On this day: 17 October
Events, births and deaths on 17 October. Every date is checked against Wikidata.
Years ago today
1 year ago2025
- Deaths · Tomiichi Murayama
10 years ago2016
Nothing recorded for that year.
100 years ago1926
- Births · Julie Adams
- Births · Beverly Garland
- Births · Roberto Lippi
1000 years ago1026
Within 100 years of that
- 1091 · Events · London tornado of 1091
Events · 24
- 1091(Julian date)London tornado of 1091 — medieval times F4 tornado
- 1346Battle of Neville's Cross — 1346 Medieval battle between England and Scotland
- 1448(Julian date)Battle of Kosovo — 1448 battle between Hungarian-led Crusaders and the Ottoman Empire
- 1534Affair of the Placards — 1534 anti-Catholic protest in France
- 1713Battle of Pälkäne — 1713 battle
- 1777Saratoga campaign — military campaign during the American Revolutionary war
- 1814London Beer Flood — 1814 brewery disaster in London
- 1850Massacre of Aleppo — riot (17–19 Oct. 1850) in Aleppo by Muslims against Christians
- 18601860 Open Championship — golf tournament held in 1860
- 1904Tianjin Nankai High School — public school in Tianjin, China
- 1914Battle off Texel — 1914 part of the First World War
- 19581958 Aeroflot Tu-104 crash in Chuvash — aviation accident
- 19611961 Paris massacre — 1961 massacre of Algerian protesters by police
- 1988Uganda Airlines Flight 775 — Aviation accident
- 19891989 Loma Prieta earthquake — major earthquake in northern California
- 19911991 Rudrapur bombings — Terrorist attack in India
- 1992shooting of Yoshihiro Hattori — 1992 fatal shooting of Yoshihiro Hattori
- 2000Hatfield rail crash — British rail accident
- 2001Assassination of Rehavam Ze'evi — Assassination of Rehavam Ze'evi in 2001
- 2017Battle of Raqqa — 2017 major battle in the Syrian Civil War
- 2018Kerch Polytechnic College massacre — 2018 school shooting and bombing in Kerch, Crimea
- 201917 October Revolution — protests in Lebanon
- 2019Battle of Culiacán — 2019 Mexican National Guard operation to capture Ovidio Guzmán López
- 2023al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion — 17 October 2023 explosion in Gaza
Births · 60
- 1577Dmitry Pozharsky — Rurikid prince (1577-1642)
- 1577(Julian date)Cristofano Allori — Italian portrait painter of the late Florentine Mannerist school (1577-1621)
- 1629Balthasar Charles — Prince of Asturias; (1629-1646)
- 1725(Julian date)John Wilkes — English radical, journalist, and politician (1725–1797)
- 1760Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon — French early socialist theorist (1760-1825)
- 1780Richard Mentor Johnson — vice president of the United States from 1837 to 1841
- 1784Fructuoso Rivera — president of Uruguay (1784-1854)
- 1792John Bowring — 4th Governor of Hong Kong; hymnwriter; translator (1792-1872)
- 1803Ferenc Deák — Hungarian politician (1803-1876)
- 1813
- 1817Syed Ahmed Khan — Indian Muslim reformer and social activist (1817–1898)
- 1853Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia — Duchess consort of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1853–1920); sixth child and second daughter of Alexander II of Russia and Maria Alexandrovna (Marie of Hesse)
- 1883A. S. Neill — Scottish educator and theorist (1883-1973)
- 1889Mīkhāʼīl Nuʻaymah — author, poet, novelist, critic, biographer
- 1892Theodor Eicke — German SS general, commander of concentration camp Dachau and inspector of the concentration camps (1892–1943)
- 1900Jean Arthur — American actress
- 1903Andrei Grechko — Soviet marshal
- 1903Nathanael West — American writer and screenwriter (1903–1940)
- 1912John Paul I — pope of the Catholic Church in 1978
- 1914Jerry Siegel — American co-creator of Superman
- 1915Arthur Miller — American playwright and essayist (1915–2005)
- 1917Marsha Hunt — American actress (1917–2022)
- 1918Rita Hayworth — American actress (1918–1987)
- 1919Zhao Ziyang — former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
- 1920Montgomery Clift — American actor (1920–1966)
Deaths · 60
- 532(Julian date)Boniface II — pope and bishop of Rome from 530 to 532
- 866(Julian date)Al-Musta'in — 12th Abbasid caliph (r. 862–866)
- 1456Nicolas Grenon — French composer
- 1552Andreas Osiander — German Protestant reformer, 1498-1552
- 1586Philip Sidney — English poet, courtier, diplomat (1554-1586)
- 1587Francesco I de' Medici — Grand Duke of Tuscany (1541-1587)
- 1687Frederick Coyett — Swedish noble who served as a Dutch colonial administrator
- 1690Margaret Mary Alacoque — Catholic Saint and Mystic (1647-1690)
- 1757René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur — French scientist
- 1781Edward Hawke, 1st Baron Hawke — Royal Navy admiral (1705-1781)
- 1806Jean-Jacques Dessalines — Leader of Haitian Revolution and first ruler of independent Haiti (1758-1806)
- 1837Johann Nepomuk Hummel — Austrian composer and pianist (1778–1837)
- 1849Frédéric Chopin — Polish composer and pianist (1810–1849)
- 1868Laura Secord — Canadian heroine of the War of 1812 (1775–1868)
- 1887Gustav Kirchhoff — German physicist (1824–1887)
- 1889(Julian date)Nikolay Chernyshevsky — Russian writer and nihilist philosopher (1828–1889)
- 1893Patrice de MacMahon — third President of the French Republic (1808–1893)
- 1910Julia Ward Howe — American abolitionist, social activist, and poet
- 1918Malak Hifni Nasif — Egyptian Feminist (1886–1918)
- 1928Frank Bernard Dicksee — English Victorian painter and illustrator (1853–1928)
- 1931Alfons Maria Jakob — German neurologist (1884–1931)
- 1937J. Bruce Ismay — Chairman of White Star shipping line (1862–1937)
- 1938Karl Kautsky — Czech-Austrian Marxist theorist (1854–1938)
- 1962Natalia Goncharova — Russian-French artist (1881–1962)
- 1963Jacques Hadamard — French mathematician (1865–1963)
Dates verified against Wikidata (CC0). Titles and descriptions come from Wikidata.