to resolve political tensions before elections next year.
(Reuters, 10/17/14)
2014 Oct 17, In Libya at least 14 people were killed when fighting erupted between armed youths and Islamist militias in Benghazi.
(AP, 10/17/14)
2014 Oct 17, Mozambican Renamo opposition leader Afonso Dhlakama said he would challenge elections held this week which he called unfair and marred by fraud.
(AP, 10/17/14)
2014 Oct 17, A Myanmar court sentenced the ex-religious affairs minister to 13 years in prison for embezzling state funds and sedition. Hsan Sint was removed from office in June following allegations he misused $10,000 to build a pagoda near Naypyitaw.
(AP, 10/17/14)
2014 Oct 17, Nigeria's official news agency said the government and Boko Haram Islamic extremists have agreed to an immediate cease-fire. Suspected Boko Haram insurgents attacked the village of Abadam late at night, killing at least one person and ransacking homes.
(AP, 10/17/14)(Reuters, 10/18/14)
2014 Oct 17, Pakistan's army extended its offensive against Islamist militants in mountains along the Afghan border, killing at least 9 insurgents.
(Reuters, 10/17/14)
2014 Oct 17, In the Philippines the Abu Sayyaf group released Stefan Okonek and Henrike Dielen on southern Jolo Island after receiving 250 million pesos ($5.6 million) in ransom. The two Germans were kidnapped six months earlier.
(AP, 10/17/14)
2014 Oct 17, In Russia Lyudmila Bogatenkova (73), a veteran activist who investigated the deaths and disappearances of Russian soldiers in Ukraine, was charged with fraud and ordered to be jailed.
(AP, 10/18/14)
2014 Oct 17, In South Korea 16 people were killed at a open-air pop concert where the group 4Minute was performing when the cover of a ventilation shaft they were standing on gave way. The man involved in planning the pop concert was found dead on Oct 18 in an apparent suicide.
(Reuters, 10/17/14)(AP, 10/18/14)
2014 Oct 17, Prosecutors in Istanbul ruled that there were no grounds for legal action against 53 suspects, including the sons of two former government ministers and a prominent Iranian businessman, who were suspected of bribery and corruption in a case that shook the country in December.
(AP, 10/18/14)
2014 Oct 17, The UN health agency officially declared an end to the Ebola outbreak in Senegal as the countrymade it past the 42-day mark, which is twice the maximum incubation period for Ebola, without detecting more such cases.
(AP, 10/17/14)
2014 Oct 17, In Yemen clashes between tribesmen and Shiite rebels advancing into the mainly Sunni southwestern province of Ibb killed 14 rebels and 10 tribesmen. Houthi rebels overran the al-Qaida stronghold of Radda.
(AFP, 10/17/14)(AFP, 10/18/14)(SFC, 10/18/14, p.A2)
2015 Oct 17, The US-led coalition conducted 18 air strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and five in Syria, according to the task force organizing the military operation.
(Reuters, 10/18/15)
2015 Oct 17, In Florida a shooting at the ZombieCon gathering in Fort Myers left one person dead and five others injured.
(SFC, 10/19/15, p.A7)
2015 Oct 17, Addyi, the first drug to boost sexual desire in women, became available from Sprout Pharmaceuticals.
(SFC, 10/17/15, p.A5)
2015 Oct 17, In Argentina a magnitude 5.9 earthquake struck the northwest, leaving at least one person dead and damaging homes in the Salta region.
(Reuters, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, Australia announced plans to legalize the growing of cannabis for medicinal purposes, saying those suffering debilitating illnesses deserved access to the most effective treatments.
(AFP, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, In the Democratic Republic of Congo leaders of the Twa and Luba ethnic groups signed an agreement intended to end a conflict which has killed hundreds and displaced tens of thousands.
(Reuters, 10/21/15)
2015 Oct 17, Hungary said it will temporarily reinstate border controls on its frontier with Slovenia, after his government sealed off its border with Croatia overnight to stem the flow of migrants. Migrants streaming across the Balkans reached Slovenia, diverted overnight by the closure of Hungary’s border with Croatia.
(Reuters, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, In southern India at least 15 people headed for a wedding were killed when a mini-bus they were riding collided with another bus as they were traveling to Malakonda town in Andhra Pradesh state.
(AP, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, Indonesian officials said 182 ethnic Rohingya have fled their encampment in Aceh province. Officials suspected they may have been persuaded by human traffickers to flee.
(AP, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, Iran reported that 2 people were killed in a shooting attack on Shiite worshippers marking Ashura, in the town of Dezful in Khuzestan province.
(AFP, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, Iraqi forces pressed their biggest offensive in months to resume their long-stalled northward advance and disrupt jihadist lines.
(AFP, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, Nigeria said Brig. Gen. Enitan Ransome Kuti has been dismissed from the army and jailed for losing a major battle in which Boko Haram Islamic extremists killed hundreds of civilians at the Jan. 2 battle for Baga.
(AP, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, Four Palestinians were shot dead and a fifth was wounded in attacks on Israelis in east Jerusalem and the West Bank.
(AFP, 10/18/15)
2015 Oct 17, Portugal’s former Socialist PM Jose Socrates left home as a free man for the first time in 10 months after a court lifted a house arrest.
(AP, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, In Romania three journalists were detained on suspicion of extorting money from public figures in exchange for not writing negative articles about them.
(AP, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, Russia said its air force has made 36 sorties, hitting 49 Islamic State targets in Syria in the last 24 hours.
(Reuters, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, It was reported that hundreds of South Korean scholars have declared they are boycotting the writing of state-issued history textbooks out of concern that that they will teach distorted views on the country's recent past.
(AP, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, Spanish police said they have arrested 81 persons on suspicion of sexually abusing minors and sharing child pornography on the Internet.
(AP, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, In northern Spain thousands took to the streets of San Sebastian to call for the release of Arnaldo Otegi (57), the jailed head of the Basque independence Sortu party.
(AFP, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, Syrian troops backed by Hezbollah and Iranian fighters made advances in their offensive to retake territory around the northern city of Aleppo from insurgents and jihadist fighters.
(Reuters, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, Taiwan's ruling party on named chairman Eric Chu to run for the island's top spot in coming national elections, replacing an existing pick in a move aimed at avoiding a trouncing by an opposition it fears could derail warming ties with China.
(Reuters, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, Turkey said 3 soldiers and 28 Kurdish militants have been killed in air strikes and clashes over the past two days in the predominantly Kurdish southeast.
(Reuters, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, The Turkish coastguard said 12 migrants thought to be from Syria and Afghanistan, including four children and a baby, drowned off the coast of Turkey as they tried to reach the Greek island of Lesbos.
(Reuters, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, In Turkey a British woman working for a London-based media charity who was heading to Iraq was found dead at Istanbul's Ataturk airport. Jackie Sutton (50) was reportedly found hanged in the toilets. There were no signs of foul play.
(AFP, 10/19/15)(AP, 10/21/15)
2015 Oct 17, The Ukrainian excursion boat Ivolga capsized in the Black Sea, killing 14 people. It was carrying twice as many passengers as allowed and was knocked over by a big wave.
(AP, 10/18/15)
2015 Oct 17, Venezuela announced that its state-owned oil company will buy a 25 percent stake in West Indies Oil Co. and that it will establish a regional bank with the Antigua and Barbuda government to fund a new resort.
(AP, 10/17/15)
2016 Oct 17, In Washington, DC. retired Marine Gen. James Cartwright (67) pleaded guilty to making false statements during an investigation into a leak of classified information about a covert cyber-attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. He faced up to six months in prison.
(SFC, 10/18/16, p.A4)
2016 Oct 17, In Brazil 8 inmates were killed and burned in a fresh prison riot. Police believed the riot was related to clashes a day earlier between rival factions in another jail that left 25 detainees dead.
(AFP, 10/17/16)
2016 Oct 17, Two Chinese astronauts began the country's longest crewed space mission yet, blasting off on a spacecraft for a 30-day stay on the Tiangong 2 experimental space station as China steadfastly navigates its way to becoming a space superpower.
(AP, 10/17/16)(SFC, 10/20/16, p.A2)
2016 Oct 17, Egypt passed legislation to crack down on people traffickers linked to a major surge in the numbers of migrants departing from the country's Mediterranean coast on often disastrous sea journeys to Europe.
(Reuters, 10/17/16)
2016 Oct 17, In eastern India a fire broke out late today at the private Sum Hospital in the city of Bhubaneswar, killing at least 23 people.
(AP, 10/18/16)
2016 Oct 17, An Indonesian official said three men were arrested over the weekend for allegedly trading in protected species, with police seizing animal parts including a tiger skin, deer genitalia and pangolin scales.
(AFP, 10/17/16)
2016 Oct 17, Iraqi government forces launched a US-backed offensive to drive Islamic State from the northern city of Mosul. The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said up to 100,000 Iraqis may flee to Syria and Turkey to escape the assault.
(Reuters, 10/17/16)
2016 Oct 17, Italian PM Matteo Renzi flew to the United States for a high-profile visit that he hopes will boost his flagging campaign for a referendum on constitutional reform.
(Reuters, 10/17/16)
2016 Oct 17, A Lithuanian court called former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to testify in a mass trial related to the 1991 crackdown on the country's independence movement.
(AP, 10/17/16)
2016 Oct 17, In central Pakistan two passenger buses collided in Khanpur town killing 25 people and leaving 69 injured.
(SFC, 10/18/16, p.A2)
2016 Oct 17, The editor-in-chief of Kremlin-funded television network RT said that all its bank accounts in Britain have been closed down.
(AFP, 10/17/16)
2016 Oct 17, South African protesters demanding free university education broke windows, forced open doors and threw human excrement in an effort to disrupt the resumption of classes.
(AP, 10/17/16)
2016 Oct 17, In Syria airstrikes by Russian warplanes on rebel-held areas in the northern province of Aleppo killed at least 36 people, including children.
(AP, 10/17/16)
2016 Oct 17, Vietnam officials said that floods in four central provinces have killed 24 people and displaced thousands, with tropical storm Sarika in the South China Sea approaching the central coast.
(SFC, 10/18/16, p.A2)
2017 Oct 17, A federal judge in Hawaii blocked Pres. Trump’s revised travel order, saying the policy has the same problems as a previous version. A second US judge ordered a freeze on Trump's newest travel ban order, saying it was essentially targeted at Muslims in violation of the US Constitution.
(AP, 10/17/17)(AFP, 10/18/17)
2017 Oct 17, The US Justice Dept. announced the indictment of Xiaobang Yan (40) and Jian Zhang (38) of China on charges of manufacturing tons of fentanyl and other powerful narcotics that were then peddled in the US. Chances were slim that the men would be brought ot the US to face the charges.
(SFC, 10/18/17, p.A4)
2017 Oct 17, US and Japanese diplomats agreed to maximize pressure on North Korea to resolve tensions over its nuclear program.
(AP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, Thousands of files from the US Embassy in Jakarta covering 1963-66 were made public after a declassification review that began under the Obama administration. They revealed new details of US government knowledge and support of an Indonesian army extermination campaign that killed several hundred thousand civilians during anti-communist hysteria in the mid-1960s.
(AP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, In South Carolina Timothy Johnson (24) was shot and killed by a boy (3). Albert Davis (31) was soon charged with murder for giving the boy a gun and telling him to chase a man around the yard of a home in Warrenville.
(SFC, 10/19/17, p.A4)
2017 Oct 17, In Afghanistan the Taliban unleashed a wave of attacks across the country, targeting police compounds and government facilities with suicide bombers in the country's south, east and west, and killing at least 74 people.
(AP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, In Argentina the body of indigenous rights activist Santiago Maldonado (28), last seen on Aug. 1 being detained by paramilitary police, was found entangled in roots in the bed of a river that traverses ancestral lands sold to Italian businessman Luciano Benetton but is claimed by the Mapuche.
(AFP, 10/28/17)
2017 Oct 17, Britain’s Home Office in London said 80,393 hate crimes were reported during the 12 months to march of this year, an increase of nearly 30% over last year.
(SFC, 10/18/17, p.A2)
2017 Oct 17, Gord Downie (53), who made himself part of Canada's national identity with songs about hockey and small towns as lead singer and songwriter of iconic rock band The Tragically Hip, died after a battle with brain cancer.
(AP, 10/18/17)
2017 Oct 17, Chinese authorities reportedly released Gui Minhai, a China-born Swedish bookseller. Gui was abducted in Thailand while on holiday in 2015 after publishing books on the personal lives of President Xi Jinping and other Communist Party leaders.
(AP, 10/24/17)
2017 Oct 17, Officials said an EU-funded project that provides cash assistance to the most vulnerable refugee families in Turkey has reached 1 million beneficiaries a year after its launch.
(AP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, Ghana and Ivory Coast set up a body to implement an international tribunal ruling on their dispute over a border running through multibillion dollar offshore oilfields.
(Reuters, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, The Indian government ordered diesel generators and a power plant in Delhi to be shut down as air quality in the capital deteriorated ahead of the Hindu festival of lights, when a night of firecrackers sends pollution levels rocketing.
(Reuters, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, In Indonesia Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (APRIL) suspended forestry operations at its pulp and paper subsidiary after the government canceled a long-term work plan citing environmental non-compliance.
(Reuters, 10/21/17)
2017 Oct 17, The Baghdad government recaptured territory from Kurds across the breadth of northern Iraq, making startlingly rapid gains in a sudden campaign that has shifted the balance of power in the country almost overnight.
(AP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, Israeli authorities advanced plans for 1,292 settler homes in a new push by PM Benjamin Netanyahu's government to expand settlements in the occupied West Bank.
(AP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, A Japanese military helicopter carrying four crewmembers lost radar contact while on a nighttime search and rescue flight training mission in central Japan and is feared to have crashed.
(AP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga said he was suspending a protest campaign after three people were shot dead in demonstrations against the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).
(AP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, The Libyan capital's Mitiga airport was evacuated and civilian flights were repeatedly suspended as rival armed groups clashed nearby.
(Reuters, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, In Nigeria Rev. Maurizio Pallu was released late today, five days after being kidnapped in Benin City.
(AP, 10/18/17)
2017 Oct 17, Norwegian solar panel maker Saga Energy signed a deal worth 2.5 billion euros ($2.9 billion) with Iran's state-owned company Amin Energy Developers to build solar power plants.
(AP, 10/18/17)
2017 Oct 17, In Pakistan two suspected US drone strikes killed 11 people on the mountainous Pakistan-Afghanistan border, following a strike a day earlier that killed 20.
(Reuters, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, Philippine soldiers fought to gain control of the last pocket of Marawi controlled by Islamic militants as President Rodrigo Duterte declared the southern city liberated from "terrorist influence".
(AP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, In Warsaw Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with his Polish counterpart, his first official bilateral visit to an EU country since the failed 2016 coup in Turkey. President Andrzej Duda said he hopes Turkey will eventually join the EU. They discussed defense cooperation through NATO, and the issue of energy as both countries count on coal for part of their energy needs.
(AFP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, Overnight rain and calmer winds helped firefighters tame a spate of deadly wildfires that broke out over the weekend, devouring homes and killing 37 people in Portugal and another four in northern Spain.
(AFP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman ordered the establishment of an authority to scrutinize uses of the "hadith" - accounts of the sayings, actions or habits of the Prophet that are used by preachers and jurists to support teachings and edicts on all aspects of life. The body would be chaired by Sheikh Mohammed bin Hassan al-Sheikh, a member of the Council of Senior Scholars, which serves as Saudi Arabia's highest religious body.
(AP, 10/18/17)
2017 Oct 17, South African President Jacob Zuma sacked a vocal critic from his cabinet, a move set to deepen tensions before the ANC chooses a new party leader in December. Zuma dropped higher education minister Blade Nzimande, a veteran member of the South African Communist Party, a key political ally within the ruling ANC alliance.
(AFP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, Spain's top court officially ruled that Catalonia's disputed independence referendum was illegal because a regional law that backed it was against the constitution. Catalonia refused to bow to the government's demand that it renounce its declaration of independence, setting it on a political collision course with Madrid later this week.
(AP, 10/17/17)(Reuters, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, In Spain an F18 fighter jet crashed on takeoff at a military base near Madrid, killing the pilot. This was the second time a military plane has come down in Spain in a week.
(AFP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, In northern Syria US-backed forces said they have captured Raqqa, once the seat of power for the Islamic State group, after a grueling four-month battle that left the city in ruins.
(AP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, In Togo two teenagers and two soldiers were killed during clashes in Sokode that followed the arrest of a local imam who is close to the opposition Panafrican National Party (PNP).
(AFP, 10/18/17)
2017 Oct 17, In southern Turkey a bomb exploded as a bus carrying police was passing by in Mersin.
(AP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, In Turkey seven miners were killed and another was missing after part of a coal mine collapsed in the southeastern province of Sirnak.
(Reuters, 10/17/17)
2018 Oct 17, The US Treasury imposed sanctions on an Iraq-based money services business, Afaq Dubai, believed to be moving funds for the Islamic State militant group.
(Reuters, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan had made clear in talks in Ankara that Saudi officials were cooperating with Turkey's investigation into missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
(Reuters, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis visited a former American air base in southern Vietnam that will soon become the biggest-ever US cleanup site for contamination left by the defoliant Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.
(Reuters, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, It was reported that six to ten sea lions suffering from leptospirosis were being received on a daily basis at the Marine Mammal Center in the Marin Headlands of northern California. Veterinarians have treated 220 sea lions so far this year.
(SFC, 10/17/18, p.A1)
2018 Oct 17, In North Carolina state Trooper Kevin Conner was shot and killed during a traffic stop in Columbus County. Raheem Cole Dashanell Davis (20) was soon charged first-degree murder. On October 22 a polcie offi8cer shot and killed Tafahree Maynard
(SFC, 10/18/18, p.A5)
2018 Oct 17, In Pennsylvania Rev. David Lee Poulson (65) of Oil City admitted that he sexually abused children and pleaded guilty to corruption of minors and child endangerment.
(SFC, 10/18/18, p.A9)
2018 Oct 17, Twitter said that it had identified 3,841 accounts affiliated with the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, a Russian “troll farm" that has been indicted by US Special Counsel Robert Mueller for attempts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.
(Reuters, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, In Afghanistan the Taliban attacked checkpoints in the northern Baghlan province, killing six policemen and wounding two others in a four-hour battle. A suicide car bomber targeted a military vehicle, killing two army troops in eastern Maidan Wardak province. A bomb accidently detonated inside a local Taliban commander's home in western Herat province, killing five people.
(AP, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, Bahrain began hosting a four-day meeting of the Green Climate Fund's board. The UN-backed fund to help poor countries tackle climate change met following the recent resignation of its director and a shortfall in contributions from rich nations.
(AP, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, Canada became the first industrialized nation to legalize recreational cannabis, but a lawful buzz will be hard to come by in its biggest cities like Toronto and Vancouver, which will have no stores open.
(Reuters, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, In Russian-annexed Crimea 20 people were killed and dozens more wounded, most of them teenagers, after a student opened fire at the Kerch Polytechnical College. Investigators identified the attacker as Vladislav Roslyakov (18), a fourth-year student whose body was found "with a gunshot wound" on the premises.
(AFP, 10/17/18)(Reuters, 10/19/18)
2018 Oct 17, French Pres. Emmanuel Macron met with visiting Japanese PM Shinzo Abe to prepare next year's summits of the group of developing countries G-20 in Japan and the world's advanced economies G-7 in France.
(AP, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, The France-based Interpol police organization said coordinated police raids in 93 countries have netted more than 55 tons of drugs including a cocaine, heroin and millions of synthetic drug pills. 1,300 people in all were arrested in an operation codenamed Lionfish, and which took place between Sept. 17 and Oct. 8.
(Reuters, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, Greek PM Alexis Tsipras took over as foreign minister following the resignation of Nikos Kotzias, who quit amid reports of a growing rift with a coalition partner over a June 2018 deal with Macedonia to end the name dispute.
(Reuters, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, In Haiti at least two people were killed and dozens injured during large protests over alleged misuse of government funds.
(AP, 10/18/18)
2018 Oct 17, In India conservative Hindu groups prevented women from entering an Indian hill temple, in defiance of India's top court which says a centuries-long ban at the holy site is illegal.
(Reuters, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, Indian government junior minister M.J. Akbar resigned to fight accusations of sexual harassment from more than a dozen women during his previous career as a journalist.
(Reuters, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, Anti-India protests and clashes erupted in the main city in disputed Kashmir after a gunbattle between militants and government forces killed at least two rebels.
(AP, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit a house in in Beersheba, the largest city in southern Israel early today, prompting Israeli air strikes that killed a militant in the Palestinian enclave.
(Reuters, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, Jordan said a group of 279 Syrian rescue workers have left the kingdom for resettlement in Western countries three months after they were evacuated from Israel.
(AFP, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, Norway's government officially apologized to Norwegian women targeted for reprisals by authorities for having intimate relations with German soldiers during the country's war-time occupation.
(AP, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, In Pakistan Mohammad Imran, a man convicted of killing eight children, was executed at a prison early today after the country's top court rejected a request for his public hanging.
(AP, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, A Peruvian judge freed conservative opposition leader Keiko Fujimori from jail where she spent the past week pending charges in a money laundering probe.
(Reuters, 10/18/18)
2018 Oct 17, Slovakia's defense ministry said the country will keep its military presence in Iraq after the government approved a plan to deploy up to 42 soldiers there next year to help train Iraqi security forces as part of a NATO mission.
(AP, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, Francisco Tejon, leader of the "Los Castanas" clan and one of Spain's most-wanted drug traffickers, was arrested in Cadiz province after seeming to taunt police by appearing in a music video.
(AFP, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, Moldova's President Igor Dodon met with visiting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The two-day visit aimed at boosting political and trade ties with the former Soviet republic.
(AP, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, A landslide in Tibet blocked the flow of one of the region's key rivers, creating a lake that could endanger downstream areas in India. Chinese emergency services evacuated about 6,000 people in the region.
(AP, 10/18/18)
2018 Oct 17, UN agencies called for an end to the practice in some countries of determining whether a girl or woman is a virgin through gynecological testing.
(SFC, 10/18/18, p.A2)
2018 Oct 17, The Vietnamese dissident known as "Mother Mushroom" was released from prison and left Vietnam on a flight to the United States. Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh was serving a 10-year sentence for anti-state propaganda.
(Reuters, 10/17/18)
2019 Oct 17, The US and Turkey agreed to a five-day cease-fire in the Turks' deadly attacks on Kurdish fighters in northern Syria. Tts effect was largely to mitigate a foreign policy crisis widely seen to be of Pres. Trump's own making.
(AP, 10/18/19)
2019 Oct 17, White House acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney told reporters that Trump's decision to withhold $391 million in aid to Ukraine was linked to his desire for an investigation by Kiev into a debunked theory that a Democratic National Committee (DNC) computer server was held in Ukraine. The comments, which he later sought to walk back, seemed to undermine the core arguments that Trump and his advisers have made against the effort to oust him from office.
(Reuters, 10/18/19)
2019 Oct 17, US Congressman Elijah Cummings (68), D-Md., died of complications from what his office called “longstanding health challenges".
(Yahoo News, 10/17/19)
2019 Oct 17, The US Marines said in a statement that after questions were raised by private historians who studied photos and films, it determined that Cpl. Harold P. Keller (d.1979) was among the six men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima in 1945. The Marines say Pfc. Rene Gagnon had helped in the effort but for decades was mistakenly identified by the Marines as one of the flag-raisers.
(AP, 10/17/19)
2019 Oct 17, In Alaska a commuter plane carrying 42 people overshot a runway in Unalaska. One of two passengers, who suffered critical injuries, soon died.
(SFC, 10/19/19, p.A6)
2019 Oct 17, Teachers in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) system picketed outside of schools during their first day of a strike after protracted labor negotiations between the union and district leadership failed to produce a deal.
(Reuters, 10/17/19)
2019 Oct 17, New York's City Council approved a proposal for an extensive overhaul of the city's corrections system at a cost of over $8 billion.
(SFC, 10/18/19, p.A8)
2019 Oct 17, A wind storm, described by meteorologists as a "bomb cycle," swept the East Coast of the US leaving more than 500,000 customers without power.
(SFC, 10/18/19, p.A7)
2019 Oct 17, Scientists said fossils found in Morocco suggest the practice of forming orderly lines may date back 480 million years and could have had evolutionary advantages. Their study described groups of blind trilobites — known as Ampyx — all facing in the same direction, apparently maintaining contact via their long rearward spines.
(AP, 10/17/19)
2019 Oct 17, Britain and the European Union reached a new divorce deal that could allow Brexit on October 31, but faced immediate opposition among MPs in London -- who can still block it. British lawmakers approved the government's plan to hold a special sitting of parliament Oct. 19 to vote on PM Boris Johnson's Brexit deal.
(AFP, 10/17/19)(Reuters, 10/17/19)
2019 Oct 17, Britain's Intelligence and Security Committee sent a report to PM Boris Johnson on possible Russian interference in UK elections. The report required government approval before being made public.
(SFC, 11/6/19, p.A2)
2019 Oct 17, Climate-change activists of Extinction Rebellion disrupted rail services in London, sparking a clash between angry commuters and a protester who had climbed onto the roof of a London Underground train during rush hour.
(Reuters, 10/17/19)
2019 Oct 17, Bulgaria's broadcast regulator sacked the chief of the country's public radio, BNR, for taking its news channel off the air for hours last month in a row with a popular presenter known for her coverage of the graft-prone judicial system.
(Reuters, 10/17/19)
2019 Oct 17, In China Sophia Huang Xueqin, a freelance journalist who lived in the southern city of Guangzhou, was detained there on suspicion of "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble", a charge often used by authorities to detain activists. Huang was recently in Hong Kong reporting on anti-government protests.
(Reuters, 10/24/19)
2019 Oct 17, In Cuba Alicia Alonso (b.1920), founder the National Ballet of Cuba (1959), died in Havana.
(SFC, 10/18/19, p.C9)
2019 Oct 17, Germany slashed its growth outlook for next year, saying it expects trade conflicts, Brexit and other sources of uncertainty abroad to continue weighing on an economy that remains buttressed by domestic strength.
(AFP, 10/17/19)
2019 Oct 17, Iraq's foreign minister said his country will only take back its own citizens and their families who fought with the Islamic State group in Syria, not those from other countries.
(AP, 10/17/19)
2019 Oct 17, In Mexico cartel gunmen surrounded security forces in the northwestern city of Culiacan, Sinaloa state, and made them free Ovidio Guzman, the son of jailed kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. His brief capture, following a federal US warrant, triggered gun battles and a jailbreak that stunned the country. At least eight people were reported killed, including five suspected gang members.
(Reuters, 10/18/19)(SFC, 10/19/19, p.A4)
2019 Oct 17, Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) said it could not support PM Boris Johnson's Brexit agreement with the European Union, complicating his task of getting it approved by parliament.
(Reuters, 10/17/19)
2019 Oct 17, A Palestinian court blocked access to 59 websites critical of the Palestinian Authority. The decision was made public on Oct. 21 and drew wide criticism. Most of the sites are run by supporters of the Islamic militant group Hamas or Mohammed Dahlan, rivals to President Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas' government called on the attorney general to overturn the decision.
(AP, 10/22/19)
2019 Oct 17, Humanitarian groups in northeastern Syria scrambled to provide aid to hundreds of thousands of people as rapidly shifting battle lines made it increasingly difficult to reach them.
(AP, 10/17/19)
2019 Oct 17, A new UN report said an "unprecedented" number of civilians were killed or wounded in Afghanistan from July to September this year.
(AFP, 10/17/19)
2019 Oct 17, Venezuela won a contested election for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council despite a campaign by over 50 organizations and many countries opposed to Nicolas Maduro's government and its rights record. The 193-member world body elected 14 members to the 47-member Human Rights Council for three-year terms starting Jan. 1. Under its rules, seats are allocated to regions to ensure geographical representation.
(AP, 10/18/19)
2020 Oct 17, Women’s March protesters took to the streets in Washington DC, galvanized by their opposition to Mr. Trump and his nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. The march was met with a counterprotest in support of Judge Barrett.
(NY Times, 10/18/20)
2020 Oct 17, Early US voting continued to break records, with more than 26 million people having cast their ballots in the presidential election as of today.
(The Week, 10/18/20)
2020 Oct 17, A free speech demonstration staged by conservative activists quickly fell apart in downtown San Francisco after several hundred counter protesters surged the area, outnumbering and attacking those gathered, including knocking one in the mouth.
(AP, 10/17/20)
2020 Oct 17, California to date had 871,656 cases of coronavirus and 16,908 deaths. The SF Bay Area had 110,703 cases and 1,680 deaths. Total cases nationwide reached over 8,069,856 with the death toll at 218,812.
(sfist.com, 10/17/20)
2020 Oct 17, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone performed a short exorcism ceremony outside a Catholic church where protesters had earlier toppled a statue of Father Junipero Serra, saying the ceremony was intended to drive out evil and defend the image of Serra.
(AP, 10/17/20)
2020 Oct 17, Bob Biggs (74) founder of Slash Records (1979), one of the most successful independent record labels of its era, died of Lewy body dementia at his ranch in Tehachapi, Ca.
(NY Times, 10/29/20)
2020 Oct 17, In Colorado the CalWood Fire began burning about 50 miles southeast of the Cameron Peak Fire, the largest in state history.
(The Week, 10/19/20)
2020 Oct 17, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) slammed President Trump for his "rhetoric" after he took aim at her during his rally in the state.
(The Week, 10/18/20)
2020 Oct 17, Ashley Louise Ricks (33) was driving on Interstate 40 in the wrong direction near El Reno, Oklahoma, just after midnight, when she crashed head-on into another car. She was under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the crash. The crash led to the deaths of four members of a California family. In 2022 She was sentenced to four 30-years-to-life sentences that she will serve concurrently.
(Fox News, 1/9/22)
2020 Oct 17, Austria reported 1,747 coronavirus infections in the past 24 hours, a new record.
(Reuters, 10/17/20)
2020 Oct 17, Azerbaijan accused Armenia of striking its second-largest city with a ballistic missile that killed at least 13 civilians and wounded 50 others in a new escalation of their conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijani officials said the Soviet-made Scud missile destroyed or damaged about 20 residential buildings in Ganja overnight. Pres. Ilham Aliyev announced that Azerbaijani forces have taken the town of Fizuli and seven villages around it.
(AP, 10/17/20)
2020 Oct 17, A new cease-fire agreement was announced between Armenia and Azerbaijan, effective at midnight, following Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s calls with his counterparts, in which he strongly urged them to abide by the Moscow deal.
(AP, 10/18/20)
2020 Oct 17, The Standing Committee of China's congress passed amendments to a law that will criminalize the intentional insulting of the national flag and emblem. The law will take effect on January 1.
(SSFC, 10/18/20, p.A5)
2020 Oct 17, Egyptian authorities released comedian Shady Abu Zaid, who was working for a popular satirical television program, after more than two years in prison without trial. He must still report to a police station twice a week as part of his terms of release.
(AP, 10/18/20)
2020 Oct 17, Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Germans to come together like they did in the spring to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The country's disease control center, the Robert Koch Institute, reported 7,830 cases overnight, a new record.
(AP, 10/17/20)
2020 Oct 17, Iran announced that its death toll from the coronavirus has passed the milestone of 30,000, in what has been the Mideast region's worst outbreak. More than 526,000 confirmed cases to date. The death toll reached at least 30,123.
(AP, 10/17/20)
2020 Oct 17, Thousands of Israelis demonstrated outside the official residence of PM Benjamin Netanyahu late today, resuming the weekly protest against the Israeli leader after emergency restrictions imposed as part of a coronavirus lockdown were lifted.
(AP, 10/17/20)
2020 Oct 17, Italy registered a record 10,925 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours. There were also 47 COVID-related deaths. Total fatalities reached 36,427.
(AP, 10/17/20)
2020 Oct 17, The house of former Ivory Coast PM Pascal Affi Nguessan was burned down in his stronghold of Bongouanou during clashes less than two weeks before bitterly contested elections.
(BBC, 10/18/20)
2020 Oct 17, New Zealand held elections. PM Jacinda Ardern (40) won a second term in office in an election landslide of historic proportions. With most votes counted, Ardern's liberal Labour Party was winning 49% of the vote compared to 27% for its main challenger, the conservative National Party. New Zealanders voted to legalize euthanasia in a binding referendum, but preliminary results released on Oct. 30 showed they likely would not legalize recreational marijuana use.
(AP, 10/17/20)(AP, 10/30/20)
2020 Oct 17, It was reported that the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and Dr Reddy's Laboratories Ltd have received renewed approval to conduct late-stage clinical trials in India of Sputnik V, the Russian COVID-19 vaccine.
(Reuters, 10/17/20)
2020 Oct 17, Pro-democracy activists in Thailand staged a fourth straight day of high-profile protests in Bangkok, thwarting efforts by the authorities to stop them, including a shutdown of the city's mass transit systems.
(AP, 10/17/20)
2020 Oct 17, Ukraine registered a record 6,410 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, up from a previous record of 5,992 reported a day earlier. 109 patients had died in the past 24 hours, the highest daily toll since the start of the pandemic. A total of 293,641 cases had been registered in Ukraine as of today, with 5,517 deaths.
(Reuters, 10/17/20)
2020 Oct 17, Pope Francis permanently removed Polish bishop Edward Janiak (68) following a probe into allegations he covered up cases of sexual abus by his priests in Kalisz.
(SSFC, 10/18/20, p.A5)
2021 Oct 17, Total US COVID-19 cases reached over 44,928,323 with the death toll at 724,281.
(sfist.com, 10/18/21)
2021 Oct 17, Britain reported 45,140 new cases of COVID-19, the highest daily number since the middle of July, and 57 new deaths within 28 days of a positive test.
(Reuters, 10/17/21)
2021 Oct 17, Milan and Costa Rica were among the winners of the Earthshot Prize, an environmental award created by Britain's Prince William, who has criticized world leaders for an uninspiring response to the climate change crisis.
(Reuters, 10/18/21)
2021 Oct 17, In the Canary Islands 42 seismic movements were recorded on the island of la Palma, the largest of which measured 4.3. President Angel Víctor Torres said there is no immediate end in sight to the volcanic eruption that has caused chaos on the island.
(Reuters, 10/17/21)
2021 Oct 17, Cape Verde voted for a new president who faces the task of stabilizing its tourism-driven economy after the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Opposition candidate and former prime minister Jose Maria Neves (61) won Cape Verde's presidential election. His main rival, the ruling party's flagbearer Carlos Veiga, conceded defeat.
(Reuters, 10/17/21)(Reuters, 10/18/21)
2021 Oct 17, The People's Bank of China Governor Yi Gang said China's economy is "doing well", but faces challenges such as default risks for certain firms due to "mismanagement".
(Reuters, 10/17/21)
2021 Oct 17, In El Salvador thousands of people took to the streets in protest against President Nayib Bukele who has stoked concern that he is steadily concentrating power.
(Reuters, 10/17/21)
2021 Oct 17, Egypt's government said that as of Nov. 15 it require public servants to have a vaccination certificate or show a weekly negative COVID-19 test before entering their workplaces.
(AP, 10/18/21)
2021 Oct 17, Italians began voting in a two-day run-off for the local governments of 65 large cities and smaller towns, including the capital Rome.
(Reuters, 10/17/21)
2021 Oct 17, Kyodo news agency reported that Japan's new PM Fumio Kishida sent a ritual offering to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine for war dead for the autumn festival, prompting the South Korean government to express "disappointment".
(Reuters, 10/17/21)
2021 Oct 17, In northern Nigeria gunmen killed at least 30 people in an attack on a market in Goronyo, Sokoto state.
(Reuters, 10/18/21)
2021 Oct 17, In Poland thousands of protesters marched in two cities in solidarity with migrants and asylum-seekers at the Poland-Belarus border who have been pushed back by Polish authorities.
(SFC, 10/18/21, p.A4)
2021 Oct 17, A Russian actor and a film director making the first move film in space returned to Earth after spending 12 days on the International Space Station (ISS).
(Reuters, 10/17/21)
2021 Oct 17, A Tunisian court ordered lawmaker Mehdi Ben Gharbia to be detained over suspected tax fraud and money laundering - the fourth parliamentarian to be taken into custody since President Kais Saied seized near total control of the country in July.
(Reuters, 10/17/21)
2021 Oct 17, Tunisian officials said at least two migrants died and 21 have disappeared after their boat capsized off the Tunisian coast in the Mediterranean Sea. 7 people were rescued.
(AP, 10/17/21)
2021 Oct 17, The Organization for Security and Cooperation on Europe (OSCE) said it has suspended its monitoring mission in eastern Ukraine following protests near its headquarters in separatist-controlled Donetsk.
(Reuters, 10/17/21)
2021 Oct 17, The United Arab Emirates recorded a drop in daily COVID-19 cases to below 100 for the first time since the start of the outbreak last year as it hosts a huge world fair to which it hopes to attract millions of visits.
(Reuters, 10/17/21)
2021 Oct 17, Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi movement said it has seized new territory in the energy-rich provinces of Shabwa and Marib, gains confirmed by sources, as it presses an offensive likely to further complicate international peace efforts. Rebels continued their weekslong blockade of a district in the central province of Marib, cutting off humanitarian aid and halting movement of its 37,000 people.
(Reuters, 10/17/21)(AP, 10/17/21)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Go to October 18
Return to home
For Asian History: https://www.asiaobserver.org/category/news/on-this-day-in-asian-history
532 Oct 17, Boniface II, 1st "German" Pope, died.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1244 Oct 17, The Sixth Crusade ended when an Egyptian-Khwarismian force almost annihilated the Frankish army at Gaza.
(HN, 10/17/98)
1346 Oct 17, English forces defeated the Scots under David II during the Battle of Neville's Cross, Scotland.
(HN, 10/17/98)
1483 Oct 17, The Reverend Dr. Tomas de Torquemada (1420-1498), the Grand Inquisitor of Castile, had his jurisdiction extended to Aragon.
(www.newadvent.org/cathen/14783a.htm)
1492 Oct 17, Columbus sighted the isle of San Salvador (Watling Island, Bahamas).
(http://tinyurl.com/774v3)
1529 Oct 17, Henry VIII of England stripped Thomas Wolsey of his office for failing to secure an annulment of his marriage.
(HN, 10/17/98)
1577 Oct 17, Cristofano Allori, Italian painter (Judith), was born.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1586 Oct 17, Philip Sidney (b.1554), English poet and diplomat, died in battle at 32. His work included “Astrophel and Stella" and “Defense of Poesy." In 2002 Alan Stewart authored “Philip Sidney: A Double Life."
(MC, 10/17/01)(SSFC, 1/20/02, p.M4)
1587 Oct 17, Francesco de' Medici (46) died 11 days after he fell ill and a few hours before his wife. In 2007 forensic experts reported evidence that they had died of arsenic poisoning. Francesco had ruled from 1574. By all accounts his wife had been his mistress while he was married to his first wife, who is also believed to have died of poisoning.
(AP, 1/3/07)
1651 Oct 17, Future King Charles II fled from England. [see Oct 15]
(MC, 10/17/01)
1691 Oct 17, Maine and Plymouth were incorporated in Massachusetts.
(HN, 10/17/98)
1707 Oct 17, German composer Johann S. Bach married his niece Maria Bach.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1725 Oct 17, John Wilkes (d.1797), English journalist, was born. He became a MP, Lord Mayor of London and called for independence of Britain's American colonies.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wilkes)
1739 Oct 17, King George II granted Thomas Coram, retired sea captain, a royal charter to establish "a hospital for the reception, maintenance and education of exposed and deserted young children."
(ON, 9/02, p.8)
1777 Oct 17, General John Burgoyne with British forces of 5,000 men surrendered to General Horatio Gates, commander of the American forces at Schuylerville, NY. In the fall of 1777, the British commander Gen'l. Burgoyne and his men were advancing along the Hudson River. After Burgoyne had retreated to the heights of Saratoga, the Americans stopped and surrounded them. The surrender was a turning point in the American Revolution, demonstrating American determination to gain independence. After the surrender, France sided with the Americans, and other countries began to get involved and align themselves against Britain.
(AP, 10/17/97)(HN, 10/17/98)(HNPD, 10/17/99)(SSFC, 6/30/02, p.C10)
1805 Oct 17, Vice Adm. Horatio Nelson wrote a letter to the governor, Rear Admiral John Knight just four days before the historic Battle of Trafalgar, in which Nelson was killed. In it Nelson declared he was "anxious for an Easterly wind," as that would encourage the enemy to leave port and finally face the British.
