Today’s Highlight in History:
On Oct. 17, 1933, Albert Einstein arrived in the United States as a refugee from Nazi Germany.
On this date:
In 1610, French King Louis XIII, age nine, was crowned at Reims, five months after the assassination of his father, Henry IV.
In 1777, British forces under Gen. John Burgoyne surrendered to American troops in Saratoga, New York, in a turning point of the Revolutionary War.
In 1807, Britain declared it would continue to reclaim British-born sailors from American ships and ports regardless of whether they held U.S. citizenship.
In 1910, social reformer and poet Julia Ward Howe, author of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” died in Portsmouth, Rhode Island at age 91.
In 1931, mobster Al Capone was convicted in Chicago of income tax evasion.
In 1966, 12 New York City firefighters were killed while battling a blaze in lower Manhattan.
In 1967, Puyi, the last emperor of China, died in Beijing at age 61.
In 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.
In 1978, President Jimmy Carter signed a bill restoring U.S. citizenship to Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
In 1979, Mother Teresa of India was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
In 1989, an earthquake measuring 6.9 in magnitude struck northern California, killing 63 people and causing $6 billion worth of damage.
In 2013, the government reopened its doors hours after President Barack Obama signed a bipartisan congressional measure passed the night before to end a 16-day partial shutdown.
In 2018, residents of the Florida Panhandle community of Mexico Beach who had fled Hurricane Michael a week earlier returned home to find houses, businesses and campers ripped to shreds; the storm had killed at least 59 people and caused more than $25 billion in damage in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia.