Today in History....October 17

On this day in …

1777, British forces under Gen. John Burgoyne surrendered to American troops in Saratoga, N.Y., in a turning point of the Revolutionary War
1931, mobster Al Capone was convicted of income tax evasion (sentenced to 11 years in prison, Capone was released in 1939.)

1933, Albert Einstein arrived in the United States as a refugee from Nazi Germany

1941, the U.S. destroyer Kearny was torpedoed by a German submarine off the coast of Iceland; 11 people died

1973, Arab oil-producing nations announced they would begin cutting back oil exports to Western nations and Japan; the result was a total embargo that lasted until March 1974

1977, West German commandos stormed a hijacked Lufthansa jetliner on the ground in Mogadishu, Somalia, freeing all 86 hostages and killing three of the four hijackers, practitioners of that "religion of peace"

1989, an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale struck northern California, killing 67 people and causing $7 billion in damage

1996, Russian President Boris Yeltsin fired security chief Alexander Lebed, one day after the former general was accused by a rival of building his own rogue army

2001,


With the threat of anthrax hovering over Capitol Hill, congressional leaders closed six House and Senate office buildings for decontamination; the U.S. House of Representatives shut down for several days

Israel's tourism minister, Rehavam Zeevi, was shot to death in the first assassination of a serving Cabinet minister by "Palestinians"


2005,

A two-man Chinese space crew landed in China's northern grasslands after five days in orbit

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi enraged China and South Korea by visiting Tokyo's Yasukuni war shrine