(Reuters, 7/13/10)
1806 Oct 17, Jean-Jacques Dessalines (b.1758), Emp. Jacques I of Haiti, was assassinated.
(www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/168.html)
1807 Oct 17, Britain declared it would continue to reclaim British-born sailors from American ships and ports regardless of whether they held US citizenship.
(AP, 10/17/07)
1808 Oct 17, The political rights of Jews was suspended in Duchy of Warsaw.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1813 Oct 17, Georg Buchner, German playwright (Danton's Death, Woyzeck), was born.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1814 Oct 17, Two giant porter vats at the Horse Shoe Brewery on London’s Tottenham Court Road burst when the securing hoops failed. The 25-foot-high vats were owned by Sir Henry Meux and. Several lives were lost along with an estimated 8,000-9,000 barrels of porter.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meux%27s_Brewery)(http://tinyurl.com/2v43jm)
1815 Oct 17, Napoleon (d.1821) arrived in St. Helena.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1821 Oct 17, Alexander Gardner, American photographer, was born. He documented the Civil War and the West.
(HN, 10/17/00)
1821 Oct 17, The Gambia became administered as a crown colony from Sierra Leone. Since then Banjul (Bathurst) has been its capital.
(http://www.vdiest.nl/gambia.htm)
1825 Oct 17, Franz Liszt's operetta Don Sanche premiered in Paris
(MC, 10/17/01)
1829 Oct 17, Delaware River and Chesapeake Bay Canal formally opened. The Chesapeake-Delaware Canal was 14 miles long.
(NG, Sept., 1939, p.379)(MC, 10/17/01)
1829 Oct 17, Sam Patch (~23), stunt diver, successfully dove 120 feet from a platform on Goat Island at Niagara Falls.
(MC, 11/13/01)(ON, 4/02, p.6)
1831 Oct 17, Felix Mendelssohn's 1st Piano concert in G premiered.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1837 Oct 17, Austrian composer Johan Nepomuk Hummel (b.1778) died in Weimar, Germany. His music reflects the transition from the Classical to the Romantic musical era.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Nepomuk_Hummel)
1849 Oct 17, Composer and pianist Frederic Chopin died in Paris of tuberculosis at the age of 39. The 1945 film “A Song to Remember" was about Chopin."
(HN, 10/17/00)(SFC, 11/25/02, p.A15)
1855 Oct 17, The Bessemer steel making process was patented.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1859 Oct 17, Childe Hassam (d.1935), American impressionist painter, etcher and illustrator, was born. His work included "St. Patrick's Day."
(WUD, 1994, p.649)(HN, 10/17/00)
1860 Oct 17, The British Open was 1st held at the Prestwick Golf Club in Scotland. The prize was a red leather belt with a silver buckle. The belt was retired in 1872 and replaced with a silver claret jug.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Championship)(WSJ, 7/21/00, p.W9)
1862 Oct 17, Battle of Leetown and Thoroughfare Gap, Va.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1863 Oct 17, General Ulysses S. Grant was named overall Union Commander of the West. [see Oct 16]
(HN, 10/17/98)
1864 Oct 17, Elinor Glyn, British novelist (3 Weeks), was born.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1871 Oct 17, President Grant suspended writ of habeas corpus in South Carolina in response to violence by the KKK. It applied to all arrests made by US marshals and federal troops in nine of the state’s western counties. By the end of November some 600 arrests were made.
(AH, 6/03, p.31)
1876 Oct 17, Henry Morton Stanley's expedition (to find the source of the Congo River) reached the Lualaba River.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1877 Oct 17, Brigadier General Alfred Terry met with Sitting Bull in Canada to discuss the Indians' return to the United States.
(HN, 10/17/99)
1883 Oct 17, A.S. Neill, British headmaster (Summerhill), was born.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1894 Oct 17, Ohio national guard killed 3 lynchers while rescuing a black man.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1895 Oct 17, Doris Humphrey, modern dance choreographer, was born.
(HN, 10/17/00)
1898 Oct 17, Shinichi Suzuki (d.1998), music teacher, was born.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1903 Oct 17, Nathanael West, novelist and screenwriter, was born. His work included “Miss Lonely Hearts" and “The Day of the Locust."
(HN, 10/17/00)
1904 Oct 17, Amadeo Peter Giannini (d.1949) founded the Bank of Italy, the predecessor to the Bank of America, on the Montgomery block in SF.
(SFC, 4/14/98, p.B4)(SSFC, 10/24/04, Par p.5)
1907 Oct 17, Guglielmo Marconi began offering limited commercial wireless telegraph service between Nova Scotia and Ireland.
(AP, 10/17/07)
1910 Oct 17, Julia Ward Howe, prominent American abolitionist, social activist, poet, died at her home in Rhode Island. She was the author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic". In 2016 Elaine Showalter authored “The Civil Wars of Julia Ward Howe. A Biography."
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Ward_Howe)(Econ, 2/20/15, p.74)
1912 Oct 17, John Paul I, [Albino Luciano], 263rd Roman Catholic pope (1978), was born.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1912 Oct 17, Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia declared war on Turkey. [see Oct 18]
(MC, 10/17/01)
1913 Oct 17, Zeppelin LII exploded over London, killing 28.
(HN, 10/17/98)
1914 Oct 17, John Mosely, recording expert and entrepreneur, was born.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1915 Oct 17, Arthur Miller, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, was born. His work included "Death of a Salesman" and "A View from the Bridge." In 2003 Martin Gottfried authored "Arthur Miller: His Life and Work."
(HN, 10/17/00)(SSFC, 9/28/03, p.M2)
1917 Oct 17, The 1st British bombing of Germany took place.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1918 Oct 17, Rita Hayworth, American actress, was born.
(HN, 10/17/98)
1918 Oct 17, The Hungarian Parliament terminated the union with Austria and declared the independence of the country.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_Austria-Hungary)
1918 Oct 17, Anton Dilger (B.1884), an American saboteur educated as a surgeon in Germany, died of Spanish flu in Spain. [see 1916] In 2007 Robert Koenig authored “The Fourth Horseman: One Man’s Mission to Wage the Great War in America."
(SSFC, 1/14/07, p.M2)
1918 Oct 17, Yugoslavia proclaimed itself a republic.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1919 Oct 17, The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) was chartered.
(AP, 10/17/08)
1920 Oct 17, Montgomery Clift, actor (From Here to Eternity), was born in Omaha, Neb.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1930 Oct 17, Jimmy Breslin, columnist and novelist (NY Post, News, Newsday), was born in Queens, NYC.
(HN, 10/17/00)
1931 Oct 17, Mobster Al Capone was convicted of income tax evasion and sentenced to 11 years in prison. He was released in 1939.
(AP, 10/17/97)
1933 Oct 17, Hugh Bancroft, president of Dow Jones & Co., died.
(www.nndb.com/people/348/000159868/)
1933 Oct 17, Due to rising anti-Semitism and anti-intellectualism in Hitler's Germany, Albert Einstein immigrated to the United States. He made his new home in Princeton, N.J.
(AP, 10/17/97)(HN, 10/17/98)
1934 Oct 17, "The Aldrich Family" premiered on radio.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1934 Oct 17, "Handsome" Harry Pierpont, bank robber, was executed in the electric chair in Columbus, Ohio, for the murder of Sheriff Jesse Sarber.
(Internet)
1938 Oct 17, Evel Knievel (d. Nov 30, 2007) was born as Robert Craig "Evel" Knievel, Jr. He became a US daredevil motorcycle stunt man, showman, entertainer, Member Motorcycle Hall of Fame and Guinness World Record Holder.
(HN, 10/17/98) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_Kneivel)
1939 Oct 17, Frank Capra's comedy-drama "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" premiered in the nation's capital.
(AP, 10/17/99)
1940 Oct 17, California Gov. Culbert Olson commuted the prison sentence of Warren K. Billings, who spent 23 years in prison for his alleged role in the July 22, 1916, Preparedness Day bombing in San Francisco.
(SSFC, 1/4/15, DB p.42)
1941 Oct 17, The U.S. destroyer Kearney was damaged by a German U-boat torpedo off Iceland; 11 people were killed.
(AP, 10/17/08)
1941 Oct 17, Gen’l. Hideki Toho (1885-1948) became Premier and Minister of War in Japan. When the bellicose war minister and most powerful man in Japan, Army General Hideki Tojo, became prime minister, there no longer was a chance of avoiding war with Britain and the United States.
(WUD, 1944, p.1683)(HN, 2/21/98)
1942 Oct 17, In Switzerland Eduard von Steiger, Justice Minister and minister of police, told leaders of the Swiss Fatherland Assoc. that the government had decided on a “fundamental slowing" of Jewish immigration.
(SFC, 6/10/98, p.a10)
1943 Oct 17, British Liberators sank U-540 and U-631.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1944 Oct 17 Hans Krasa, Czech-Jewish composer, died at Auschwitz. The opera Brundibar by Krasa was 1st performed at a Prague orphanage. It had been intended for a 1938 government competition. It was later performed at the Terezin concentration camp.
(WSJ, 2/7/03, p.D8)
1945 Oct 17, Col. Juan Peron, the future president of Argentina, was released from prison after protests by trade unionists, ending a crisis that began with his forced resignation from his government posts and his arrest.
(AP, 10/17/06)
1949 Oct 17, Liu Wencai (b.1887), Chinese landlord from Sichuan province, died. He was depicted as the archetype of the exploiter of peasant farmers.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Wencai)(Econ, 6/25/11, SR p.11)
1951 Oct 17, The Egyptian army fired on British troops.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1956 Oct 17, The all-star movie "Around the World in 80 Days," produced by Michael Todd, had its world premiere in New York.
(AP, 10/17/06)
1956 Oct 17, The nuclear power station Calder Hall was opened in Britain. Calder Hall was the first nuclear station to feed an appreciable amount of power into a civilian network. In 2007 engineers began the planned decommissioning of the plant.
(HN, 10/17/98)(AP, 9/29/07)
1957 Oct 17, The movie "Jailhouse Rock," starring Elvis Presley, had its world premiere in Memphis, Tenn.
(AP, 10/17/07)
1957 Oct 17, French author Albert Camus won the Nobel Prize in literature.
(AP, 10/17/97)
1957 Oct 17, Britain's Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip visited the White House.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1958 Oct 17, The special "An Evening with Fred Astaire," the first major TV program produced on color videotape, aired on NBC.
(AP, 10/17/08)
1960 Oct 17, A grand jury found that the popular television game show Twenty-One had provided contestants with questions and answers before the live programs were broadcast.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1961 Oct 17, NY Museum of Modern Art hung Henri Matisse's "Le Bateau" upside-down It wasn't corrected until December 3rd.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1961 Oct 17, Paris police beat and killed dozens of Algerian demonstrators and threw some bodies into the Seine. Police commander Maurice Papon said some 30 bodies had been recovered from the Seine but that they had been killed in fighting between rival Algerian nationalist groups. In 1999 France agreed to open its archives on the issue. Police killed 210 Algerians who were protesting against police oppression and the curfew imposed against their community in Paris. On Oct 17, 2011, Algeria's post office issued a new stamp to commemorate the massacre. French Pres. Emmanuel Macron acknowledged that crimes had been committed.
(WSJ, 5/5/98, p.A1)(SFC, 5/6/99, p.A15)(Econ, 2/24/07, p.99)(AFP, 10/17/11)(SFC, 10/18/21, p.A4)
1962 Oct 17, The SF Giants lost to the NY Yankees 1-0 in the 7th game of the
World Series at Candlestick Park.
(SSFC, 10/14/12, DB p.46)
1964 Oct 17, In San Francisco some 350,000 people came out for the Columbus Day Parade and to see Pres. Lyndon Johnson.
(SSFC, 10/12/14, DB p.42)
1965 Oct 17, The musical "On A Clear Day You Can See Forever," with a score by Burton Lane and book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, opened on Broadway.
(AP, 10/17/05)
1966 Oct 17, Wieland Wagner, German opera director and grandson of Richard Wagner, died.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1967 Oct 17, "Hair," subtitled The American Tribal Love/Rock Musical, premiered off Broadway at the Public Theater. It moved to the Biltmore Theater on Broadway on April 29, 1968, where it stayed for 1,873 performances.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_(musical))
1967 Oct 17, American forces of the black Lion battalion walked into an ambush set by NV commander Vo Minh Triet and 61 were killed. In 2003 David Maraniss authored "They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America," which centered on this battle and a protest in Wisconsin on Oct 18.
(Econ, 11/22/03, p.82)(SSFC, 12/28/03, p.M3)
1967 Oct 17, In Oakland, Ca., police clubbed a bloody path through some 2500 anti-war demonstrators who had closed down the Oakland Armed Forces Examining Station.
(SSFC, 10/15/17, DB p.50)
1967 Oct 17, Aisin-Gioro Henry Puyi (61), the last emperor of China, died of cancer. Official reports said his death occurred while under persecution from ultra-leftists of the Cultural Revolution.
(SFC, 6/11/97, p.C16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Puyi)
1972 Oct 17, Bob Randall's play "6 Rooms Riv Vu," premiered in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6_Rms_Riv_Vu)
1972 Oct 17, The European Communities Act, an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, legislated for the accession of the United Kingdom to the European Communities (EC).
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Communities_Act_1972_%28UK%29)
1972 Oct 17, Peace talks between Pathet Lao and Royal Lao government began in Vietnam.
(HN, 10/17/98)
1975 Oct 17, A UN committee passed a resolution saying "Zionism is a form of racism." The resolution was reversed in 1991.
(www.heritage.org/Research/InternationalOrganizations/bg851.cfm)(Econ, 4/25/09, p.62)
1977 Oct 17, West German commandos stormed a hijacked Lufthansa jetliner that was on the ground in Mogadishu, Somalia, freeing all 86 hostages and killing three of the four hijackers.
(AP, 10/17/97)
1978 Oct 17, President Carter signed a bill restoring U.S. citizenship to Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
(AP, 10/17/98)
1979 Oct 17, Mother Teresa of India, head of the Missionaries of Charity, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her years of work on behalf of the destitute in Calcutta.
(SFC, 3/14/97, p.A13)(AP, 10/17/97)
1979 Oct 17, Pres. Carter signed legislation creating Dept. of Education.
(www.jimmycarterlibrary.org/documents/jec/chron.phtml)
1979 Oct 17, S.J. Perelman (b.1904), American humorist and screenwriter (Around the World in 80 Days), died at age 75.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._J._Perelman)
1980 Oct 17, Mt. St. Helens erupted 3 times in 24 hours, in Washington. The eruptions had begun May 18.
(HN, 10/17/98)
1981 Oct 17 - 1981, Oct 18, In San Francisco over 145,000 attended two concerts by the Rolling Stones at Candlestick Park.
(SSFC, 12/22/13, p.A14)
1982 Oct 17, Sam Shepard's "True West" premiered in NYC.
(www.cherrylanetheatre.org/historyMainstage.htm)
1986 Oct 17, The US Senate approved immigration bill prohibiting hiring of illegal aliens and offered amnesty to illegals who entered prior to 1982.
(http://tinyurl.com/yet49v)
1987 Oct 17, The 1st indoor World Series game took place at the Minnesota Metrodome.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_World_Series)
1987 Oct 17, First lady Nancy Reagan underwent a modified radical mastectomy at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland.
(AP, 10/17/97)
1988 Oct 17, Philip Morris Companies Inc. launched an $11.5 billion takeover bid for Kraft Inc.
(AP, 10/17/98)
1988 Oct 17, Israel's supreme court upheld a ban on Meyer Kahane's Kach Party as racist.
(www.washington-report.org/backissues/0799/9907081.html)
1989 Oct 17, The 7.1 Loma Prieta earthquake [Watsonville] hit the Bay Area minutes before the start of a World Series game at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park. 67 people died and 3,000 were injured. It caused $7 billion worth of damage. The Spreckels Temple of Music in Golden Gate Park was damaged and later restored. 28,000 structures were damaged and several freeways ruined. 42 people died on the Cypress Freeway. At the train station in SF Dr. Margaret McChesney commandeered a tour bus to take frightened passengers home and navigated the driver safely through barricades of cars and gangs of marauding youths on 3rd St. In 1999 new measuring methods changed the magnitude to 6.9.
(SFC, 4/15/96, A-6)(SFC, 10/17/96, A15)(SFC, 7/23/97, p.A13)(AP, 10/17/97)(AR, 9/12/98)(HN, 10/17/98)(SFC, 10/7/99, p.A21)
1990 Oct 17, The Cincinnati Reds opened up a two games-to-none World Series lead, beating the Oakland A’s 5-to-4.
(AP, 10/17/00)
1990 Oct 17, In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State James Baker said Iraqi President Saddam Hussein “must fail if peace is to succeed."
(AP, 10/17/00)
1991 Oct 17, The Atlanta Braves won their first National League pennant, defeating the Pittsburgh Pirates 4-to-0 in game seven of their playoff series.
(AP, 10/17/01)
1991 Oct 17, Tennessee Ernie Ford (b.1919), country singer (16 Tons), died in Reston, Va.
(AP, 10/17/01)(www.ernieford.com/Bio.htm)
1992 Oct 17, The Atlanta Braves defeated the Toronto Blue Jays in game one of the World Series, 3-to-1.
(AP, 10/17/97)
1992 Oct 17, Japanese exchange student Yoshi Hattori, 16, was shot and killed by Rodney Peairs in Center, La., after Hattori and his American host mistakenly knocked on Peairs' door while looking for a Halloween party. Peairs was acquitted of manslaughter, but in a civil trial was ordered to pay more than $650,000 in damages to Hattori's family.
(AP, 10/17/97)
1993 Oct 17, The Philadelphia Phillies defeated the Toronto Blue Jays, 6-4, evening the World Series at one game each.
(AP, 10/17/98)
1993 Oct 17, Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole, in a CBS interview, said he would offer legislation restricting President Clinton's authority to send troops to Haiti.
(AP, 10/17/98)
1994 Oct 17, Negotiators for the Angolan government and rebels agreed to a peace treaty to end their 19-year civil war.
(AP, 10/17/99)
1994 Oct 17, Leaders of Israel and Jordan initialed a draft peace treaty.
(AP, 10/17/99)
1995 Oct 17, The Cleveland Indians won the American League pennant by defeating the Seattle Mariners, 4-to-0, in game six of their playoff series.
(AP, 10/17/00)
1995 Oct 17, President Clinton told wealthy contributors at a Houston fund-raiser that “you think I raised your taxes too much. It might surprise you to know that I think I raised them too much, too"— a statement that drew criticism from both Republicans and Democrats.
(AP, 10/17/00)
1995 Oct 17, The gasoline additive MTBE showed up in a second drinking water well in Santa Monica. The city was later forced to shut down half of its water well supply due to MTBE.
(SFC, 9/15/97, p.A10)
1995 Oct 17, A bomb exploded aboard a Paris subway car, wounding 29 people.
(AP, 10/17/00)
1995 Oct 17, In Sri Lanka the army started the 1st phase of an effort to take full control of the Jaffna peninsula. Shelling and bombing against civilians often occurred.
(SFC, 7/24/96, p.A9)
1996 Oct 17, The Atlanta Braves won the National League Championship Series, beating the St. Louis Cardinals.
(AP, 10/17/97)
1996 Oct 17, In Leland, Miss. Aaron White, a black TV repairman received a gunshot wound to the head and was killed. It was claimed that a white police narcotics officer shot Mr. White, while the police claimed that Mr. White shot himself. On Oct 31 angry citizens rioted after marching on the local police dept. when local officials agreed to only speak with the march organizers.
(SFC, 11/1/96, p.A17)
1996 Oct 17, Berthold Goldschmidt, German-born Jewish composer and conductor, died at 93 in England.
(www.scena.org/columns/lebrecht/030115-NL-goldschmidt.html)
1996 Oct 17, In France a one-day strike was held by about 1.6 million public employees, a third of the total public service sector. French unemployment stood at 12.5%.
(SFC, 10/18/96, A14)
1996 Oct 17, In Russia Pres. Boris Yeltsin dismissed Alexander Lebed from his post as national security chief, one day after the former general was accused by a rival of building his own rogue army.
