On Oct. 17, 1777, British forces under Gen. John Burgoyne surrendered to Colonial troops in Saratoga, N.Y. — a turning point of the Revolutionary War.
In 1919 the Radio Corporation of America, or RCA, was created.
In 1931 Al Capone was convicted of income tax evasion in Chicago; he served 7 1/2 years in prison.
In 1933 Albert Einstein arrived in the U.S. as a refugee from Nazi Germany.
In 1939 Frank Capra’s “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” premiered in the nation’s capital.
In 1941 the U.S. destroyer Kearney was torpedoed by a German submarine off the coast of Iceland; 11 people died.
In 1945 Col. Juan Peron staged a coup, becoming absolute ruler of Argentina.
In 1957 French author Albert Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature.
In 1965 the musical “On A Clear Day You Can See Forever,” with a score by Burton Lane and book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, opened on Broadway.
In 1973 Arab oil-producing nations announced cutbacks in oil exports to Western nations and Japan; the result was a total embargo that lasted until March 1974.
In 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.
In 1978 President Jimmy Carter signed a bill restoring U.S. citizenship to Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
In 1987 First Lady Nancy Reagan underwent a modified radical mastectomy at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland.
In 1989 a 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck northern California, killing 67 people.
In 1991 the Atlanta Braves won their first National League pennant, defeating the Pittsburgh Pirates 4-0 in Game 7 of their playoff series. Also, entertainer Tennessee Ernie Ford died at 72 in Reston, Va.
In 1994 leaders of Israel and Jordan initialed a draft peace treaty. Also, negotiators for the Angolan government and rebels agreed to a peace treaty to end their 19-year civil war.
In 1995 a bomb exploded aboard a Paris subway car, wounding 29 people.
In 1997 the remains of revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara were buried in Cuba, 30 years after his execution in Bolivia.
In 1998 a pipeline explosion and fire in southwest Nigeria killed about 700 people.
In 2000, ending an emergency summit in Egypt, Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed to publicly urge an end to a burst of bloody conflict and to consult within two weeks on restarting the ravaged Mideast peace process. Also, the New York Yankees followed the Mets into the World Series, beating the Seattle Mariners 9-7 and winning the American League championship series four games to two.
In 2001 Israel’s tourism minister, Rehavam Zeevi, was assassinated by Palestinian gunmen.
In 2002 Ira Einhorn, the ’70s hippie guru who had fled to Europe after being charged with murder, was convicted in Philadelphia of killing his girlfriend, Holly Maddux, and stuffing her corpse in his closet a quarter-century earlier. (Einhorn was sentenced to life in prison without parole.)
In 2003 fire killed six people in the 35-story Cook County Administration Building in the Loop. Also, the House and Senate voted to spend about $87 billion earmarked for securing peace and eliminating terrorist threats in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In 2004 Jordan’s military prosecutor indicted Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, one of the most wanted insurgents in Iraq, and 12 Muslim militants for an Al Qaeda-linked plot to attack the U.S. Embassy in Amman and Jordanian government targets.
