October 17

Today in History
• 1691 - New royal charter for Massachusetts, now including Maine, Plymouth
• 1740 - Ivan VI becomes Tsar of Russia
• 1787 - Boston African Americans petition legislature for equal school facilities
• 1806 - Former leader of the Haitian Revolution, Emperor Jacques I of Haiti is assassinated
• 1808 - Political rights of Jews suspended in Duchy of Warsaw
• 1829 - Delaware River and Chesapeake Bay Canal formally opens
• 1894 - Ohio national guard kills 3 lynchers while rescuing a black man
• 1919 - Radio Corporation of America (RCA) is created


Holidays - Traditional and Obscure
• Black Poetry Day
• Child Poverty Day
• Day of Dignity (Bolivia)
• Dessalines Day
• National Catholic Men’s Conference Day
• National Pasta Day
• Wear Something Gaudy Day
• World Trauma Day

Birthdays
• 1253 - Ivo of Kermartin, Catholic saint and patron of Brittany
• 1696 - August III, king of Poland/monarch Frederik August II of Saksen
• 1711 - Jupiter Hammon, 1st American black to publish poetry, Complete Works
• 1817 - Samuel Ringgold Ward, Maryland, minister/abolitionist
• 1817 - Syed Ahmad Khan, Indian Muslim leader
• 1912 - John Paul I [Albino Luciano], 263rd Roman Catholic pope (1978)
• 1926 - Karl Gordon Henize, American astronomer and NASA astronaut (STS-51-F)
• 1956 - Mae Jemison, 1st African American woman in space