(SFC, 10/18/96, A1)(AP, 10/17/97)
1996 Oct 17, In Slovakia some 10,000 people demonstrated against Culture Minister Ivan Hudec for firing National Theater director Dusan Jamrich. Slovak artists claim that the government is increasingly authoritarian.
(SFC, 10/18/96, C6)
1997 cOct 17, The new $180 million New Jersey Performing Arts Center opened in Newark.
(WSJ, 10/21/97, p.A20)
1997 Oct 17, The US Army used a Miracl (medium infra-red advanced chemical laser developed by TRW) laser beam to hit the MISTI-3 satellite in orbit. The laser test was prohibited by Congress in 1985, but the ban expired in 1995. The test failed to be recorded by sensors on the satellite.
(SFC, 10/21/97, p.A2)(WSJ, 10/24/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 17, Tosco Corp. asked the California Air Resources Board to move away from the use of MTBE as a gasoline fuel additive due to possible contamination of ground water.
(SFC, 10/30/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 17, The remains of revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara (1928-1967) were laid to rest in his adopted Cuba in Santa Clara, 30 years after his execution in Bolivia.
(SFC, 10/18/97, p.A10)(AP, 10/17/98)
1998 Oct 17, The New York Yankees beat the San Diego Padres in the first game of the Baseball World Series 9 to 6.
(SFC, 10/22/98, p.D1)
1998 Oct 17, Jon Postel (55), an influential Internet pioneer, died. Since 1968 he had directed the network’s Internet assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) that allowed computers to be matched with web addresses. Two weeks before he died he submitted the framework for a new organization to succeed the IANA, a non-profit entity (ICANN) with an internationally diverse board of directors.
(WSJ, 10/19/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 10/22/98, p.A22)(Econ, 11/19/05, p.68)
1998 Oct 17, Chilean officials lodged a formal complaint to Britain over the arrest of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who arrested in a London medical clinic following a request from Spain for his extradition.
(SFEC, 10/18/98, p.A1)
1998 Oct 17, In Malaysia Azizah Ismail, wife of Anwar Ibrahim, joined some ten thousand protestors demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Mohamad.
(SFEC, 10/18/98, p.A20)
1998 Oct 17, In Nigeria a pipeline explosion near the town of Jesse killed some 700 people. Authorities believed that scavenger’s tools sparked the explosion.
(SFC, 10/19/98, p.a1)(SFC, 10/20/98, p.A8)(SFC, 10/21/98, p.C2)(AP, 10/17/08)
1999 Oct 17, US negotiators proposed to Russia an alteration to the 1972 ABM treaty to allow construction of defensive systems.
(SFC, 10/18/99, p.A5)
1999 Oct 17, The FBI reported that serious crimes reported to police declined for seventh straight year in 1998 and murder and robbery rates reached 30-year lows.
(AP, 10/17/00)
1999 Oct 17, Former nurse Orville Lynn Majors was convicted of murdering six patients at a western Indiana hospital; the jury deadlocked on a seventh count. Major is serving a 360-year prison sentence.
(AP, 10/17/00)
1999 Oct 17, In Niger the 1st round of the presidential election was held.
(WSJ, 10/18/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 17, In Pakistan Gen'l. Musharraf announced a unilateral reduction of troops on the India border, the establishment of a military-technocrat ruling council, and an eventual return to civilian rule. He unveiled a 7-point agenda to save the nation.
(SFC, 10/18/99, p.A10)(http://tinyurl.com/ruuth)
1999 Oct 17, In Yemen Abu Hassan, "a nom de guerre" for the head of the Islamic Army of Aden and Abyan, was executed.
(SFC, 10/29/00, p.A10)
2000 Oct 17, The New York Yankees followed the Mets into the World Series, beating the Seattle Mariners 9-to-7 and winning the American League championship series four games to two.
(AP, 10/17/01)
2000 Oct 17, Al Gore and George W. Bush held their 3rd and last TV debate from St. Louis with a town hall format.
(WSJ, 10/17/00, p.A1)
2000 Oct 17, The month long Los Angeles transit authority strike ended following negotiations brokered by Jesse Jackson.
(SFC, 10/18/00, p.A3)
2000 Oct 17, In Britain the London to Leeds train derailed at Hatfield and 4 people were killed with 70 injured.
(SFC, 10/18/00, p.A14)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatfield_rail_crash)
2000 Oct 17, In Chechnya it was reported that mines planted by rebels killed 4 Russian soldiers.
(SFC, 10/18/00, p.A26)
2000 Oct 17, Ending an emergency summit in Egypt, Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed to publicly urge an end to a burst of bloody conflict and to consult within two weeks on restarting the ravaged Mideast peace process.
(SFC, 10/18/00, p.A1)(AP, 10/17/01)
2000 Oct 17, Montenegro Pres. Milo Djukanovic refused to take part in national institutions with Serbia until the Montenegro-Serbia relationship is redefined.
(SFC, 10/18/00, p.A12)
2001 Oct 17, Peter Carey won his 2nd Booker Prize for his novel “True History of the Kelly Gang," a fictional account of the 19th century Australian outlaw.
(SFC, 10/18/01, p.B3)
2001 Oct 17, Pres. Bush departed on a diplomatic mission to China following a stop in Sacramento, Ca.
(SFC, 10/17/01, p.A5)
2001 Oct 17, Federal officials reported that the anthrax strains in New York and Florida appeared to be identical. The House and 6 congressional office buildings were closed for tests after over 30 Senate staff members tested positive for exposure to spores.
(SFC, 10/18/01, p.A1)(WSJ, 10/18/01, p.A1)
2001 Oct 17, Some 100 US land and sea-base planes hit targets that included Kandahar and Mazar-e-Sharif.
(SFC, 10/18/01, p.A3)
2001 Oct 17, Researchers at Lucent’s Bell Labs reported the development of a tiny new transistor made of a simple cluster of organic molecules.
(SFC, 10/18/01, p.D2)(WSJ, 10/18/01, p.B8)
2001 Oct 17, Jay Livingston (86), film and TV composer, died in LA. He worked with lyricist Ray Evans and together won 3 Academy Awards for best song, which included “Que Sera Sera" in 1956.
(SFC, 10/19/01, p.D5)
2001 Oct 17, In Afghanistan Taliban forces seized UN food warehouses in Kabul and Kandahar.
(SFC, 10/18/01, p.A3)
2001 Oct 17, Rehavam Zeevi, Israeli tourist minister, was shot dead at the Hyatt Regency in East Jerusalem. The PFLP claimed responsibility and Yasser Arafat promised to hunt down the perpetrators. Hambi Quran, Basel al-Asmar, Ahmed Gholmy and Majdi Rimawi were later convicted for the murder. Ahmed Saadat, head of the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was imprisoned in Jericho. In 2007 Hamdi Quran was sentenced to 100 years in prison for gunning down the minister as well as bombing and shooting attacks against Israelis. In 2008 Bassel Asmar was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder, attempted murder and belonging to a terror organization.
(SFC, 10/18/01, p.A1)(SFC, 4/30/02, p.A16)(AP, 3/7/06)(AP, 2/6/08)
2001 Oct 17, In the Philippines gunmen abducted an Italian priest, Giuseppe Pierantoni (45), in Dimataling, Zamboanga del Sur. He was freed Apr 8, 2002.
(WSJ, 10/18/01, p.A1)(SFC, 4/8/02, p.A7)
2001 Oct 17, Russia announced military cuts that would eliminate a navy base in Vietnam and a radar station in Cuba.
(WSJ, 10/18/01, p.A1)
2002 Oct 17, Timothy Belden, former Enron executive, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors. Belden admitted to giving grid operators false information and shipping power from within California out of state and selling it back at higher prices.
(SFC, 10/18/02, p.A1)
2002 Oct 17, Ira Einhorn, the '70s hippie guru who had fled to Europe after being charged with murder, was convicted in Philadelphia of killing his girlfriend, Holly Maddux, and stuffing her corpse in his closet a quarter-century earlier. He was later sentenced to life without parole.
(AP, 10/17/03)
2002 Oct 17, Israeli tanks fired artillery shells and machine guns after coming under attack by anti-tank missiles, killing at least 6 Palestinians and wounding more than 40 in the southern Gaza town of Rafah.
(AP, 10/17/02)(SFC, 10/18/02, p.A18)
2002 Oct 17, In the Philippines bombings in Zamboanga killed 7 people and injured 152. Militants of Abu Sayyaf were suspected.
(SFC, 10/18/02, p.A10)
2003 Oct 17, Pres. Bush stopped in Tokyo and thanked PM Junichiro Koizumi for aid to Iraq.
(WSJ, 10/17/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 17, The US House and Senate voted to spend some $87 billion earmarked for securing peace and eliminating terrorist threats in Iraq and Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/17/04)
2003 Oct 17, In Chicago government workers trapped in a burning downtown office tower frantically dialed 911 as they tried to make their way through smoke-filled staircases and hallways. 13 were found unconscious amid the smoke, 6 of them dead.
(AP, 10/18/03)
2003 Oct 17, A new family of frogs was reported from the western India. The purple, burrowing frog family, named Nasikabatrachus sahydrensis, appeared to date back some 200 million years.
(SFC, 10/17/03, p.A10)
2003 Oct 17, In eastern Afghanistan a bomb blew up a pickup truck on a dirt road, killing four people, and two Afghan soldiers were killed in a land mine explosion in the country's south.
(AP, 10/19/03)
2003 Oct 17, Bolivia's Pres. Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada (“Goni") resigned in a letter to Congress. VP Carlos Mesa, a moderate political unknown, took over the presidency. As one of Bolivia's top journalists, Mesa wrote a best-selling book, "Entre urnas y fusiles" (Between the Ballot Box and the Rifle), about the many presidents in this country's often tumultuous history. Lozada and Jose Sanchez Berzain, the former defense minister, fled to the US. In 2007 suits were filed in the US against Lozada and Berzain men for their October crackdown on protestors that left 67 people dead.
(Econ, 10/16/04, p.34)(www.boliviasolidarity.org/takeaction/latestactions/sanfran)
2003 Oct 17, The EU pushed ahead with efforts to build its own defense arm but sought to ease U.S. concerns by insisting the plan would neither duplicate nor undermine NATO.
(AP, 10/17/03)
2003 Oct 17, German lawmakers approved an $18 billion tax cut for next year and reductions in jobless benefits.
(AP, 10/17/03)
2003 Oct 17, In Iraq the deaths of 4 soldiers brought to 101 the number killed since Pres. Bush declared the end of major combat on May 1.
(SFC, 10/18/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 17, Taiwanese officials celebrated the completion of the world's tallest skyscraper after crews installed the pinnacle on the 1,676-foot-tall building.
(AP, 10/17/03)
2004 Oct 17, Betty Hill (85), who claimed that she and her husband, Barney, had been abducted, examined and released by extraterrestrials in 1961, died in Portsmouth, N.H.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2004 Oct 17, Organizers of a campaign by French non-government organizations said African chicken farmers risk ruin from massive imports of European frozen poultry at less than a third of their prices.
(AP, 10/17/04)
2004 Oct 17, Belarus voters went to the polls to decide whether to abolish presidential term limits and allow the authoritarian president to run for a third term in 2006. Opposition leaders accused the government of arresting exit-poll takers and turning away election observers.
(AP, 10/17/04)
2004 Oct 17, Effective as of today Brazil's air force will be allowed to shoot down small planes suspected of carrying drugs under a law meant to stem the flow of cocaine.
(AP, 10/15/04)
2004 Oct 17, US forces battled insurgents around Fallujah. Militants ambushed and killed nine Iraqi policemen returning from training in Jordan. A suicide driver in Baghdad killed at least 7 people. More than 200 detainees were released from Abu Ghraib prison after a security review deemed them no longer a threat.
(AP, 10/17/04)(SFC, 10/18/04, p.A1)
2004 Oct 17, Jordan's military prosecutor indicted Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, one of the most wanted insurgents in Iraq, and 12 other alleged Muslim militants for an alleged al-Qaida linked plot to attack the U.S. Embassy in Amman and Jordanian government targets.
(AP, 10/17/04)
2004 Oct 17, The Tawhid and Jihad group, a militant group led by terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, declared its allegiance to Osama bin Laden.
(AP, 10/18/04)
2004 Oct 17, Military helicopters doused a 730-foot office tower in Caracas' Parque Central complex, one of Venezuela's tallest buildings, bringing under control a blaze that many feared would cause the tower to collapse.
(AP, 10/17/04)
2005 Oct 17, The American magazine Conference unveiled the top 40 magazine covers of the last 40 years. The top rating went to Rolling Stone for its 1/22/81 cover of John Lennon and Yoko Ono lying in bed.
(www.magazine.org/Press_Room/13806.cfm)
2005 Oct 17, The FBI reported that US murders fell to 16,137 in 2004, 391 fewer than in 2003 and that the overall violent crime rate hit a 3-year low.
(WSJ, 10/18/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 17, Serono Laboratories, a Swiss drug-maker, pleaded guilty to US federal conspiracy charges and agreed to pay $740 million for kickbacks to doctors for the AIDS drug Serostim and for manipulating a test for AIDS patients.
(SFC, 10/18/05, p.E1)
2005 Oct 17, General Motors Corp. and the United Auto Workers reached a tentative agreement that will help the embattled automaker lower its health care costs even as GM reported a whopping $1.6 billion loss for the third quarter.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Commodities brokerage Refco Inc. said it had filed for bankruptcy protection as it struck a deal to sell its core futures brokerage business to a group of private equity investors for $768 million. BAWAG, Austria’s 4th largest bank, gave Refco a top-up loan of 350 million euros just hours before the bankruptcy. In 2007 it was revealed that Wolfgang Flottl, a hedge fund manager, had his investments sour in 1997 causing BAWAG to lose over $1 billion. The losses were hid from auditors for 7 years. Helmut Elsner, former boss of BAWAG (1995-2003), faced charges along with 8 others for the bank’s near collapse.
(Reuters, 10/17/06)(Econ, 5/6/06, p.72)(WSJ, 1/25/06, p.A1)(Econ, 7/21/07, p.73)
2005 Oct 17, Idaho state and federal health officials are trying to get to the bottom of nine reported cases of suspected sporadic CJD in Idaho this year.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, It was reported that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pledged $15 million for the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley, the world's largest institution dedicated to preserving Information Age artifacts.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Two days of U.S.-Chinese trade talks ended with no response by China to an ambitious American proposal to reform its financial sector and open its markets wider to foreign products, while also moving faster on currency reforms.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Dr. Marvin Chodorow (b.1913), former professor of physics at Stanford Univ., died. He expanded on the 1937 invention of the klystron tube, an early form of the driver for microwave power, and increased its power from a few hundred watts to millions of watts.
(www.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/2005/pr-chodorow-102605.html)
2005 Oct 17, In southern Afghanistan US-led coalition forces killed four police officers after mistaking them for militants during an operation in the Maywand district of Kandahar province. Elsewhere militants shot dead a police intelligence officer as he was walking in Zabul province.
(AP, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 17, An Azerbaijani opposition leader was arrested in Ukraine and scores of his supporters were detained by police. Tensions rose in Azerbaijan in the run-up to next month's parliamentary election.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Radovan Karadzic, former Bosnian-Serb leader and war-crimes fugitive, released a 6th collection of poems titled “Under the left Breast of the Century."
(SFC, 10/19/05, p.A2)
2005 Oct 17, The British government announced that smoking will be banned at all workplaces as well as pubs and restaurants in Northern Ireland from April 2007.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, China’s Shenzhou 6 capsule carrying astronauts Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng landed before dawn by parachute in China's northern grasslands after a five-day mission.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Ba Jin (100), one of China's most revered communist-era writers who attacked the evils of the pre-revolutionary era in novels, short stories and essays, died of cancer in Shanghai. He is best known for his 1931 novel "Family," the story of a disintegrating feudal household. Ba Jin also translated the Russian writers Ivan Turgenev and Pyotr Kropotkin.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, The EU urged Croatia and Greece to expedite tests on dead birds as concerns rose over the westward spread of avian flu.
(WSJ, 10/18/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 17, The European Union unblocked $87 million in development aid for Haiti, ending a freeze imposed almost five years ago because of allegedly flawed elections in the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Deutsche Bank AG and private bank Sal. Oppenheim said they would acquire a combined 14% stake in China's Hua Xia Bank in a deal worth 272 million euros ($326.4 million).
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Iraq's former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and other secular leaders announced a new coalition they said unites moderate Sunnis, Shiites and other political groups to run in December's parliamentary elections.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, In western Iraq 2 US Marines were killed in fighting near the Jordanian border. Insurgents shot and killed Ayed Abdul Ghani, an adviser to one of Iraq's top Sunni Arab officials, as he drove to work in Baghdad.
(AP, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 17, US warplanes and helicopters bombed two western villages, killing an estimated 70 militants near a site where five American soldiers died in a weekend roadside blast, the military. Residents said at least 39 of the dead were civilians.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Israel suspended negotiations with the Palestinian Authority on issues such as prisoner releases and slapped tough travel restrictions on the West Bank after Palestinian gunmen killed three Israelis and wounded five a day earlier.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Japanese PM Junichiro Koizumi enraged China and South Korea by visiting Tokyo's Yasukuni war shrine.
(AP, 10/17/06)
2005 Oct 17, Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel Rahman Shalgam rejected a call by US President George W. Bush for Tripoli to spare the lives of five Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death for infecting hundreds of Libyan children with the AIDS virus.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Dutch police arrested 45 members of the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang and seized an assortment of weapons during nationwide raids on the group's clubhouses. Prosecutors said those arrested face charges of murder, extortion, intimidation and weapons and drug trafficking.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Russian state security agents arrested a senior tax official as he was handed a $1 million bribe in a plush Moscow hotel. The arrest was announced the next day as corruption watchdog Transparency International published its annual survey showing graft in Russia had worsened to put it on the same level as Sierra Leone, Niger and Albania.
(AP, 10/18/05)(Econ, 10/22/05, p.53)
2005 Oct 17, Abdi Hassan Awale, who once served as Somalia's interior minister, was arrested on suspicion of war crimes while attending a conference in Sweden. He is suspected of being a militia leader during the Oct 3, 1993, "Black Hawk Down" battle that left 18 Americans dead.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, South Africa's government vowed to press ahead with legislative attempts to take greater control of the nation's diamonds and weaken the grip of diamond-producer De Beers, dismissing arguments that this could disrupt global markets and lead to job losses.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2006 Oct 17, President Bush signed legislation authorizing tough interrogation of terror suspects and smoothing the way for trials before military commissions. The Military Commissions Act virtually abolished the right of any non-American deemed an enemy combatant to challenge his indefinite detention before American courts.
(AP, 10/17/06)(Econ, 5/26/07, p.30)
2006 Oct 17, Pres. George W. Bush signed the Military Lending Act, capping loan rates to service members at 36%.
(http://tinyurl.com/yby24l9f)(Econ, 4/8/17, p.67)
2006 Oct 17, Pres. Bush signed into law a bill to provide grant money for the Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor. In September Congress had declared a swathe of coastline from North Carolina to Florida the Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, in an effort to preserve the region’s distinctive black culture and creole language.
(www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6283153)(Econ, 2/2/08, p.42)
2006 Oct 17, The United States said it plans to take in about 10,000 Burundian refugees from Tanzania, many of whom fled their landlocked nation as far back as 1972.
(Reuters, 10/18/06)
2006 Oct 17, The US FDA approved Januvia, a novel pill for Type 2 diabetes made by Merck. Type 2 diabetes affects about 20 million Americans.
(AP, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 17, Actor Wesley Snipes was indicted for cheating the US government out of nearly $12 million in false refund claims and not filing for 6 years. On Feb 1, 2008, a federal jury in Florida acquitted Snipes (45) of the most serious charges but convicted him on 3 of 6 lesser charges and said he must pay up to $17 million in back taxes plus penalties and interest.
(SFC, 10/18/06, p.A2)(SFC, 2/2/08, p.A2)
2006 Oct 17, The Chicago Mercantile Exchange announced plans to acquire the Chicago Board of Trade for about $8 billion.
(WSJ, 10/18/06, p.A1)(Econ, 10/21/06, p.86)
2006 Oct 17, It was reported that teams of scientists from the Dubna nuclear research center in Moscow and Livermore Lawrence National Laboratory in California had detected element 118 after bombarding californium with calcium ions in a Russian cyclotron.
