more events on September 17
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2011
Occupy Wall Street movement calling for greater social and economic equality begins in New York City’s Zuccotti Park, coining the phrase “We are the 99%.”
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2006
Alaska’s Fourpeaked Mountain erupts for the first time in at least 10,000 years.
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2001
The New York Stock Exchange reopens for the first time since the September 11 terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers; longest period of closure since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
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1983
Vanessa Williams becomes the first black Miss America; relinquished crown early after scandal over nude photos.
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1980
Nationwide independent trade union Solidarity established in Poland.
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1978
Egypt and Israel sign the Camp David Accords.
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1976
The Space Shuttle is unveiled to the public.
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1968
Marie-Chantal, Crown Princess of Greece.
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1962
The first federal suit to end public school segregation is filed by the U.S. Justice Department.
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1959
The X-15 rocket plane makes its first flight.
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1957
The Thai army seizes power in Bangkok.
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1953
Altaf Hussain, founder and leader of Pakistan’s Muttahida Qaumi Movement.
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Steve Williams, drummer and songwriter with influential Welch heavy metal group Budgie.
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1948
John Ritter, actor, comedian (Three’s Company TV series).
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1947
Jeff MacNelly, political cartoonist, creator of the comic strip Shoe.
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James Forestall is sworn in as first the U.S. Secretary of Defense.
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1944
British airborne troops parachute into Holland to capture the Arnhem bridge as part of Operation Market-Garden. The plan called for the airborne troops to be relieved by British troops, but they were left stranded and eventually surrendered to the Germans.
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1942
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill meets with Soviet Premier Josef Stalin in Moscow as the German Army rams into Stalingrad.
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1939
With the German army already attacking western Poland, the Soviet Union launches an invasion of eastern Poland.
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1935
Ken Kesey, author (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Sometimes a Great Notion).
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1923
Hank Williams, Sr., influential Country singer, songwriter and guitarist (“Lonesome Blues,” “Your Cheatin’ Heart”.)
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1917
The German Army recaptures the Russian Port of Riga from Russian forces.
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1916
Germany’s “Red Baron,” Manfred von Richthofen, wins his first aerial combat.
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1907
Warren E. Burger, chief justice of the Supreme Court.
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1903
Turks destroy the town of Kastoria in Bulgaria, killing 10,000 civilians.
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1902
U.S. troops are sent to Panama to keep train lines open over the isthmus as Panamanian nationals struggle for independence from Colombia.
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1883
William Carlos Williams, poet, playwright, essayist and writer who won a Pulitzer prize for Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems.
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1879
Andrew “Rube” Foster, father of the Negro baseball leagues.
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1868
The Battle of Beecher’s Island begins, in which Major George “Sandy” Forsyth and 50 volunteers hold off 500 Sioux and Cheyenne in eastern Colorado.
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1862
The Battle of Antietam in Maryland, the bloodiest day in U.S. history, commences. Fighting in the corn field, Bloody Lane and Burnside’s Bridge rages all day as the Union and Confederate armies suffer a combined 26,293 casualties.
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1796
President George Washington delivers his “Farewell Address” to Congress before concluding his second term in office.
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1787
The Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia approves the constitution for the United States of America.
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1743
Marquis Marie Jean de Condorcet, French mathematician and philosopher, a leading thinker in the Enlightenment.