September 17 in History

The Kingdom of Galicia was a political entity located in southwestern Europe, which, at its territorial zenith, occupied the entire northwest of the Iberian Peninsula. In the early 10th century, the Kingdom of Galicia was formed following the division of the Kingdom of Asturias after the death of Alfonso III in 910. His sons split the kingdom, with Ordoño II inheriting Galicia. While Galicia became a distinct political entity, it remained closely tied to the Leonese and Asturian realms through dynastic connections. Later, Ordoño II integrated Galicia into the Kingdom of León when he inherited the latter. Though the Kingdom of Galicia had moments of semi-independence, it was typically seen as part of the Kingdom of León. Compostela became the capital of Galicia in the 11th century, while the independence of Portugal (1128) determined its southern boundary. The accession of Castilian King Ferdinand III to the Leonese kingdom in 1230 brought Galicia under the control of the Crown of Castile.

Louis I of Hungary, also known as Louis the Great or Louis the Hungarian, was King of Hungary and Croatia from 1342 and King of Poland from 1370 until his death in 1382. He was the first child of Charles I of Hungary and his wife, Elizabeth of Poland, to survive infancy. A 1338 treaty between his father and Casimir III of Poland, Louis's maternal uncle, confirmed Louis's right to inherit the Kingdom of Poland if his uncle died without a son. In exchange, Louis was obliged to assist his uncle in reoccupying the lands that Poland had lost in previous decades. He bore the title Duke of Transylvania between 1339 and 1342 but did not administer the province.

Finnish is a Finnic language of the Uralic language family, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official languages of Finland, alongside Swedish. In Sweden, both Finnish and Meänkieli are official minority languages. Kven, which like Meänkieli is mutually intelligible with Finnish, is spoken in the Norwegian counties of Troms and Finnmark by a minority of Finnish descent. However, these are recognized as independent languages in their relative countries for sociohistorical reasons.

The Polish–Ottoman War (1620–1621) was a conflict between the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire over the control of Moldavia. It ended with the Commonwealth withdrawing its claims on Moldavia and led to the eventual demise of the Sultan Osman II.

The Battle of Breitenfeld, 17 September 1631, took place during the Thirty Years' War outside Breitenfeld, Leipzig, in modern Saxony. In one of the most significant battles of the war, a combined Swedish-Saxon force defeated an army made up of Imperial and Catholic League troops.

Antonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek was a Dutch microbiologist and microscopist in the Golden Age of Dutch art, science and technology. A largely self-taught man in science, he is commonly known as "the Father of Microbiology", and one of the first microscopists and microbiologists. Van Leeuwenhoek is best known for his pioneering work in microscopy and for his contributions toward the establishment of microbiology as a scientific discipline.

The Presidio of San Francisco is a park and former U.S. Army post on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Francisco, California, and is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, on March 4, 1789. Originally including seven articles, the Constitution defined the foundational structure of the federal government.

The Low Countries theatre of the War of the First Coalition, also known as the Flanders campaign, was a series of campaigns in the Low Countries conducted from 20 April 1792 to 7 June 1795 during the first years of the War of the First Coalition. As the French Revolution radicalised, the revolutionary National Convention and its predecessors broke the Catholic Church's power (1790), abolished the monarchy (1792) and even executed the deposed king Louis XVI (1793), vying to spread the Revolution beyond the new French Republic's borders, by violent means if necessary. The First Coalition, an alliance of reactionary states representing the Ancien Régime in Central and Western Europe – Habsburg Austria, Prussia, Great Britain, the Dutch Republic, Hanover and Hesse-Kassel – mobilised military forces along all the French frontiers, threatening to invade Revolutionary France and violently restore the monarchy. The subsequent combat operations along the French borders with the Low Countries and Germany became the primary theatre of the War of the First Coalition until March 1796, when Napoleon took over French command on the Italian front.

Joshua Abraham Norton was a resident of San Francisco, California, who in 1859 declared himself "Emperor of these United States" in a proclamation that he signed "Norton I., Emperor of the United States". Commonly known as Emperor Norton, he took the secondary title "Protector of Mexico" in 1866.

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States. The South saw slavery as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war ended with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans.

The Battle of the Yalu River was the largest naval engagement of the First Sino-Japanese War, and took place on 17 September 1894, the day after the Japanese victory at the land Battle of Pyongyang. The Imperial Japanese Navy defeated the Chinese Beiyang Fleet.