(SFC, 10/17/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 17, The 300 millionth US resident was born at 4:46 am according to a US Census Bureau estimate. The 200 million mark was reached in 1967. The 400 million mark was expected around 2043.
(SFC, 10/18/06, p.B3)(Econ, 10/14/06, p.29)
2006 Oct 17, Megan Meier (b.1992) of Missouri committed suicide following a series of cruel messages on the MySpace online social network. In 2008 Lori drew (49) of Missouri was indicted for perpetrating an online hoax, which led to Meier’s suicide. Drew was convicted on Nov 26 of only three minor offenses for her role in the Internet hoax. The federal jury could not reach a verdict on the main charge against 49-year-old Lori Drew, conspiracy, and rejected three other felony counts of accessing computers without authorization to inflict emotional harm. A final decision on the verdicts was still pending in 2009.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megan_Meier_suicide_controversy)(SFC, 5/16/08, p.A4)(AP, 11/27/08)(Econ, 7/11/09, p.232)
2006 Oct 17, Rapper Fabolous was shot as he stood at a Manhattan parking garage, spurring a sequence of events that left him both hospitalized in stable condition and under arrest.
(AP, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 17, Miriam Engelberg, cartoonist and writer, died in SF. She had recently authored “Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person."
(SFC, 10/20/06, p.B9)
2006 Oct 17, Christopher Glenn (68), CBS News correspondent, died in Norwalk, Conn.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2006 Oct 17, In southern Afghanistan British troops pulled out of the Musa Qala district in Helmand province. A US-led coalition airstrike killed a suspected midlevel Taliban commander and up to 15 other militants. Suspected Taliban militants destroyed an oil tanker transporting fuel for NATO-led peacekeepers and killed its driver in southern Kandahar province's Spin Boldak district.
(AP, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 17, Australia's worsening drought was driving farmers to suicide. Scientists and politicians said government funds should be used to help them leave increasingly unviable land.
(AFP, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 17, Bahrain said Lateefa al-Geood, a British-educated civil servant, has become the first-ever female to serve as an elected member of the parliament. 18 women were among 221 candidates vying for seats in the 40-member assembly in the Nov. 25 vote. Al-Geood was the only candidate who registered to run in her region.
(AP, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 17, In Brazil some 200 Indians from the Xikrin tribe, wielding war clubs and bows and arrows, stormed an Amazon mining complex at the company town of Carajas, shutting it down in an apparent demand for more compensation from CVRD, the world's largest iron ore miner. The Indians left after 2 days.
(AP, 10/18/06)(AP, 10/19/06)
2006 Oct 17, A Chinese court ruled that journalist Yang Xiaoqing was exempt from serving the remainder of his sentence but would not overturn the lower court's conviction. Xiaoqing, convicted of extortion for exposing local corruption, was released on bail last month.
(AP, 10/21/06)
2006 Oct 17, A UN report recommended that recommended that East Timor’s former interior minister Rogerio Lobato, military chief Taur Matan Ruak, and several others be prosecuted for illegal distribution of weapons and be held accountable for unrest that gripped capital Dili this year. The 79-page report also called for a further investigation into former PM Mari Alkatiri to determine whether he should face criminal charges.
(Reuters, 10/18/06)
2006 Oct 17, In Ecuador with 60% of the vote counted, Rafael Correa was all-but tied with Alvaro Noboa, each with about 25%.
(AP, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 17, The EU said it felt obliged to back limited sanctions against Iran's nuclear program after Tehran refused to halt uranium enrichment as a condition to start negotiations.
(Reuters, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 17, In eastern Honduras a military truck plunged off a cliff, killing five soldiers and injuring 12.
(AP, 10/18/06)
2006 Oct 17, Indonesian television broadcast the photo of Sudjiono Timan, a fugitive convicted of embezzling millions of dollars in state funds as part of a new campaign against corruption. Timan, was sentenced in absentia to 15 years in jail for embezzling $140 million after his bank received emergency funds meant to bail out banks crippled during Indonesia's 1998 financial crisis. This was the first installment of a weekly TV program exposing people convicted of corruption, which remains endemic at all levels of government.
(AP, 10/19/06)
2006 Oct 17, Iceland said it would resume commercial whaling after a nearly two-decade moratorium, defying a worldwide ban on hunting the mammals for their meat.
(AP, 10/18/06)
2006 Oct 17, In Iraq attacks left Iraqis dead and 16 more corpses turned up in Baghdad. 8 US soldiers and one Marine were killed by roadside bombs and enemy fire in and around Baghdad.
(AP, 10/18/06)(WSJ, 10/18/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 17, Israeli troops shot and killed 5 Palestinians, including 2 young stone-throwers, in the West Bank town of Qabatiyeh.
(AP, 10/17/06)(WSJ, 10/18/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 17, The Italian bank Sanpaolo won a five-way race for control of Bank of Alexandria, the first Egyptian bank to be privatized in a selloff worth 1.6 billion dollars.
(AFP, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 17, In Italy a subway train rammed into another train halted at the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II station in central Rome, killing at least one person and injuring 236.
(AP, 10/17/06)(WSJ, 10/18/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 17, Kenya reported its first case of polio in 22 years at a refugee camp near the Somali border as the United Nations appealed for urgent help to cope with a surge in refugees from Somalia.
(AFP, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 17, In central Mexico an explosion in an area packed with small fireworks factories Capulhuac, 20 miles west of Mexico City, left four people dead and a man with severe burns. In western Mexico 14 people were killed when a passenger bus crashed into the back of a tractor trailer. A spark touched off an explosion aboard a gasoline tanker ship at Pemex's Pajarito marine terminal in the city of Coatzacoalcos, killing eight people and injuring nine others.
(AP, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 17, The US State Department said that the last landmines and unexploded ordnance blocking Mozambique's vital Sena Railway line have been removed, thanks largely to some $13 million (€10 million) in US aid. The mine action assistance was launched in 2002. Under the US Humanitarian Mine Action Program approximately 46 million dollars have been given in aid to Mozambique since 1993.
(AFP, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 17, North Korea said it considered UN sanctions aimed at punishing the country for its nuclear test "a declaration of war," as Japan and South Korea reported the communist nation might be preparing a second explosion.
(AP, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 17, Philippine media groups accused the president's husband of trying to muzzle a critical press by filing a string of libel cases against 43 journalists and publishers.
(AP, 10/18/06)
2006 Oct 17, Sri Lankan fighter jets pounded two suspected Tamil Tiger bases and a camp.
(AP, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 17, A former Janjaweed fighter in London recounted to the BBC how the Sudanese government has actively supported the militia that is accused of genocide against non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur.
(AFP, 10/18/06)
2007 Oct 17, President Bush attended a ceremony in which the Dalai Lama was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, Congress’ highest civilian honor. China lodged an official protest over the honoring of the Dalai Lama in Washington, while bluntly rejecting US President George W. Bush's advice on how to handle the Tibet issue.
(AFP, 10/16/07)(WSJ, 10/18/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 17, The US Supreme Court stopped the execution of Virginia death row inmate Christopher Scott Emmet (36). Legal experts said the move signals a nationwide halt to lethal injections until the court decides in 2008 whether the procedure violates constitutional standards.
(SFC, 10/18/07, p.A15)
2007 Oct 17, Teresa Brewer (b.1931), singer, died at her home in New Rochelle, NY. She had a big hit with “Music, Music, Music" in 1950.
(SFC, 10/19/07, p.A11)
2007 Oct 17, Joey Bishop (b.1918), comedian and the last surviving member of Frank Sinatra’s legendary Rat Pack, died. In 2002 Michael Seth Starr authored the biography “Mouse in the Rat Pack: The Joey Bishop Story."
(SFC, 10/19/07, p.A11)(AP, 10/17/08)
2007 Oct 17, Taliban used heavy machine guns and rocket propelled grenades to ambush a US-led coalition patrol in southern Afghanistan that wounded nine troops. In the east, a roadside bomb on a police vehicle close to the border with Pakistan killed an officer and wounded three others in Khost province.
(AP, 10/18/07)
2007 Oct 17, In Australia a group of children playing in a suburban Sidney park opened a suitcase they found floating in a pond and discovered the body of a youngster inside.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Hundreds of police agents swooped in on drug gangs in two Rio de Janeiro shantytowns, setting off gunbattles that killed 12 people, including an officer and a boy (4).
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, In Cambodia Alexander Trofimov (41), the Russian chairman of Koh Puos Investment Group Ltd., was charged with debauchery, a Cambodian legal offense covering sexual abuse of children. He was detained in the southern resort town of Sihanoukville and accused of raping at least six girls. In September last year, the Cambodian government gave Trofimov's company permission to develop an island near Sihanoukville into a tourist resort.
(AP, 11/16/07)
2007 Oct 17, In Costa Rica and agreement was reached by which the US government and environmental groups will trim $26 million off Costa Rica's debt rolls in exchange for the country spending the same amount on tropical forest conservation.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Fiji's coup leader Voreqe Bainimarama pledged to hold elections in early 2009 as Pacific countries welcomed the move and vowed to continue pressing for progress at a regional summit.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, A Greek-flagged cargo ship carrying coal sank in the northern Greek port of Thessaloniki after colliding with Panama-flagged Dubai Guardian. The captain of the Diamond 1 was killed.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, In Indonesia's Papua region rival tribes armed with bows and arrows clashed close to a US-owned gold mine, killing eight people.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Iran hanged eight men and one woman on murder charges in the notorious Evin Prison in northern Tehran.
(AP, 10/18/07)
2007 Oct 17, A roadside bomb exploded near a police patrol, killing at least seven officers in a Shiite area south of Baghdad. A suicide bomber driving an explosives-laden truck struck a checkpoint manned by Kurdish forces in Diyala province. The attack in a mountainous area near the Iranian border killed 2 Kurdish soldiers and wounding more than 10 others. A bomb exploded near a residential building in the predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Zafaraniyah, killing two civilians and wounding two others. US troops captured 15 suspected militants in operations targeted al-Qaida in Tikrit, Ramadi, Baqouba and Mosul. Those captured were accused of helping smuggle foreign fighters and weapons into Iraq, including five with alleged connections to Syrian-based extremists.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Israeli troops killed a Hamas gunman in a battle in southern Gaza.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, A man opened fire in a courtroom in northern Italy, seriously wounding his estranged wife and killing her brother before being shot to death by police.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Investigators began raids on Japanese companies accused of corruption in projects to remove chemical weapons abandoned in China during World War II. The allegations involve the illegal diversion of some of the $199 million the government has disbursed since 2004 to help dispose of 400,000 chemical weapons that retreating Japanese troops left in northeast China at war's end. China has said poisons have leaked from the weapons and killed about 2,000 people since 1945.
(AP, 10/19/07)
2007 Oct 17, Myanmar's military junta acknowledged that it detained nearly 3,000 people during a crackdown on recent pro-democracy protests, with hundreds still remaining in custody.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, A clash between Hamas security forces and members of a large Gaza clan affiliated with the rival Fatah party left four people dead.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Interfax reported that Russia has charged a lieutenant colonel in the security service and 8 others for the Oct 7, 2006, slaying of anti-Kremlin journalist Ann Politkovskaya.
(WSJ, 10/18/07, p.A1)(Reuters, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Irdris Osman, the head of UN food agency operations in the violence-wracked Somali capital, was taken away by 50 to 60 heavily armed government security officers who had stormed the UN compound in Mogadishu. Osman was freed on Oct 23. Overnight, at least 8 civilians and one policeman died during a battle between Islamic insurgents and policemen.
(AP, 10/17/07)(AP, 10/23/07)
2007 Oct 17, In South Africa the leaders of Brazil, India and South Africa vowed to push the interests of poor nations in stalled international trade talks and said any agreement would have to benefit the developing world.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Sudan's former southern rebels said they would rejoin the national government to work through a stalemate on implementing a 2005 peace deal which ended Africa's longest civil war.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, on a visit to Turkey, said that Damascus would back a possible Turkish incursion into northern Iraq to crack down "against terrorist activities" there.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Turkey’s Parliament gave the government a one-year window in which to launch cross-border offensives against Turkish Kurd rebels who've been conducting raids into Turkey. The vote removed the last legal obstacle to an offensive.
(AP, 10/18/07)(AP, 10/20/07)
2007 Oct 17, Pope Benedict XVI named 23 new cardinals, tapping two Americans, the patriarch of Baghdad, and archbishops from five continents to join the elite ranks of the "princes" of the Roman Catholic Church.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2008 Oct 17, The Bush administration named the beluga whale in Alaska’s Cook Inlet an endangered species, despite opposition from Gov. Palin. Only 375 beluga whales remained there as opposed to some 1,300 in the 1970s. In 2011 a US federal judge upheld the listing.
(SFC, 10/18/08, p.A3)(SFC, 11/22/11, p.A6)
2008 Oct 17, US drug czar John Walters said that Mexico's drug cartels are crossing the border to kidnap and kill inside the United States, and promised that an anti-drug aid package to help Mexico to fight the gangs will be ready soon.
(AP, 10/17/08)
2008 Oct 17, Harvard Univ. announced a gift of $45 million and 31 major works of art from 1936 alumna Emily Rauh Pulitzer for the Harvard Art Museum. It was the largest gift in the history of the museum.
(SFC, 10/18/08, p.E3)
2008 Oct 17, In Philadelphia college student Jocelyn Kirsch (23) was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay more than $100,000 in restitution. She and her former boyfriend, Edward Anderton, had stolen the identities of friends and neighbors in 2006 and 2007 to net more than $116,000 in goods and services. Anderton’s sentence was pending.
(AP, 10/17/08)
2008 Oct 17, Mervyn’s, a Hayward, Ca., based retailer, said it plans to liquidate its remaining 149 locations and shutter the business after the holiday season.
(SFC, 10/18/08, p.C1)
2008 Oct 17, Pfizer Inc. said it has reached agreements to end up to 92% of personal injury lawsuits relating to anti-inflammatory drugs Bextra and Celebrex, linked to elevated risks of heart attacks and stroke, at a cost of $894 million.
(SFC, 10/18/08, p.A2)
2008 Oct 17, George M Keller (b.1923), former head of Standard Oil of California (1981-1988), died at his home in Palo Alto, Ca. He oversaw the 1984 merger with Gulf Oil to form Chevron Corp.
(SFC, 10/18/08, p.B1)
2008 Oct 17, Levi Stubbs (72), Four Tops frontman, died at his home in Detroit. His dynamic and emotive voice drove such Motown classics as "Reach Out (I'll Be There)" and "Baby I Need Your Loving."
(AP, 10/17/08)
2008 Oct 17, In Afghanistan a bomb in Paktika province killed two civilians. A two-day battle in Wardak province left 20 militants dead. NATO-led forces assaulted the insurgent stronghold with airstrikes 40 miles west of Kabul.
(AFP, 10/18/08)(AP, 10/20/08)
2008 Oct 17, Two Indonesian fishing crew picked up in Australian territorial waters with 14 refugees on their boat were charged with people smuggling.
(Reuters, 10/17/08)
2008 Oct 17, Some 30 leaders of French-speaking nations attended a 3-day summit of French-speaking nations in Quebec City, Canada. The focus was dominated by the world's financial woes.
(AFP, 10/17/08)
2008 Oct 17, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov opened one of Europe's biggest mosques in the rebuilt capital of the southern Russian region, saying it was proof Russian rule and Islam can go together. The mosque, named "The Heart of Chechnya" and constructed by Turkish builders, can host up to 10,000 worshippers.
(AP, 10/17/08)
2008 Oct 17, A bomb planted near a Baghdad mosque killed three Shiite worshippers as they were leaving prayers. Iraqi mosques used the Muslim week's holy day to address recent attacks against Christians.
(AP, 10/17/08)
2008 Oct 17, In Mexico 334 police officers were ousted in ciudad Juarez after they failed psychological, background and other checks as part of a clean-up campaign meant to root out officers who are corrupt or cooperating with drug traffickers. The border city sent police recruiters across the country as it tries to replace nearly half a police force gutted by firings and retirements.
(AP, 10/18/08)
2008 Oct 17, In northwest Pakistan troops backed by helicopter gunships and artillery pounded militant positions, killing 60 fighters and wounding many others near the town of Matta in the Swat Valley.
(AP, 10/18/08)
2008 Oct 17, In southern Thailand a 25-year-old man was shot dead in a gunfight with security officials after the arrests of five other suspected militants.
(AFP, 10/18/08)
2008 Oct 17, Turkish warplanes carried out successful airstrikes inside Iraq on the main bases used by Kurdish rebels. The air strikes on Qandil Mountain killed 25 Kurdish rebels and wounded many more. Earlier in the day, the military said it intercepted Kurdish rebel radio chatter indicating that up to 35 guerrillas had been killed in clashes with troops earlier this week in southeastern Sirnak province.
(AP, 10/17/08)(AP, 10/24/08)
2008 Oct 17, The UN added Japan, Austria, Turkey, Mexico and Uganda as members to the 10 non-permanent seats of the Security Council, replacing Belgium, Indonesia, Italy, Panama and South Africa.
(AP, 10/17/08)
2009 Oct 17, In Oakland, Ca., 3 people died when their car flipped during a sideshow in the early hours. The Nissan in the crash was said to have been in a hyphy train, like a conga line on wheels with cars weaving and speeding in unison.
(SSFC, 10/18/09, p.C3)
2009 Oct 17, In Virginia Morgan Harrington (20), a Virginia Tech student, disappeared folowing a Metallica in Charlottesville. A farmer found her remains three months later in a hayfield.
(SFC, 10/1/14, p.A12)
2009 Oct 17, In Brazil drug traffickers shot down a police helicopter during a gunbattle between rival gangs. The weekend gang fight in Rio de Janeiro left 3 police officers killed, and continued into the week leaving at least 32 people dead.
(SSFC, 10/18/09, p.A8)(AP, 10/21/09)(AP, 10/22/09)(Econ, 10/24/09, p.42)
2009 Oct 17, In Iraq a suicide bomber driving a dynamite-laden truck destroyed a key bridge on a highway used by the departing US military outside Ramadi. An attack on an Iraqi army convoy just outside of the city of Fallujah killed four Iraqi soldiers and wounded 14. Attackers threw hand grenades at an Iraqi army patrol near Kirkuk, killing two civilians and wounding two others. In Mosul 2 policemen and one civilian were killed in three unrelated incidents.
(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 17, The West Africa regional bloc ECOWAS imposed an arms embargo against Guinea, accusing the ruling military junta for "mass human rights violations" during anti-government protests last month.
(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 17, In Honduras ousted President Manuel Zelaya said negotiations over the coup are in "suspense" after the rival factions rebuffed each other's proposals and his foreign minister called the internationally brokered talks a failure.
(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 17, Members of the Maldives' Cabinet donned scuba gear and used hand signals at an underwater meeting staged to highlight the threat of global warming to the lowest-lying nation on earth.
(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 17, Mexican police in Tijuana found a man's nude, mutilated body hung by the neck from an expressway overpass, the 2nd such grisly discovery in 9 days. Police reported finding the mutilated body of a woman in a reservoir in another part of Tijuana. The woman's hands and head were missing. A shootout between gunmen and police killed one officer and a gunman and wounded two policemen. Tijuana investigators found five assault rifles and vests with federal prosecutors' insignia in three vehicles thought used by the attackers.
(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 17, It was reported that an increasing number of children in Africa are being accused of witchcraft by pastors of evangelical Christianity and then tortured or killed, often by family members. Pastors were involved in half of 200 cases of "witch children" reviewed by the AP, and 13 churches were named in the case files. Campaigners against the practice said around 15,000 children have been accused in two of Nigeria's 36 states over the past decade and around 1,000 have been murdered.
(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 17, More than 30,000 Pakistani soldiers launched a ground offensive against al-Qaida and the Taliban's main stronghold along the Afghan border, in the country's toughest test yet against a strengthening insurgency. The operation was expected to last around two months. At least 11 suspected insurgents were killed in jet bombings, while a bomb hit a security convoy, killing one soldier and wounding three others. 4 soldiers were killed and 12 wounded in exchanges of fire elsewhere in the region. The plan was to capture and hold an area where an estimated 10,000 insurgents were headquartered and reinforced with about 1,500 foreign fighters, most of them of Central Asian origin.
(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 17, In the Philippines a propeller-driven plane on a test flight crashed and burst into flames in a suburb of Manila, killing at least four people onboard.
