Events on September 17 64
Year 456
Remistus, Roman general (magister militum), is besieged by a Gothic force at Ravenna and later executed in the Palace in Classis, outside the city.
Year 1111
Highest Galician nobility led by Pedro Fróilaz de Traba and the bishop Diego Gelmírez crown Alfonso VII as "King of Galicia".
Year 1176
The Battle of Myriokephalon is the last attempt by the Byzantine Empire to recover Anatolia from the Seljuk Turks.
Year 1462
A Polish army under Piotr Dunin decisively defeats the Teutonic Order at the Battle of Świecino.
Year 1620
The Ottoman Empire defeats the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Battle of Cecora.
Year 1631
Sweden wins a major victory at the Battle of Breitenfeld against the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War.
Year 1658
The Battle of Vilanova is fought between Portugal and Spain during the Portuguese Restoration War.
Year 1683
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek writes a letter to the Royal Society describing "animalcules": the first known description of protozoa.
Year 1775
American Revolutionary War: The Invasion of Canada begins with the Siege of Fort St. Jean.
Year 1778
The Treaty of Fort Pitt is signed. It is the first formal treaty between the United States and a Native American tribe (the Lenape or Delaware Indians).
Year 1793
France's Army of the Eastern Pyrenees defeats a Spanish force at the Battle of Peyrestortes.
Year 1794
France completes its conquest of the Austrian Netherlands at the Battle of Sprimont.
Year 1809
Peace between Sweden and Russia in the Finnish War; the territory that will become Finland is ceded to Russia by the Treaty of Fredrikshamn.
Year 1861
Argentine Civil Wars: The State of Buenos Aires defeats the Argentine Confederation at the Battle of Pavón.
Year 1862
American Civil War: George B. McClellan halts the northward drive of Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army in the single-day Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day in American military history.
Year 1862
American Civil War: The Allegheny Arsenal explosion results in the single largest civilian disaster during the war.
Year 1894
Battle of the Yalu River, the largest naval engagement of the First Sino-Japanese War.
Year 1900
Philippine-American War: Filipinos under Juan Cailles defeat Americans under Colonel Benjamin F. Cheatham Jr. at Mabitac.
Year 1901
Second Boer War: A Boer column defeats a British force at the Battle of Blood River Poort.
Year 1901
Second Boer War: Boers capture a squadron of the 17th Lancers at the Battle of Elands River.
Year 1908
The Wright Flyer flown by Orville Wright, with Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge as passenger, crashes, killing Selfridge, who becomes the first airplane fatality.
Year 1916
World War I: Manfred von Richthofen ("The Red Baron"), a flying ace of the German Luftstreitkräfte, wins his first aerial combat near Cambrai, France.
Year 1924
The Border Protection Corps is established in the Second Polish Republic for the defence of the eastern border against armed Soviet raids and local bandits.
Year 1925
Frida Kahlo suffers near-fatal injuries in a bus accident in Mexico, causing her to abandon her medical studies and take up art
Year 1928
The Okeechobee hurricane strikes southeastern Florida, killing more than 2,500 people.
Year 1939
World War II: The Soviet Union joins Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland during the Polish Defensive War of 1939.
Year 1939
World War II: German submarine U-29 sinks the British aircraft carrier HMS Courageous.
Year 1940
World War II: Following Nazi Germany's defeat in the Battle of Britain, Hitler postpones Operation Sea Lion indefinitely.
Year 1941
World War II: A decree of the Soviet State Committee of Defense, restoring Vsevobuch in the face of the Great Patriotic War, is issued.
Year 1941
World War II: Soviet forces enter Tehran marking the end of the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran.
Year 1944
World War II: Allied Airborne troops parachute into the Netherlands as the "Market" half of Operation Market Garden.
Year 1944
World War II: Soviet troops launch the Tallinn Offensive against Germany and pro independence Estonian units.
Year 1944
World War II: German forces are attacked by the Allies in the Battle of San Marino.
Year 1948
The Lehi (also known as the Stern gang) assassinates Count Folke Bernadotte, who was appointed by the United Nations to mediate between the Arab nations and Israel.
Year 1948
The Nizam of Hyderabad surrenders his sovereignty over the Hyderabad State and joins the Indian Union.
Year 1949
The Canadian steamship SS Noronic burns in Toronto Harbour with the loss of over 118 lives.
Year 1961
The world's first retractable roof stadium, the Civic Arena, opens in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Year 1980
After weeks of strikes at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland, the nationwide independent trade union Solidarity is established.
Year 1980
Former Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza Debayle is killed in Asunción, Paraguay.
Year 1991
Estonia, North Korea, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, the Marshall Islands and Micronesia join the United Nations.
Year 1992
An Iranian Kurdish leader and his two joiners are assassinated by political militants in Berlin, Germany.
Year 2001
The New York Stock Exchange reopens for trading after the September 11 attacks, the longest closure since the Great Depression.
Year 2006
Fourpeaked Mountain in Alaska erupts, marking the first eruption for the long-dormant volcano in at least 10,000 years.
Year 2006
An audio tape of a private speech by Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány is leaked to the public, in which he confessed that his Hungarian Socialist Party had lied to win the 2006 election, sparking widespread protests across the country.
Year 2016
Two bombs explode in Seaside Park, New Jersey, and Manhattan, New York. 31 people are injured in the Manhattan bombing.