Hisdates•Com
HomePage 7: Historical Events In October - 08
Tuesday, 17 February 2026
1978 Jim Gilliam, coach (LA Dodgers), dies at 49. 
1979 June Nash, actress (Strange Cargo, Dynamite), dies at 68.
1981 Pres Reagan greeted predecessors Jimmy Carter, Gerald R Ford and Richard Nixon before sending them to Egypt for Anwar Sadat's funeral.
1982 Poland bans Solidarity
1982 Fernando Lamas, actor/director (Lost World), dies of cancer at 67
1983 Joan Hackett, actress (Group, Flicks, Rivals), dies of cancer at 49
1984 Frederick Brisson, producer, dies at 71 after a stroke
1985 Leon Klinghoffer, hijackers of Achille Lauro, threw him off boat
1988 Fire in Seattle's Space Needle leads to evacuation, $2000 damage.
1988 Ernst Hermann Meyer, composer, dies at 82.
1990 Israeli police kill 17 Palestinian rioters
1990 US doctors Joseph E Murray and E Donnall Thomas win Nobel Prize
1991 A colonial-era burial site for African-American slaves is discovered in New York by construction crew
1991 Natalia Ginzburg, Italian writer (Sounds of the Night), dies at 75
1992 Willy Brandt, chancellor of West Germany (1969-74), dies of cancer at 78
1993 Manke Nelis, [Cornelis Pieters], singer (Aunt Saar), dies at 73.
1994 Brian Hartley, mathematician, dies at 55.
1995 Christopher Keene, musician, dies at 48
1996 Geoffrey Finsberg, politician, dies at 70
2005 An earthquake in Kashmir results in the deaths of about 8000 people.
2005 Kashmir earthquake in India, Pakistan killing 87351 people.
2007 Track and field star Marion Jones surrenders her five Olympic medals she won in the 2000 Sydney Games after admitting to doping.
2012 35 people are killed by a Nigerian military bomb struck a convoy in Maiduguri
2013 Peter Higgs and François Englert win the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on the origin of the mass of subatomic particles.
2014 The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra is awarded the $1 million Birgit Nilsson Prize.
2017 Wildfires ignite in Northern Californian wine country, killing at least 41 over the next week, with 20000 evacutated.
2018 New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees is recorded as becoming NFL's all-time leader in passing yards; needs 201 yards to pass Peyton Manning's record; gets 363 and 3 TD's in Saints 43-19 win v Washington Redskins at the SuperDome.
2018 Major climate report by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the UN says planet will warm 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) by 2040 with dire results.
2018 Nobel prize for Economics awarded to William Nordhaus for climate change and Paul Romer for endogenous growth theory
2018 In this year, The IPCC releases its Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5ºC, warning that "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society" are needed to ensure that global warming is kept below 1.5 °C
2019 Ecuadorian protests: The Government of Ecuador, headed by President LenÃn Moreno, moves to Guayaquil as the Carondelet Palace in Quito is overtaken by protesters and chaos persists in the capital
2019 About 200 Extinction Rebellion activists block the gates of Leinster House (parliament) in the Republic of Ireland
2021 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to journalists Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia "for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression" [1].
2021 The 2021 Czech legislative election is held, with the main opposition coalition alliance of SPOLU and Pirates and Mayors gaining a legislative majority.