(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 17, In Puerto Rico gunmen opened fire into a bar in Toa Baja shortly before midnight and killed seven people, injuring 20 others. On Oct 27 Wilfredo Semprit Santana, the owner of the bar, was arrested and charged with drug trafficking.
(AP, 10/18/09)(AP, 10/27/09)
2009 Oct 17, In Spain a huge crowd rallied in Madrid against a bill to ease restrictions on abortion, a vivid and emotional show of how the issue remains sensitive two decades after abortion was legalized in this traditionally Roman Catholic country.
(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 17, In western Sudan 3 peacekeepers were wounded, two of them seriously, when their vehicle came under fire in the Darfur region.
(AFP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 17, In Thailand some 17,000 "Red Shirt" supporters of Thaksin Shinawatra rallied in Bangkok to pressure the Thai government over their petition seeking a royal pardon for the fugitive former prime minister.
(AP, 10/17/09)
2010 Oct 17, The New York Times reported that possibly hundreds of members of Iraq's Awakening Councils, a group affiliated with the US military, have switched their loyalty to Al-Qaeda.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, The Washington Post reported that the United States believes some Chinese firms are helping Iran improve its missile technology and develop nuclear weapons and has asked Beijing to prevent such activity.
(AFP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, In Arizona a commercial tour bus drifted off a highway near Meadview and rolled over several times killing 2 people and injuring several others.
(SFC, 10/18/10, p.A5)
2010 Oct 17, In New York Danroy "D.J." Henry (20), a college football player driving away from the scene of a fight, ended up dead hours after the team's homecoming game, struck in a burst of police gunfire that pierced his windshield in the Westchester County hamlet of Thornwood. He was shot and killed by Westchester Police Officer Aaron Hess outside Finnegan’s Grill. A grand jury later cleared Hess of wrongdoing in the shooting.
(AP, 10/19/10) (Yahoo News, 7/30/20)
2010 Oct 17, Afghanistan issued a statement issued by the president's office saying that private security firms will not only be able to operate inside international compounds, but also travel with diplomats and work as protection for international military installations. A NATO service member was killed by a bomb blast in the south. Afghan and Western officials said that fraud was pervasive in the Sep 18 elections and that 25% or 800,000 to a million votes would be likely thrown out. air strikes killed a Taliban "military leader" and 15 other insurgents in the northern province of Baghlan. A Taliban prisoner, Mullah Muhebullah, was found shot dead while under US guard in an Afghan holding facility. Pfc. David Lawrence (20) was soon placed under custody in a criminal investigation of Muhebullah’s death.
(AP, 10/17/10)(SFC, 10/18/10, p.A3)(AFP, 10/19/10)(SFC, 12/1/10, p.A6)
2010 Oct 17, In Afghanistan about this time 3 Taliban leaders secretly met with Pres. Karzai in an effort to weaken the Haqqani network, the US-led coalition's most vicious enemy.
(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 17, In Brazil three men broke into the home of Wanderley dos Reis, the owner of a small newspaper in Sao Paulo state, and shot and killed him.
(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 17, In southeastern Brazil a bus carrying people back from a sports festival for special needs athletes fell from a bridge into a river, killing 11 and injuring nearly 30.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Congo's first lady, Olive Lembe Kabila, led thousands of women marching in the country's volatile east to demand an end to a wave of mass rapes. 3 residents were killed when soldiers looted homes in Congo's South Kivu province.
(AP, 10/17/10)(AP, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 17, In Haiti 2 inmates were shot to death trying to escape from the roof of the quake-damaged national penitentiary. A third was trampled to death inside during a prison riot. Police officials familiar with the prison said some inmates had escaped.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, In northern India an argument over sacrificing goats during a Hindu festival triggered a stampede that killed 10 people in a packed temple.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Iran's Pres. Ahmadinejad endorsed the idea of new talks with the international community over his country's nuclear program, while warning that negotiations would fail if the West does not clearly come out against Israel's suspected nuclear arsenal.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Iran freed Reza Taghavi (71), an Iranian-American businessman. The next day he said he had spent some of his more than two years in prison alongside protesters detained in Iran's postelection crackdowns and praised his first taste of freedom as a blessing "no one can imagine." Taghavi, who regularly visits Iran to conduct business and see family, had been jailed for 29 months for passing $200 to someone suspected of links to a rebel group known as Tondar, which seeks to topple the Islamic system and was implicated in the mosque bombing.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, In Iraq two policemen and two gunmen were killed in gunfights between security forces and armed groups attempting to rob Baghdad jewelry stores. 5 gunmen escaped.
(AP, 10/17/10)(SFC, 10/18/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 17, In Kuwait some 100 people stormed the offices of privately owned Scope TV’s studios and destroyed its equipment after the channel aired shows critical of the ruling Al Sabah family.
(SFC, 10/19/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 17, The Mexican Navy said two men were killed in a confrontation with marines in Tamaulipas state. A Sonora state police officer was found dead, apparently from a blow to the head, alongside the road in Benito Juarez municipality. Ciudad Juarez gunmen burst into a home where a family was having a party. 3 women and 2 men died at the scene, and a man and a woman died at the hospital. Assailants attacked a second home in the neighborhood minutes later, killing 2 men.
(AP, 10/17/10)(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 17, In Morocco world leaders at the World Policy Conference (WPC) in Marrakech examined frameworks for global governance ahead of a G20 summit in Seoul, with UN chief Ban Ki-Moon stressing no single power could tackle key issues alone.
(AFP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, A Nigerian government spokesman said a Dubai court found cause to honor an extradition request for former Delta state Gov. James Ibori, a prominent politician in the ruling People's Democratic Party. Authorities have said Ibori faces charges over stealing $292 million in state funds while in office.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, In Pakistan gunmen killed at least 25 people in Karachi over the past 24 hours, raising tensions in Pakistan's largest city as voters cast ballots to replace a provincial lawmaker murdered in August.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Two Palestinians were killed and a third wounded in a pre-dawn Israeli air strike north of Gaza City. The Israeli military said the air force had struck a "squad of terror operatives who were preparing to fire rockets from the northern Gaza Strip into Israel."
(AFP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Thousands of Thailand's anti-government "Red Shirts" joined a mass rally in the latest large-scale demonstration by the movement in recent weeks.
(AFP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed Australia's first saint, canonizing Mary MacKillop (1842-1909), a 19th-century nun. The Vatican also declared five other saints in an open-air Mass attended by tens of thousands. Brother Andre (1845-1937), a Canadian, Italian nuns Giulia Salzano and Battista Camilla da Varano, and Spanish nun Candida Maria de Jesus Cipitria y Barriola were also canonized.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, The official Vatican newspaper said that beer-swilling, doughnut-loving Homer Simpson and son Bart are Catholics, and what's more, it says that parents should not be afraid to let their children watch "the adventures of the little guys in yellow." Executive producer Al Jean told Entertainment Weekly the next day he was in "shock and awe" at the latest assertion, adding that the Simpsons attend the "Presbylutheran" First Church of Springfield. "The Simpsons" is the longest-running prime-time TV series in the United States and is now in its 22nd season.
(Reuters, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 17, Vietnamese officials said more flooding has killed at least 14 people and forced around 78,000 people to be evacuated from their homes in the centre of the country.
(AFP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Zambian police said managers at a Chinese-run coal mine who shot at workers protesting poor working conditions will be charged with attempted murder. 12 workers at Collum Coal Mine in the southern town of Sinazongwe were injured a day earlier when mainly Chinese managers fired randomly at the protesting workers.
(AFP, 10/17/10)
2011 Oct 17, Lowe's Cos Inc, a home improvement retailer, said it is closing 20 of its US locations, eliminating nearly 2,000 jobs and slashing store-openings to improve profitability.
(Reuters, 10/17/11)
2011 Oct 17, In northern Afghanistan a suicide bomber targeted a car carrying Sayed Ahmad Sadat the chief of National Directorate of Security (NDS) for Faryab province, wounding six intelligence officials and killing a child. Sadat died of his injuries on Oct 26.
(AFP, 10/17/11)(AP, 10/26/11)
2011 Oct 17, Austrian officials said an investigation will be launched into claims by 2 women that they and 18 other girls at the Schloss Wilhelminenberg foster home, run by the city of Vienna, were raped in the 1970s. The sisters, now 47 and 49, alleged the abuse began when they were 6 and 8, and ended in their early teens. 343 former foster children who were wards of the city have turned to Weisser Ring, non-governmental victims' organization, with reports of being abused at the Schloss Wilhelminenberg alone since investigations began last year.
(AP, 10/17/11)(AP, 10/18/11)
2011 Oct 17, British security group G4S agreed to buy Denmark-based facilities company ISS for £5.2 billion, creating the world's largest security and facilities firm.
(AFP, 10/17/11)
2011 Oct 17, Canadian scientists announced that a contagious and lethal fish virus has been detected for the first time in wild Pacific salmon. The European strain of the virus had only been identified before in farm-raised Atlantic salmon.
(Reuters, 10/20/11)
2011 Oct 17, In the Central African Republic 2 rebel groups, that signed a cease fire on Oct 8, said they had left the central town of Bria. One of them asked for humanitarian aid for civilians.
(AFP, 10/18/11)
2011 Oct 17, Chile said it is giving nearly 57,000 18-year-olds one month to report for potential military duty. The government said it needs to fill gaps in its armed forces because a nationwide student protest movement has reduced the number of volunteers it usually gets. Attending a university does not enable young Chileans to avoid the draft.
(AP, 10/18/11)
2011 Oct 17, In western China Tenzin Wangmo (20), a Tibetan nun, committed self-immolation in a call for religious freedom and the return of the Dalai Lama. She was the 9th Tibetan to commit self-immolation and the first women to kill herself in this way.
(SFC, 10/18/11, p.A4)
2011 Oct 17, A senior Egyptian Justice Ministry official said that the two sons of ousted President Hosni Mubarak have an estimated $340 million in Swiss bank accounts.
(AP, 10/17/11)
2011 Oct 17, In Greece strikes halted ferries to the local islands and trash continued to pile in Athens for a 16th straight day as unions fought against austerity measures.
(SFC, 10/18/11, p.A4)
2011 Oct 17, In Italy Rev. Roy Bourgeois, a US Catholic priest who supports ordination for women, was detained by police after marching to the Vatican to press the Holy See to lift its ban on women priests.
(AP, 10/17/11)
2011 Oct 17, In Jordan PM Marouf al-Bakhit (64) resigned after a majority of 70 out of 120 parliamentarians called for his ouster. Jordan's King Abdullah II designated Awn al-Khasawneh (61), a well-known international judge, as the new prime minister.
(AP, 10/17/11)
2011 Oct 17, The offices of a Liberian radio station were set ablaze, in the wake of an arson attack on the ruling party headquarters and opposition discontent over poll results.
(AFP, 10/17/11)
2011 Oct 17, Libyan fighters raised the new government's flag over the desert oasis of Bani Walid and hailed an exodus of regime families from the only other redoubt of Moamer Kadhafi's forces, his hometown Sirte. For a 2nd straight day NATO announced no hits in its air war.
(AFP, 10/17/11)
2011 Oct 17, Pakistani paramilitary forces raided a militant hideout in the rugged Khyber tribal region near the Afghan border, sparking fighting that killed 9 soldiers and 10 insurgents.
(AP, 10/17/11)
2011 Oct 17, In the Philippines Rev. Fausto Tentorio (59), an Italian Catholic priest who was about to travel to a clergy meeting, was shot dead in his southern parish in Arakan town, North Cotabato province. He was the third Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions missionary to be killed on southern Mindanao Island. In 2017 A Justice Department panel led by Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Peter Ong recommended murder complaints be filed against a dozen suspects, including the militiamen and two army commanders.
(AP, 10/17/11)(AP, 11/10/17)
2011 Oct 17, Somalia's al-Shabab militant group threatened Kenya with suicide attacks, saying Nairobi's skyscrapers would be destroyed and its tourism industry ruined in an ominous warning one day after Kenyan troops poured into Somalia.
(AP, 10/17/11)
2011 Oct 17, Swaziland's King Mswati III announced a major cabinet reshuffle in a move his critics say is aimed at punishing those who do not toe the line. Amongst those fired was Justice Minister David Matse who refused to fire an independently minded High Court judge, Thomas Masuku, earlier this month.
(AFP, 10/18/11)
2011 Oct 17, Five Syrian soldiers were killed during clashes with gunmen suspected to be army defectors in the flashpoint central province of Homs. 2 civilians were also killed. UN chief Ban Ki-moon urged President Bashar al-Assad to immediately stop the killings of civilians.
(AFP, 10/17/11)
2011 Oct 17, Uganda police fired tear gas at protesters in Kampala demonstrating against high food prices and corruption.
(SFC, 10/18/11, p.A2)
2011 Oct 17, In Yemen one protester was killed and seven wounded when Saleh loyalists opened fire on a demonstration in Taez. A family of five were killed when a rocket hit their home in north Sanaa. At least 18 people were killed on Sanaa in fighting between troops loyal to Pres. Saleh and rival forces.
(AFP, 10/18/11)(SFC, 10/18/11, p.A2)
2012 Oct 17, The FBI arrested 21-year-old Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, a banker’s son from Bangladesh, after he tried to detonate a fake 1,000-pound (454-kilogram) car bomb at the Federal Reserve Bank in NYC. On Feb 7, 2013, Nafis pleaded guilty to terrorism charges. On Aug 9, 2013, Nafis was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
(AP, 10/18/12)(SFC, 2/8/13, p.A16)(SFC, 8/10/13, p.A4)
2012 Oct 17, Los Angeles authorities arrested county assessor John Noguez, a top aide and a campaign contributor, as part of a probe into alleged influence peddling and slashing of property taxes for political allies.
(SFC, 10/18/12, p.C3)
2012 Oct 17, In the SF Bay Area Barbara Latiolais (58) was strangled to death by Cody Nicosia (18) and Christian Birdsall (16). The teens set fire to the home following her murder and robbery. Both teens were arrested on Oct 25.
(SFC, 10/27/12, p.C1)
2012 Oct 17, In eastern Afghanistan a suicide car bomber blew up his vehicle near the gate of a US-Afghan combat outpost, wounding 10 Afghan soldiers.
(AP, 10/17/12)
2012 Oct 17, In Argentina former Gen. Mario Benjamin Menendez (82) was arrested for his role at the La Escaulita torture center in Tucuman province which he helped run in 1975. In 1982 Menendez served as the military governor of the Falkland Islands during Argentina’s brief occupation.
(SFC, 10/19/12, p.A2)
2012 Oct 17, Bahrain detained four people for defaming the island's king with Twitter posts in a case that is likely to test the limits of expression in the violence-wracked Gulf nation. The four will be held for seven days pending trial.
(AP, 10/18/12)
2012 Oct 17, Scotland Yard confirmed in a statement that the Metropolitan Police will no longer permit tattoos on the face, hands or which appear above the collar line.
(AP, 10/17/12)
2012 Oct 17, Two British parliamentary committees said they planned to quiz tax officials about how Starbucks was able to avoid paying tax on 1.2 billion pounds of sales since 2009.
(Reuters, 10/17/12)
2012 Oct 17, In Egypt a top parliamentarian suspended the editor-in-chief of a state-owned newspaper for publishing a report deemed an offense to the military.
(AP, 10/18/12)
2012 Oct 17, France's foreign minister Laurent Fabius said Syria's air force is using so-called barrel bombs — makeshift weapons consisting of containers stuffed with TNT — to heavily damage neighborhoods. Fabius met with representatives of about 20 countries to share details about a secret French aid program and encourage others to join it.
(AP, 10/17/12)
2012 Oct 17, In Iraq a roadside bomb hit a police patrol in western Baghdad, killing two policemen and wounding two others. Another bomb went off in a grocery market in southern Baghdad, killing two civilians and wounding seven. A third bomb exploded in a market in the city's east killing one person and wounding six others.
(AP, 10/17/12)
2012 Oct 17, In Kenya a terror suspect threw a grenade at officers, wounding four of them in the Mombasa area. Three suspects were killed in the clash.
(AP, 10/17/12)
2012 Oct 17, Libyan authorities identified Ahmed Abu Khattala, a leader of the Benghazi-based Islamist group Ansar al-Shariah, as commander in the Sep 11 attack that killed US ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. At least six people died and 80 were wounded on the first day of renewed fighting at Bani Walid after negotiations failed to hand over the suspects for the death of a well-known anti-Gadhafi rebel.
(SFC, 10/18/12, p.A4)(AP, 10/18/12)
2012 Oct 17, Russian investigators opened a criminal probe against leftist leader Sergei Udaltsov and several other activists for allegedly plotting mass riots in a new sign of a widening crackdown on Russia's opposition.
(AP, 10/17/12)
2012 Oct 17, In Sri Lanka Selvarasa Pathmanathan (57), a key suspect wanted over the assassination of Gandhi in May 1991, was released from detention. He had been arrested in 2009 in Malaysia for procuring weapons for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
(SFC, 10/18/12, p.A4)
2012 Oct 17, Lakhdar Brahimi, the international envoy to the Syrian conflict, called on President Bashar Assad's regime to take the lead in a cease-fire during a major Muslim holiday later this month, calling it a "microscopic" step toward ending a crisis that he said could consume the whole region.
(AP, 10/17/12)
2013 Oct 17, Florida Congressman Bill Young (82) died after 42 years of service. He had channeled hundreds of million of dollars via earmarks to his district and state.
(Econ, 2/15/14, p.29)(AP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 17, A global index on modern slavery said some 30 million people are enslaved worldwide, trafficked into brothels, forced into manual labour, victims of debt bondage or even born into servitude. Almost half were in India.
(Reuters, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, The first ladies of Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast sealed an agreement to fight the growing child trafficking trade between the two west African nations.
(AFP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, Canadian police arrested at least 40 protesters opposed to shale gas development in New Brunswick after vehicles were set ablaze and a shot was fired.
(AFP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, In France hundreds of pupils blocked high schools in the Paris region and joined protests after Leonarda Dibrani, a 15-year-old girl, was taken off a school bus on Oct 9 and deported to Kosovo.
(AP, 10/16/13)(Reuters, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, Indonesian police shot dead Suardi, a suspected militant, and arrested two others, in an ongoing clampdown on terrorism. All three were said to be part of a network led by Abu Uswah, who allegedly taught bomb-making and was shot dead in a raid in January.
(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 17, In northern Iraq a suicide bomber blew up his explosives-laden car among houses in the Shabak village of al-Mouafaqiyah near Mosul, killing at least 15 people. Attacks on Shi'ite Muslims killed at least 61 people across the country.
(AP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, Moroccan police drove back 400 African migrants who tried to rush across the country's border into the Spanish territory of Ceuta.
(AFP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, Mozambique government forces killed two fighters from rebel group Renamo in clashes on the first anniversary of their leader's return to the bush.
(AFP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, Pakistani officials said a Pakistani Ranger was killed by "unprovoked firing" by Indian troops along the disputed northwestern India-Pakistan border. An Indian Border Security Force officer said their forces retaliated after being fired on by the Pakistani side. Another Pakistani soldier was killed by militants in South Waziristan.
(AP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, In Saudi Arabia some 1.4 million Muslim pilgrims from 188 countries started to leave Mecca at the end of what authorities hailed as a successful and incident-free hajj. The hajj now brings in $16.5 billion, about 3% of Saudi GDP.
(AFP, 10/17/13)(Econ, 10/12/13, p.74)
2013 Oct 17, In South Africa a senior union official at a Lonmin mine in Marikana was shot dead.
(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 17, In South Sudan 5 people including four children were killed in a market when explosives left over from decades of civil war were accidentally set off on the outskirts of Juba.
(AFP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, Spanish police said they have arrested 17 people for their role in stealing watches worth 23 million euros ($31 million) in Dec 2012, resolving one of the country's biggest jewelry heists.
(AP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, The Syrian government said it has turned over to the United Nations Carl Campeau, a Canadian staffer, who went missing eight months ago in the Golan Heights, accusing rebels of having kidnapped him. Gen. Jameh Jameh, a top military intelligence officer was killed in clashes in Deir al-Zou.
(AFP, 10/17/13)(AP, 10/18/13)(SFC, 10/18/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 17, In Tunisia Islamist militants killed two policemen in clashes in the northeastern city of Goubellat.