The Second Boer War was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the Boer republics over Britain's influence in Southern Africa.

The Wright Flyer made the first sustained flight by a manned heavier-than-air powered and controlled aircraft on December 17, 1903. Invented and flown by brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright, it marked the beginning of the pioneer era of aviation.

World War I, or the First World War, also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. Major theatres of war included Europe and the Middle East, and well as parts of Africa and the Asia-Pacific. One of the deadliest conflicts in history, World War I resulted in an estimated 15 to 22 million deaths, including in mass war crimes against civilians and genocides. The conflict saw important developments in weaponry, including the first large-scale use of machine guns, artillery, aircraft, chemical weapons, and tanks, and was a major factor in the deadly Spanish flu pandemic.

The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada and the highest professional level of American football in the world. Each NFL season begins annually with a three-week preseason in August, followed by an 18-week regular season, which runs from early September to early January, with each team playing 17 games and having one bye week. Seven teams from each conference, including the four division winners and three wild card teams, then advance to the playoffs, a single-elimination tournament, which culminates in the Super Bowl, played in early February between the winners of the AFC and NFC championship games. The NFL is headquartered in New York City.

The Okeechobee hurricane of 1928, also known as the San Felipe Segundo hurricane and Florida's Forgotten Storm, was one of the deadliest hurricanes in the recorded history of the North Atlantic basin, and the fourth deadliest hurricane in the United States, only behind the 1900 Galveston hurricane, 1899 San Ciriaco hurricane, and Hurricane Maria in 2017. The hurricane killed an estimated 2,500 people in the United States; most of the fatalities occurred in the state of Florida, particularly around Lake Okeechobee. It was the fourth tropical cyclone, third hurricane, and only major hurricane of the 1928 Atlantic hurricane season, and remains the deadliest disaster in Florida's history to date. It developed off the west coast of Africa on September 6 as a tropical depression, but it strengthened into a tropical storm later that day, shortly before passing south of the Cape Verde islands. Further intensification was slow and halted late on September 7. About 48 hours later, the storm strengthened and became a Category 1 hurricane on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale. Still moving westward, the system reached Category 4 intensity before striking Guadeloupe on September 12, where it brought great destruction and resulted in 1,200 deaths. The islands of Martinique, Montserrat, and Nevis also reported damage and fatalities, but not nearly as severe as in Guadeloupe.

Laureano Eleuterio Gómez Castro was a Colombian politician and civil engineer who served as President of Colombia from 1950 to 1953. In November 1951 poor health led him to cede presidential power to Roberto Urdaneta Arbeláez. On 13 June 1953, when he tried to resume his presidency, he was overthrown in a military coup led by Gustavo Rojas Pinilla.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many engaging in total war on an unprecedented scale. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the deaths of 60 to 75 million people, a majority of whom were civilians. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

The Battle of Britain was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defended the United Kingdom against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force, the Luftwaffe. It was the first major military campaign fought entirely by air forces. It takes its name from the speech given by Prime Minister Winston Churchill to the House of Commons on 18 June, 1940: "What General Weygand called the 'Battle of France' is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin."

The Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran, also known as the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Persia or the Allied invasion of Iran, was the joint invasion of the officially neutral Imperial State of Iran by the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union in August 1941. The two powers announced that they would stay until six months after the end of the war with their mutual enemy, Nazi Germany, which turned out to be 2 March 1946. On that date the British began to withdraw, while the Soviet Union delayed until May, initially citing "threats to Soviet security", followed by the Iran crisis of 1946.

The Tallinn offensive was a strategic offensive by the Red Army's 2nd Shock Army and 8th Army and the Baltic Fleet against the German Army Detachment Narwa and Estonian units in mainland Estonia on the Eastern Front of World War II on 17–26 September 1944. Its German counterpart was the abandonment of the Estonian territory in a retreat codenamed Operation Aster.

Lehi, officially the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel and often known pejoratively as the Stern Gang, was a Zionist paramilitary militant organization founded by Avraham ("Yair") Stern in Mandatory Palestine in 1940. Its avowed aim was to evict the British authorities from Palestine by use of violence, allowing unrestricted immigration of Jews and the formation of a Jewish state. It was initially called the National Military Organization in Israel, upon being founded in August 1940, and considered its actions as necessary for achieving its national aims.

