About October 17

October 17, 2025 is the 290th day of the year 2025 in the Gregorian calendar. There are 75 days remaining until the end of this year. The day of the week is Friday.

You can browse the full year calendar in case you need it.

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Libra is the sun sign of a person born on this day. Opal is the modern birthstone for this month. Jasper is the mystical birthstone from Tibetan origin that dates back over a thousand years.

According to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, there are 123 days remaining before the start of the next Chinese New Year.

What Happened On October 17

  • 1091
    London Tornado of 1091: A tornado thought to be of strength T8/F4 strikes the heart of London.
  • 1456
    The University of Greifswald is established, making it the second oldest university in northern Europe (also for a period the oldest in Sweden, and Prussia)
  • 1771
    Premiere in Milan of the opera Ascanio in Alba, composed by Wolfgang Mozart, age 15.
  • 1777
    American Revolutionary War: British General John Burgoyne surrenders his army at Saratoga, New York.
  • 1905
    The October Manifesto issued by Tsar Nicholas II of Russia
  • 1917
    First British bombing of Germany in World War I.
  • 1941
    German troops execute the male population of the villages Kerdyllia in Serres, Greece.
  • 1943
    Burma Railway (Burma-Thailand Railway) is completed.
  • 1945
    A massive number of people, headed by CGT and Evita, gather in the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina to demand Juan Peron’s release. It calls “el día de la lealtad peronista” (peronista loyalty day)
  • 1945
    Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens becomes Prime Minister of Greece between the pull-out of the German occupation force in 1944 and the return of King Georgios II to Greece.
  • 1956
    The first commercial nuclear power station is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II in Sellafield,in Cumbria, England.
  • 1961
    Scores of Algerian protesters (some claim up to 400) are massacred by the Paris police at the instigation of Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon, then chief of the Prefecture of Police.
  • 1964
    Prime Minister of Australia Robert Menzies opens the artificial Lake Burley Griffin in the middle of the capital Canberra.
  • 1979
    Mother Teresa awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
  • 1979
    The Department of Education Organization Act is signed into law creating the US Department of Education and US Department of Health and Human Services.
  • 1989
    1989 Loma Prieta earthquake (7.1 on the Richter scale) hits the San Francisco Bay Area and causes 57 deaths directly (and 6 indirectly).
  • 1994
    Russian journalist Dmitry Kholodov is assassinated while investigating corruption in the armed forces.
  • 1998
    At Jesse, in the Niger Delta, Nigeria, a petroleum pipeline explodes killing about 1200 villagers, some of whom are scavenging gasoline.
  • 2001
    Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Ze'evi became the first Israeli minister to be assassinated in a terrorist attack.
  • 2010
    Mary MacKillop is canonized (in Rome) and becomes the first saint of Australia.

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