(Reuters, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, The UN General Assembly elected five new members to the Security Council. The uncontested seats included Chad, Chile, Lithuania, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia.
(AP, 10/17/13)
2014 Oct 17, Pres. Obama named Ron Klain, a former chief of staff to VP Biden, as the administration’s point man on Ebola.
(SFC, 10/18/14, p.A8)
2014 Oct 17, The United States said it has issued entry bans to several Hungarians suspected of corruption, including people connected to the government.
(AP, 10/17/14)
2014 Oct 17, Indiana police found the body of Afrika Hardy (19) in a Motel 6 in Hammond. Police the next day arrested Darren Vann (43) of Gary. Vann confessed and told where the bodies of other women would be found. The body of Anith Jones of Merrillville, missing since Oct 8, was found the next day. Five more bodies were found on Oct 19.
(SFC, 10/20/14, p.A5)(SFC, 10/21/14, p.A6)
2014 Oct 17, Hurricane Gonzalo crushed trees, flattened power lines and damaged Bermuda's main hospital during an hours-long battering, but the tiny, wealthy British territory suffered no deaths.
(AP, 10/18/14)
2014 Oct 17, China’s Vice President Li Yuanchao called on China and Vietnam to enhance political trust and manage maritime disputes in a meeting with Vietnamese Defense Minister Phung Quang Thanh in Beijing.
(AP, 10/18/14)
2014 Oct 17, In CongoDRC Ugandan rebels hacked and clubbed to death 10 women, 8 children and 4 men in the town of Eringeti.
(AFP, 10/18/14)
2014 Oct 17, Hong Kong riot police battled with thousands of pro-democracy protesters for control of the city’s streets.
(SFC, 10/18/14, p.A2)
2014 Oct 17, India’s environment minister said a new air quality index has been launched to help citizens understand complex pollution data and its implications for their health.
(Reuters, 10/17/14)
2014 Oct 17, The Iraqi government imposed a curfew in the western city of Ramadi over fears that the Islamic State group might try to advance on the strategically important city. Car bombs exploded in three crowded areas of Baghdad, killing at least 23 people.
(AP, 10/17/14)(AFP, 10/17/14)
2014 Oct 17, It was reported that Iraqi pilots who have joined Islamic State in Syria are training members of the group to fly in three fighter jets captured from the Syrian military. In eastern Syria a US-led coalition airstrike on a gas distribution facility in Khasham, Deir el-Zour province, a stronghold of the Islamic State group, set off a series of secondary explosions and killed at least 8 people.
(Reuters, 10/17/14)(AP, 10/18/14)
2014 Oct 17, Meeting in Milan, Italy, Russia and Ukraine made progress towards resolving a row over gas supplies, but European leaders said Moscow had to do much more to prop up a fragile ceasefire and end fighting in eastern Ukraine.
(Reuters, 10/17/14)
2014 Oct 17, A Lebanese soldier was killed as a military bus came under fire in the country's north, in the 4th such deadly attack in less than a month.
(AP, 10/17/14)
2014 Oct 17, Lesotho's king convened parliament for the first time since an alleged coup attempt in August as the southern African country strives to resolve political tensions before elections next year.
(Reuters, 10/17/14)
2014 Oct 17, In Libya at least 14 people were killed when fighting erupted between armed youths and Islamist militias in Benghazi.
(AP, 10/17/14)
2014 Oct 17, Mozambican Renamo opposition leader Afonso Dhlakama said he would challenge elections held this week which he called unfair and marred by fraud.
(AP, 10/17/14)
2014 Oct 17, A Myanmar court sentenced the ex-religious affairs minister to 13 years in prison for embezzling state funds and sedition. Hsan Sint was removed from office in June following allegations he misused $10,000 to build a pagoda near Naypyitaw.
(AP, 10/17/14)
2014 Oct 17, Nigeria's official news agency said the government and Boko Haram Islamic extremists have agreed to an immediate cease-fire. Suspected Boko Haram insurgents attacked the village of Abadam late at night, killing at least one person and ransacking homes.
(AP, 10/17/14)(Reuters, 10/18/14)
2014 Oct 17, Pakistan's army extended its offensive against Islamist militants in mountains along the Afghan border, killing at least 9 insurgents.
(Reuters, 10/17/14)
2014 Oct 17, In the Philippines the Abu Sayyaf group released Stefan Okonek and Henrike Dielen on southern Jolo Island after receiving 250 million pesos ($5.6 million) in ransom. The two Germans were kidnapped six months earlier.
(AP, 10/17/14)
2014 Oct 17, In Russia Lyudmila Bogatenkova (73), a veteran activist who investigated the deaths and disappearances of Russian soldiers in Ukraine, was charged with fraud and ordered to be jailed.
(AP, 10/18/14)
2014 Oct 17, In South Korea 16 people were killed at a open-air pop concert where the group 4Minute was performing when the cover of a ventilation shaft they were standing on gave way. The man involved in planning the pop concert was found dead on Oct 18 in an apparent suicide.
(Reuters, 10/17/14)(AP, 10/18/14)
2014 Oct 17, Prosecutors in Istanbul ruled that there were no grounds for legal action against 53 suspects, including the sons of two former government ministers and a prominent Iranian businessman, who were suspected of bribery and corruption in a case that shook the country in December.
(AP, 10/18/14)
2014 Oct 17, The UN health agency officially declared an end to the Ebola outbreak in Senegal as the countrymade it past the 42-day mark, which is twice the maximum incubation period for Ebola, without detecting more such cases.
(AP, 10/17/14)
2014 Oct 17, In Yemen clashes between tribesmen and Shiite rebels advancing into the mainly Sunni southwestern province of Ibb killed 14 rebels and 10 tribesmen. Houthi rebels overran the al-Qaida stronghold of Radda.
(AFP, 10/17/14)(AFP, 10/18/14)(SFC, 10/18/14, p.A2)
2015 Oct 17, The US-led coalition conducted 18 air strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and five in Syria, according to the task force organizing the military operation.
(Reuters, 10/18/15)
2015 Oct 17, In Florida a shooting at the ZombieCon gathering in Fort Myers left one person dead and five others injured.
(SFC, 10/19/15, p.A7)
2015 Oct 17, Addyi, the first drug to boost sexual desire in women, became available from Sprout Pharmaceuticals.
(SFC, 10/17/15, p.A5)
2015 Oct 17, In Argentina a magnitude 5.9 earthquake struck the northwest, leaving at least one person dead and damaging homes in the Salta region.
(Reuters, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, Australia announced plans to legalize the growing of cannabis for medicinal purposes, saying those suffering debilitating illnesses deserved access to the most effective treatments.
(AFP, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, In the Democratic Republic of Congo leaders of the Twa and Luba ethnic groups signed an agreement intended to end a conflict which has killed hundreds and displaced tens of thousands.
(Reuters, 10/21/15)
2015 Oct 17, Hungary said it will temporarily reinstate border controls on its frontier with Slovenia, after his government sealed off its border with Croatia overnight to stem the flow of migrants. Migrants streaming across the Balkans reached Slovenia, diverted overnight by the closure of Hungary’s border with Croatia.
(Reuters, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, In southern India at least 15 people headed for a wedding were killed when a mini-bus they were riding collided with another bus as they were traveling to Malakonda town in Andhra Pradesh state.
(AP, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, Indonesian officials said 182 ethnic Rohingya have fled their encampment in Aceh province. Officials suspected they may have been persuaded by human traffickers to flee.
(AP, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, Iran reported that 2 people were killed in a shooting attack on Shiite worshippers marking Ashura, in the town of Dezful in Khuzestan province.
(AFP, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, Iraqi forces pressed their biggest offensive in months to resume their long-stalled northward advance and disrupt jihadist lines.
(AFP, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, Nigeria said Brig. Gen. Enitan Ransome Kuti has been dismissed from the army and jailed for losing a major battle in which Boko Haram Islamic extremists killed hundreds of civilians at the Jan. 2 battle for Baga.
(AP, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, Four Palestinians were shot dead and a fifth was wounded in attacks on Israelis in east Jerusalem and the West Bank.
(AFP, 10/18/15)
2015 Oct 17, Portugal’s former Socialist PM Jose Socrates left home as a free man for the first time in 10 months after a court lifted a house arrest.
(AP, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, In Romania three journalists were detained on suspicion of extorting money from public figures in exchange for not writing negative articles about them.
(AP, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, Russia said its air force has made 36 sorties, hitting 49 Islamic State targets in Syria in the last 24 hours.
(Reuters, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, It was reported that hundreds of South Korean scholars have declared they are boycotting the writing of state-issued history textbooks out of concern that that they will teach distorted views on the country's recent past.
(AP, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, Spanish police said they have arrested 81 persons on suspicion of sexually abusing minors and sharing child pornography on the Internet.
(AP, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, In northern Spain thousands took to the streets of San Sebastian to call for the release of Arnaldo Otegi (57), the jailed head of the Basque independence Sortu party.
(AFP, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, Syrian troops backed by Hezbollah and Iranian fighters made advances in their offensive to retake territory around the northern city of Aleppo from insurgents and jihadist fighters.
(Reuters, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, Taiwan's ruling party on named chairman Eric Chu to run for the island's top spot in coming national elections, replacing an existing pick in a move aimed at avoiding a trouncing by an opposition it fears could derail warming ties with China.
(Reuters, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, Turkey said 3 soldiers and 28 Kurdish militants have been killed in air strikes and clashes over the past two days in the predominantly Kurdish southeast.
(Reuters, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, The Turkish coastguard said 12 migrants thought to be from Syria and Afghanistan, including four children and a baby, drowned off the coast of Turkey as they tried to reach the Greek island of Lesbos.
(Reuters, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 17, In Turkey a British woman working for a London-based media charity who was heading to Iraq was found dead at Istanbul's Ataturk airport. Jackie Sutton (50) was reportedly found hanged in the toilets. There were no signs of foul play.
(AFP, 10/19/15)(AP, 10/21/15)
2015 Oct 17, The Ukrainian excursion boat Ivolga capsized in the Black Sea, killing 14 people. It was carrying twice as many passengers as allowed and was knocked over by a big wave.
(AP, 10/18/15)
2015 Oct 17, Venezuela announced that its state-owned oil company will buy a 25 percent stake in West Indies Oil Co. and that it will establish a regional bank with the Antigua and Barbuda government to fund a new resort.
(AP, 10/17/15)
2016 Oct 17, In Washington, DC. retired Marine Gen. James Cartwright (67) pleaded guilty to making false statements during an investigation into a leak of classified information about a covert cyber-attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. He faced up to six months in prison.
(SFC, 10/18/16, p.A4)
2016 Oct 17, In Brazil 8 inmates were killed and burned in a fresh prison riot. Police believed the riot was related to clashes a day earlier between rival factions in another jail that left 25 detainees dead.
(AFP, 10/17/16)
2016 Oct 17, Two Chinese astronauts began the country's longest crewed space mission yet, blasting off on a spacecraft for a 30-day stay on the Tiangong 2 experimental space station as China steadfastly navigates its way to becoming a space superpower.
(AP, 10/17/16)(SFC, 10/20/16, p.A2)
2016 Oct 17, Egypt passed legislation to crack down on people traffickers linked to a major surge in the numbers of migrants departing from the country's Mediterranean coast on often disastrous sea journeys to Europe.
(Reuters, 10/17/16)
2016 Oct 17, In eastern India a fire broke out late today at the private Sum Hospital in the city of Bhubaneswar, killing at least 23 people.
(AP, 10/18/16)
2016 Oct 17, An Indonesian official said three men were arrested over the weekend for allegedly trading in protected species, with police seizing animal parts including a tiger skin, deer genitalia and pangolin scales.
(AFP, 10/17/16)
2016 Oct 17, Iraqi government forces launched a US-backed offensive to drive Islamic State from the northern city of Mosul. The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said up to 100,000 Iraqis may flee to Syria and Turkey to escape the assault.
(Reuters, 10/17/16)
2016 Oct 17, Italian PM Matteo Renzi flew to the United States for a high-profile visit that he hopes will boost his flagging campaign for a referendum on constitutional reform.
(Reuters, 10/17/16)
2016 Oct 17, A Lithuanian court called former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to testify in a mass trial related to the 1991 crackdown on the country's independence movement.
(AP, 10/17/16)
2016 Oct 17, In central Pakistan two passenger buses collided in Khanpur town killing 25 people and leaving 69 injured.
(SFC, 10/18/16, p.A2)
2016 Oct 17, The editor-in-chief of Kremlin-funded television network RT said that all its bank accounts in Britain have been closed down.
(AFP, 10/17/16)
2016 Oct 17, South African protesters demanding free university education broke windows, forced open doors and threw human excrement in an effort to disrupt the resumption of classes.
(AP, 10/17/16)
2016 Oct 17, In Syria airstrikes by Russian warplanes on rebel-held areas in the northern province of Aleppo killed at least 36 people, including children.
(AP, 10/17/16)
2016 Oct 17, Vietnam officials said that floods in four central provinces have killed 24 people and displaced thousands, with tropical storm Sarika in the South China Sea approaching the central coast.
(SFC, 10/18/16, p.A2)
2017 Oct 17, A federal judge in Hawaii blocked Pres. Trump’s revised travel order, saying the policy has the same problems as a previous version. A second US judge ordered a freeze on Trump's newest travel ban order, saying it was essentially targeted at Muslims in violation of the US Constitution.
(AP, 10/17/17)(AFP, 10/18/17)
2017 Oct 17, The US Justice Dept. announced the indictment of Xiaobang Yan (40) and Jian Zhang (38) of China on charges of manufacturing tons of fentanyl and other powerful narcotics that were then peddled in the US. Chances were slim that the men would be brought ot the US to face the charges.
(SFC, 10/18/17, p.A4)
2017 Oct 17, US and Japanese diplomats agreed to maximize pressure on North Korea to resolve tensions over its nuclear program.
(AP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, Thousands of files from the US Embassy in Jakarta covering 1963-66 were made public after a declassification review that began under the Obama administration. They revealed new details of US government knowledge and support of an Indonesian army extermination campaign that killed several hundred thousand civilians during anti-communist hysteria in the mid-1960s.
(AP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, In South Carolina Timothy Johnson (24) was shot and killed by a boy (3). Albert Davis (31) was soon charged with murder for giving the boy a gun and telling him to chase a man around the yard of a home in Warrenville.
(SFC, 10/19/17, p.A4)
2017 Oct 17, In Afghanistan the Taliban unleashed a wave of attacks across the country, targeting police compounds and government facilities with suicide bombers in the country's south, east and west, and killing at least 74 people.
(AP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, In Argentina the body of indigenous rights activist Santiago Maldonado (28), last seen on Aug. 1 being detained by paramilitary police, was found entangled in roots in the bed of a river that traverses ancestral lands sold to Italian businessman Luciano Benetton but is claimed by the Mapuche.
(AFP, 10/28/17)
2017 Oct 17, Britain’s Home Office in London said 80,393 hate crimes were reported during the 12 months to march of this year, an increase of nearly 30% over last year.
(SFC, 10/18/17, p.A2)
2017 Oct 17, Gord Downie (53), who made himself part of Canada's national identity with songs about hockey and small towns as lead singer and songwriter of iconic rock band The Tragically Hip, died after a battle with brain cancer.
(AP, 10/18/17)
2017 Oct 17, Chinese authorities reportedly released Gui Minhai, a China-born Swedish bookseller. Gui was abducted in Thailand while on holiday in 2015 after publishing books on the personal lives of President Xi Jinping and other Communist Party leaders.
(AP, 10/24/17)
2017 Oct 17, Officials said an EU-funded project that provides cash assistance to the most vulnerable refugee families in Turkey has reached 1 million beneficiaries a year after its launch.
(AP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, Ghana and Ivory Coast set up a body to implement an international tribunal ruling on their dispute over a border running through multibillion dollar offshore oilfields.
(Reuters, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, The Indian government ordered diesel generators and a power plant in Delhi to be shut down as air quality in the capital deteriorated ahead of the Hindu festival of lights, when a night of firecrackers sends pollution levels rocketing.
(Reuters, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, In Indonesia Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (APRIL) suspended forestry operations at its pulp and paper subsidiary after the government canceled a long-term work plan citing environmental non-compliance.
(Reuters, 10/21/17)
2017 Oct 17, The Baghdad government recaptured territory from Kurds across the breadth of northern Iraq, making startlingly rapid gains in a sudden campaign that has shifted the balance of power in the country almost overnight.
(AP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, Israeli authorities advanced plans for 1,292 settler homes in a new push by PM Benjamin Netanyahu's government to expand settlements in the occupied West Bank.
(AP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, A Japanese military helicopter carrying four crewmembers lost radar contact while on a nighttime search and rescue flight training mission in central Japan and is feared to have crashed.
(AP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga said he was suspending a protest campaign after three people were shot dead in demonstrations against the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).
(AP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, The Libyan capital's Mitiga airport was evacuated and civilian flights were repeatedly suspended as rival armed groups clashed nearby.
(Reuters, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, In Nigeria Rev. Maurizio Pallu was released late today, five days after being kidnapped in Benin City.
(AP, 10/18/17)
2017 Oct 17, Norwegian solar panel maker Saga Energy signed a deal worth 2.5 billion euros ($2.9 billion) with Iran's state-owned company Amin Energy Developers to build solar power plants.
(AP, 10/18/17)
2017 Oct 17, In Pakistan two suspected US drone strikes killed 11 people on the mountainous Pakistan-Afghanistan border, following a strike a day earlier that killed 20.
(Reuters, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, Philippine soldiers fought to gain control of the last pocket of Marawi controlled by Islamic militants as President Rodrigo Duterte declared the southern city liberated from "terrorist influence".
(AP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, In Warsaw Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with his Polish counterpart, his first official bilateral visit to an EU country since the failed 2016 coup in Turkey. President Andrzej Duda said he hopes Turkey will eventually join the EU. They discussed defense cooperation through NATO, and the issue of energy as both countries count on coal for part of their energy needs.
(AFP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, Overnight rain and calmer winds helped firefighters tame a spate of deadly wildfires that broke out over the weekend, devouring homes and killing 37 people in Portugal and another four in northern Spain.
(AFP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman ordered the establishment of an authority to scrutinize uses of the "hadith" - accounts of the sayings, actions or habits of the Prophet that are used by preachers and jurists to support teachings and edicts on all aspects of life. The body would be chaired by Sheikh Mohammed bin Hassan al-Sheikh, a member of the Council of Senior Scholars, which serves as Saudi Arabia's highest religious body.
(AP, 10/18/17)
2017 Oct 17, South African President Jacob Zuma sacked a vocal critic from his cabinet, a move set to deepen tensions before the ANC chooses a new party leader in December. Zuma dropped higher education minister Blade Nzimande, a veteran member of the South African Communist Party, a key political ally within the ruling ANC alliance.
(AFP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, Spain's top court officially ruled that Catalonia's disputed independence referendum was illegal because a regional law that backed it was against the constitution. Catalonia refused to bow to the government's demand that it renounce its declaration of independence, setting it on a political collision course with Madrid later this week.
(AP, 10/17/17)(Reuters, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, In Spain an F18 fighter jet crashed on takeoff at a military base near Madrid, killing the pilot. This was the second time a military plane has come down in Spain in a week.
(AFP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, In northern Syria US-backed forces said they have captured Raqqa, once the seat of power for the Islamic State group, after a grueling four-month battle that left the city in ruins.
(AP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, In Togo two teenagers and two soldiers were killed during clashes in Sokode that followed the arrest of a local imam who is close to the opposition Panafrican National Party (PNP).
(AFP, 10/18/17)
2017 Oct 17, In southern Turkey a bomb exploded as a bus carrying police was passing by in Mersin.
(AP, 10/17/17)
2017 Oct 17, In Turkey seven miners were killed and another was missing after part of a coal mine collapsed in the southeastern province of Sirnak.
(Reuters, 10/17/17)
2018 Oct 17, The US Treasury imposed sanctions on an Iraq-based money services business, Afaq Dubai, believed to be moving funds for the Islamic State militant group.
(Reuters, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan had made clear in talks in Ankara that Saudi officials were cooperating with Turkey's investigation into missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
(Reuters, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis visited a former American air base in southern Vietnam that will soon become the biggest-ever US cleanup site for contamination left by the defoliant Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.