SS Noronic was a Canadian passenger ship that was destroyed by fire in Toronto Harbour in September 1949 with the loss of at least 118 lives.

India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the most populous country in the world and, since its independence in 1947, the world's most populous democracy. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal and Bhutan to the north; Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is near Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Myanmar, Thailand and Indonesia.

Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 706 was a Lockheed L-188 Electra aircraft, registration N137US, which crashed on take-off from Chicago's O'Hare International Airport September 17, 1961. All 37 on board were killed in the accident.

Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world and among the most densely populated with a population of almost 176 million within an area of 148,461 square kilometres (57,321 sq mi). Bangladesh shares land borders with India to the north, west, and east, and Myanmar to the southeast. It has a coastline along the Bay of Bengal to its south and is separated from Bhutan and Nepal by the Siliguri Corridor, and from China by the Indian state of Sikkim to its north. Dhaka, the capital and largest city, is the nation's political, financial, and cultural centre. Chittagong is the second-largest city and the busiest port of the country.

The Camp David Accords were a pair of political agreements signed by Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin on 17 September 1978, following twelve days of secret negotiations at Camp David, the country retreat of the president of the United States in Maryland. The two framework agreements were signed at the White House and were witnessed by President Jimmy Carter. The second of these frameworks led directly to the 1979 Egypt–Israel peace treaty. Due to the agreement, Sadat and Begin received the shared 1978 Nobel Peace Prize. The first framework, which dealt with the Palestinian territories, was written without participation of the Palestinians and was condemned by the United Nations.

Anastasio "Tachito" Somoza Debayle was a Nicaraguan politician, military officer, hydraulic engineer, and dictator who served as the 53rd President of Nicaragua from 1967 to 1972 and again from 1974 until his fall in 1979. As head of the National Guard, he was de facto ruler of the country between 1967 and 1979, even during the period when he was not the de jure ruler.

Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Russia. The territory of Estonia consists of the mainland, the larger islands of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa, and over 2,300 other islands and islets on the east coast of the Baltic Sea. Its capital city of Tallinn, along with the city of Tartu, are the country's two largest urban areas. The Estonian language, of the Finnic family, is the official language and the first language of the majority of nearly 1.4 million people. Estonia is one of the least populous member states of the European Union.

In the Mykonos restaurant assassinations, Iranian-Kurdish opposition leaders Sadegh Sharafkandi, Fattah Abdoli, Homayoun Ardalan and their translator Nouri Dehkordi, were assassinated at the Mykonos Greek restaurant in Berlin, Germany on 17 September 1992. The assassination took place during the KDPI insurgency (1989–96), as part of the general Kurdish separatism in Iran. The assassins were believed by German courts to have links to Iranian intelligence. Kazem Darabi, an Iranian intelligence service employee, was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment by the Berlin Supreme Court.

George Walker Bush is an American former politician, businessman, and former United States Air Force officer who was the 43rd president of the United States, serving from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000. He is the eldest son of George H. W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States.

The Őszöd speech was a speech Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány delivered to the 2006 Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) congress in Balatonőszöd. Though the May congress was confidential, Gyurcsány's address was leaked and broadcast by Magyar Rádió on Sunday, 17 September 2006, igniting a nationwide political crisis.

Grand Theft Auto V is a 2013 action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It is the seventh main entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, following 2008's Grand Theft Auto IV, and the fifteenth instalment overall. Set within the fictional state of San Andreas, based on Southern California, the single-player story follows three protagonists—retired bank robber Michael De Santa, street gangster Franklin Clinton, and drug dealer and gunrunner Trevor Philips —and their attempts to commit heists while under pressure from a corrupt government agency and powerful criminals. Players freely roam San Andreas's open world countryside and fictional city of Los Santos, based on Los Angeles.

On 17 September 2018, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) conducted missile strikes against multiple targets in government-controlled western Syria. Syrian air defences responded to the Israeli fighter jets, accidentally shooting a Russian military Il-20, killing 15 crew aboard. Russia blamed Israel for the loss of its plane, accusing the IAF of "hiding behind the Russian aircraft", thereby putting it in the line of fire. The Israel Defense Forces acknowledged striking a Syrian weapons facility, and expressed sorrow for the loss of lives due to Syrian fire. The strikes occurred a few hours after a Russo-Turkish agreement to create a demilitarized zone around Idlib Governorate was achieved, which postponed an imminent offensive operation by Syria's forces and its allies.