(Reuters, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, It was reported that six to ten sea lions suffering from leptospirosis were being received on a daily basis at the Marine Mammal Center in the Marin Headlands of northern California. Veterinarians have treated 220 sea lions so far this year.
(SFC, 10/17/18, p.A1)
2018 Oct 17, In North Carolina state Trooper Kevin Conner was shot and killed during a traffic stop in Columbus County. Raheem Cole Dashanell Davis (20) was soon charged first-degree murder. On October 22 a polcie offi8cer shot and killed Tafahree Maynard
(SFC, 10/18/18, p.A5)
2018 Oct 17, In Pennsylvania Rev. David Lee Poulson (65) of Oil City admitted that he sexually abused children and pleaded guilty to corruption of minors and child endangerment.
(SFC, 10/18/18, p.A9)
2018 Oct 17, Twitter said that it had identified 3,841 accounts affiliated with the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, a Russian “troll farm" that has been indicted by US Special Counsel Robert Mueller for attempts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.
(Reuters, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, In Afghanistan the Taliban attacked checkpoints in the northern Baghlan province, killing six policemen and wounding two others in a four-hour battle. A suicide car bomber targeted a military vehicle, killing two army troops in eastern Maidan Wardak province. A bomb accidently detonated inside a local Taliban commander's home in western Herat province, killing five people.
(AP, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, Bahrain began hosting a four-day meeting of the Green Climate Fund's board. The UN-backed fund to help poor countries tackle climate change met following the recent resignation of its director and a shortfall in contributions from rich nations.
(AP, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, Canada became the first industrialized nation to legalize recreational cannabis, but a lawful buzz will be hard to come by in its biggest cities like Toronto and Vancouver, which will have no stores open.
(Reuters, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, In Russian-annexed Crimea 20 people were killed and dozens more wounded, most of them teenagers, after a student opened fire at the Kerch Polytechnical College. Investigators identified the attacker as Vladislav Roslyakov (18), a fourth-year student whose body was found "with a gunshot wound" on the premises.
(AFP, 10/17/18)(Reuters, 10/19/18)
2018 Oct 17, French Pres. Emmanuel Macron met with visiting Japanese PM Shinzo Abe to prepare next year's summits of the group of developing countries G-20 in Japan and the world's advanced economies G-7 in France.
(AP, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, The France-based Interpol police organization said coordinated police raids in 93 countries have netted more than 55 tons of drugs including a cocaine, heroin and millions of synthetic drug pills. 1,300 people in all were arrested in an operation codenamed Lionfish, and which took place between Sept. 17 and Oct. 8.
(Reuters, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, Greek PM Alexis Tsipras took over as foreign minister following the resignation of Nikos Kotzias, who quit amid reports of a growing rift with a coalition partner over a June 2018 deal with Macedonia to end the name dispute.
(Reuters, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, In Haiti at least two people were killed and dozens injured during large protests over alleged misuse of government funds.
(AP, 10/18/18)
2018 Oct 17, In India conservative Hindu groups prevented women from entering an Indian hill temple, in defiance of India's top court which says a centuries-long ban at the holy site is illegal.
(Reuters, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, Indian government junior minister M.J. Akbar resigned to fight accusations of sexual harassment from more than a dozen women during his previous career as a journalist.
(Reuters, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, Anti-India protests and clashes erupted in the main city in disputed Kashmir after a gunbattle between militants and government forces killed at least two rebels.
(AP, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit a house in in Beersheba, the largest city in southern Israel early today, prompting Israeli air strikes that killed a militant in the Palestinian enclave.
(Reuters, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, Jordan said a group of 279 Syrian rescue workers have left the kingdom for resettlement in Western countries three months after they were evacuated from Israel.
(AFP, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, Norway's government officially apologized to Norwegian women targeted for reprisals by authorities for having intimate relations with German soldiers during the country's war-time occupation.
(AP, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, In Pakistan Mohammad Imran, a man convicted of killing eight children, was executed at a prison early today after the country's top court rejected a request for his public hanging.
(AP, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, A Peruvian judge freed conservative opposition leader Keiko Fujimori from jail where she spent the past week pending charges in a money laundering probe.
(Reuters, 10/18/18)
2018 Oct 17, Slovakia's defense ministry said the country will keep its military presence in Iraq after the government approved a plan to deploy up to 42 soldiers there next year to help train Iraqi security forces as part of a NATO mission.
(AP, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, Francisco Tejon, leader of the "Los Castanas" clan and one of Spain's most-wanted drug traffickers, was arrested in Cadiz province after seeming to taunt police by appearing in a music video.
(AFP, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, Moldova's President Igor Dodon met with visiting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The two-day visit aimed at boosting political and trade ties with the former Soviet republic.
(AP, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 17, A landslide in Tibet blocked the flow of one of the region's key rivers, creating a lake that could endanger downstream areas in India. Chinese emergency services evacuated about 6,000 people in the region.
(AP, 10/18/18)
2018 Oct 17, UN agencies called for an end to the practice in some countries of determining whether a girl or woman is a virgin through gynecological testing.
(SFC, 10/18/18, p.A2)
2018 Oct 17, The Vietnamese dissident known as "Mother Mushroom" was released from prison and left Vietnam on a flight to the United States. Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh was serving a 10-year sentence for anti-state propaganda.
(Reuters, 10/17/18)
2019 Oct 17, The US and Turkey agreed to a five-day cease-fire in the Turks' deadly attacks on Kurdish fighters in northern Syria. Tts effect was largely to mitigate a foreign policy crisis widely seen to be of Pres. Trump's own making.
(AP, 10/18/19)
2019 Oct 17, White House acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney told reporters that Trump's decision to withhold $391 million in aid to Ukraine was linked to his desire for an investigation by Kiev into a debunked theory that a Democratic National Committee (DNC) computer server was held in Ukraine. The comments, which he later sought to walk back, seemed to undermine the core arguments that Trump and his advisers have made against the effort to oust him from office.
(Reuters, 10/18/19)
2019 Oct 17, US Congressman Elijah Cummings (68), D-Md., died of complications from what his office called “longstanding health challenges".
(Yahoo News, 10/17/19)
2019 Oct 17, The US Marines said in a statement that after questions were raised by private historians who studied photos and films, it determined that Cpl. Harold P. Keller (d.1979) was among the six men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima in 1945. The Marines say Pfc. Rene Gagnon had helped in the effort but for decades was mistakenly identified by the Marines as one of the flag-raisers.
(AP, 10/17/19)
2019 Oct 17, In Alaska a commuter plane carrying 42 people overshot a runway in Unalaska. One of two passengers, who suffered critical injuries, soon died.
(SFC, 10/19/19, p.A6)
2019 Oct 17, Teachers in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) system picketed outside of schools during their first day of a strike after protracted labor negotiations between the union and district leadership failed to produce a deal.
(Reuters, 10/17/19)
2019 Oct 17, New York's City Council approved a proposal for an extensive overhaul of the city's corrections system at a cost of over $8 billion.
(SFC, 10/18/19, p.A8)
2019 Oct 17, A wind storm, described by meteorologists as a "bomb cycle," swept the East Coast of the US leaving more than 500,000 customers without power.
(SFC, 10/18/19, p.A7)
2019 Oct 17, Scientists said fossils found in Morocco suggest the practice of forming orderly lines may date back 480 million years and could have had evolutionary advantages. Their study described groups of blind trilobites — known as Ampyx — all facing in the same direction, apparently maintaining contact via their long rearward spines.
(AP, 10/17/19)
2019 Oct 17, Britain and the European Union reached a new divorce deal that could allow Brexit on October 31, but faced immediate opposition among MPs in London -- who can still block it. British lawmakers approved the government's plan to hold a special sitting of parliament Oct. 19 to vote on PM Boris Johnson's Brexit deal.
(AFP, 10/17/19)(Reuters, 10/17/19)
2019 Oct 17, Britain's Intelligence and Security Committee sent a report to PM Boris Johnson on possible Russian interference in UK elections. The report required government approval before being made public.
(SFC, 11/6/19, p.A2)
2019 Oct 17, Climate-change activists of Extinction Rebellion disrupted rail services in London, sparking a clash between angry commuters and a protester who had climbed onto the roof of a London Underground train during rush hour.
(Reuters, 10/17/19)
2019 Oct 17, Bulgaria's broadcast regulator sacked the chief of the country's public radio, BNR, for taking its news channel off the air for hours last month in a row with a popular presenter known for her coverage of the graft-prone judicial system.
(Reuters, 10/17/19)
2019 Oct 17, In China Sophia Huang Xueqin, a freelance journalist who lived in the southern city of Guangzhou, was detained there on suspicion of "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble", a charge often used by authorities to detain activists. Huang was recently in Hong Kong reporting on anti-government protests.
(Reuters, 10/24/19)
2019 Oct 17, In Cuba Alicia Alonso (b.1920), founder the National Ballet of Cuba (1959), died in Havana.
(SFC, 10/18/19, p.C9)
2019 Oct 17, Germany slashed its growth outlook for next year, saying it expects trade conflicts, Brexit and other sources of uncertainty abroad to continue weighing on an economy that remains buttressed by domestic strength.
(AFP, 10/17/19)
2019 Oct 17, Iraq's foreign minister said his country will only take back its own citizens and their families who fought with the Islamic State group in Syria, not those from other countries.
(AP, 10/17/19)
2019 Oct 17, In Mexico cartel gunmen surrounded security forces in the northwestern city of Culiacan, Sinaloa state, and made them free Ovidio Guzman, the son of jailed kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. His brief capture, following a federal US warrant, triggered gun battles and a jailbreak that stunned the country. At least eight people were reported killed, including five suspected gang members.
(Reuters, 10/18/19)(SFC, 10/19/19, p.A4)
2019 Oct 17, Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) said it could not support PM Boris Johnson's Brexit agreement with the European Union, complicating his task of getting it approved by parliament.
(Reuters, 10/17/19)
2019 Oct 17, A Palestinian court blocked access to 59 websites critical of the Palestinian Authority. The decision was made public on Oct. 21 and drew wide criticism. Most of the sites are run by supporters of the Islamic militant group Hamas or Mohammed Dahlan, rivals to President Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas' government called on the attorney general to overturn the decision.
(AP, 10/22/19)
2019 Oct 17, Humanitarian groups in northeastern Syria scrambled to provide aid to hundreds of thousands of people as rapidly shifting battle lines made it increasingly difficult to reach them.
(AP, 10/17/19)
2019 Oct 17, A new UN report said an "unprecedented" number of civilians were killed or wounded in Afghanistan from July to September this year.
(AFP, 10/17/19)
2019 Oct 17, Venezuela won a contested election for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council despite a campaign by over 50 organizations and many countries opposed to Nicolas Maduro's government and its rights record. The 193-member world body elected 14 members to the 47-member Human Rights Council for three-year terms starting Jan. 1. Under its rules, seats are allocated to regions to ensure geographical representation.
(AP, 10/18/19)
2020 Oct 17, Women’s March protesters took to the streets in Washington DC, galvanized by their opposition to Mr. Trump and his nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. The march was met with a counterprotest in support of Judge Barrett.
(NY Times, 10/18/20)
2020 Oct 17, Early US voting continued to break records, with more than 26 million people having cast their ballots in the presidential election as of today.
(The Week, 10/18/20)
2020 Oct 17, A free speech demonstration staged by conservative activists quickly fell apart in downtown San Francisco after several hundred counter protesters surged the area, outnumbering and attacking those gathered, including knocking one in the mouth.
(AP, 10/17/20)
2020 Oct 17, California to date had 871,656 cases of coronavirus and 16,908 deaths. The SF Bay Area had 110,703 cases and 1,680 deaths. Total cases nationwide reached over 8,069,856 with the death toll at 218,812.
(sfist.com, 10/17/20)
2020 Oct 17, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone performed a short exorcism ceremony outside a Catholic church where protesters had earlier toppled a statue of Father Junipero Serra, saying the ceremony was intended to drive out evil and defend the image of Serra.
(AP, 10/17/20)
2020 Oct 17, Bob Biggs (74) founder of Slash Records (1979), one of the most successful independent record labels of its era, died of Lewy body dementia at his ranch in Tehachapi, Ca.
(NY Times, 10/29/20)
2020 Oct 17, In Colorado the CalWood Fire began burning about 50 miles southeast of the Cameron Peak Fire, the largest in state history.
(The Week, 10/19/20)
2020 Oct 17, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) slammed President Trump for his "rhetoric" after he took aim at her during his rally in the state.
(The Week, 10/18/20)
2020 Oct 17, Ashley Louise Ricks (33) was driving on Interstate 40 in the wrong direction near El Reno, Oklahoma, just after midnight, when she crashed head-on into another car. She was under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the crash. The crash led to the deaths of four members of a California family. In 2022 She was sentenced to four 30-years-to-life sentences that she will serve concurrently.
(Fox News, 1/9/22)
2020 Oct 17, Austria reported 1,747 coronavirus infections in the past 24 hours, a new record.
(Reuters, 10/17/20)
2020 Oct 17, Azerbaijan accused Armenia of striking its second-largest city with a ballistic missile that killed at least 13 civilians and wounded 50 others in a new escalation of their conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijani officials said the Soviet-made Scud missile destroyed or damaged about 20 residential buildings in Ganja overnight. Pres. Ilham Aliyev announced that Azerbaijani forces have taken the town of Fizuli and seven villages around it.
(AP, 10/17/20)
2020 Oct 17, A new cease-fire agreement was announced between Armenia and Azerbaijan, effective at midnight, following Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s calls with his counterparts, in which he strongly urged them to abide by the Moscow deal.
(AP, 10/18/20)
2020 Oct 17, The Standing Committee of China's congress passed amendments to a law that will criminalize the intentional insulting of the national flag and emblem. The law will take effect on January 1.
(SSFC, 10/18/20, p.A5)
2020 Oct 17, Egyptian authorities released comedian Shady Abu Zaid, who was working for a popular satirical television program, after more than two years in prison without trial. He must still report to a police station twice a week as part of his terms of release.
(AP, 10/18/20)
2020 Oct 17, Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Germans to come together like they did in the spring to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The country's disease control center, the Robert Koch Institute, reported 7,830 cases overnight, a new record.
(AP, 10/17/20)
2020 Oct 17, Iran announced that its death toll from the coronavirus has passed the milestone of 30,000, in what has been the Mideast region's worst outbreak. More than 526,000 confirmed cases to date. The death toll reached at least 30,123.
(AP, 10/17/20)
2020 Oct 17, Thousands of Israelis demonstrated outside the official residence of PM Benjamin Netanyahu late today, resuming the weekly protest against the Israeli leader after emergency restrictions imposed as part of a coronavirus lockdown were lifted.
(AP, 10/17/20)
2020 Oct 17, Italy registered a record 10,925 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours. There were also 47 COVID-related deaths. Total fatalities reached 36,427.
(AP, 10/17/20)
2020 Oct 17, The house of former Ivory Coast PM Pascal Affi Nguessan was burned down in his stronghold of Bongouanou during clashes less than two weeks before bitterly contested elections.
(BBC, 10/18/20)
2020 Oct 17, New Zealand held elections. PM Jacinda Ardern (40) won a second term in office in an election landslide of historic proportions. With most votes counted, Ardern's liberal Labour Party was winning 49% of the vote compared to 27% for its main challenger, the conservative National Party. New Zealanders voted to legalize euthanasia in a binding referendum, but preliminary results released on Oct. 30 showed they likely would not legalize recreational marijuana use.
(AP, 10/17/20)(AP, 10/30/20)
2020 Oct 17, It was reported that the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and Dr Reddy's Laboratories Ltd have received renewed approval to conduct late-stage clinical trials in India of Sputnik V, the Russian COVID-19 vaccine.
(Reuters, 10/17/20)
2020 Oct 17, Pro-democracy activists in Thailand staged a fourth straight day of high-profile protests in Bangkok, thwarting efforts by the authorities to stop them, including a shutdown of the city's mass transit systems.
(AP, 10/17/20)
2020 Oct 17, Ukraine registered a record 6,410 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, up from a previous record of 5,992 reported a day earlier. 109 patients had died in the past 24 hours, the highest daily toll since the start of the pandemic. A total of 293,641 cases had been registered in Ukraine as of today, with 5,517 deaths.
(Reuters, 10/17/20)
2020 Oct 17, Pope Francis permanently removed Polish bishop Edward Janiak (68) following a probe into allegations he covered up cases of sexual abus by his priests in Kalisz.
(SSFC, 10/18/20, p.A5)
2021 Oct 17, Total US COVID-19 cases reached over 44,928,323 with the death toll at 724,281.
(sfist.com, 10/18/21)
2021 Oct 17, Britain reported 45,140 new cases of COVID-19, the highest daily number since the middle of July, and 57 new deaths within 28 days of a positive test.
(Reuters, 10/17/21)
2021 Oct 17, Milan and Costa Rica were among the winners of the Earthshot Prize, an environmental award created by Britain's Prince William, who has criticized world leaders for an uninspiring response to the climate change crisis.
(Reuters, 10/18/21)
2021 Oct 17, In the Canary Islands 42 seismic movements were recorded on the island of la Palma, the largest of which measured 4.3. President Angel Víctor Torres said there is no immediate end in sight to the volcanic eruption that has caused chaos on the island.
(Reuters, 10/17/21)
2021 Oct 17, Cape Verde voted for a new president who faces the task of stabilizing its tourism-driven economy after the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Opposition candidate and former prime minister Jose Maria Neves (61) won Cape Verde's presidential election. His main rival, the ruling party's flagbearer Carlos Veiga, conceded defeat.
(Reuters, 10/17/21)(Reuters, 10/18/21)
2021 Oct 17, The People's Bank of China Governor Yi Gang said China's economy is "doing well", but faces challenges such as default risks for certain firms due to "mismanagement".
(Reuters, 10/17/21)
2021 Oct 17, In El Salvador thousands of people took to the streets in protest against President Nayib Bukele who has stoked concern that he is steadily concentrating power.
(Reuters, 10/17/21)
2021 Oct 17, Egypt's government said that as of Nov. 15 it require public servants to have a vaccination certificate or show a weekly negative COVID-19 test before entering their workplaces.
(AP, 10/18/21)
2021 Oct 17, Italians began voting in a two-day run-off for the local governments of 65 large cities and smaller towns, including the capital Rome.
(Reuters, 10/17/21)
2021 Oct 17, Kyodo news agency reported that Japan's new PM Fumio Kishida sent a ritual offering to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine for war dead for the autumn festival, prompting the South Korean government to express "disappointment".
(Reuters, 10/17/21)
2021 Oct 17, In northern Nigeria gunmen killed at least 30 people in an attack on a market in Goronyo, Sokoto state.
(Reuters, 10/18/21)
2021 Oct 17, In Poland thousands of protesters marched in two cities in solidarity with migrants and asylum-seekers at the Poland-Belarus border who have been pushed back by Polish authorities.
(SFC, 10/18/21, p.A4)
2021 Oct 17, A Russian actor and a film director making the first move film in space returned to Earth after spending 12 days on the International Space Station (ISS).
(Reuters, 10/17/21)
2021 Oct 17, A Tunisian court ordered lawmaker Mehdi Ben Gharbia to be detained over suspected tax fraud and money laundering - the fourth parliamentarian to be taken into custody since President Kais Saied seized near total control of the country in July.
(Reuters, 10/17/21)
2021 Oct 17, Tunisian officials said at least two migrants died and 21 have disappeared after their boat capsized off the Tunisian coast in the Mediterranean Sea. 7 people were rescued.
(AP, 10/17/21)
2021 Oct 17, The Organization for Security and Cooperation on Europe (OSCE) said it has suspended its monitoring mission in eastern Ukraine following protests near its headquarters in separatist-controlled Donetsk.
(Reuters, 10/17/21)
2021 Oct 17, The United Arab Emirates recorded a drop in daily COVID-19 cases to below 100 for the first time since the start of the outbreak last year as it hosts a huge world fair to which it hopes to attract millions of visits.
(Reuters, 10/17/21)
2021 Oct 17, Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi movement said it has seized new territory in the energy-rich provinces of Shabwa and Marib, gains confirmed by sources, as it presses an offensive likely to further complicate international peace efforts. Rebels continued their weekslong blockade of a district in the central province of Marib, cutting off humanitarian aid and halting movement of its 37,000 people.
(Reuters, 10/17/21)(AP, 10/17/21)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Go to October 18
