POPnews - October 17th

[Owing to a subway series between the Oakland Athletics and the
San Francisco Giants during the 1989 World Series, Game Three
- scheduled to be held at Candlestick Park on this day in 1989 -
had to be cancelled; it also marks the first time an
American earthquake had been televised.]
1091 - A tornado devastated central London.

1346 - Scotland's King David II was captured by England's King Edward III in Calais following the Battle of Neville's Cross and imprisoned in the Tower of London for 11 years before his country could afford to have him ransomed.

1456 - The University of Greifswald was established, making it only the second oldest such institution in northern Europe.

1604 - German astronomer Johannes Kepler began observing a supernova in the constellation Ophiuchus, which later came to be known as Kepler's Star, despite the fact that the spectacular phenomenon had first been observed in northern Italy on October 9th.

1610 - France's King Louis XIII was crowned at the cathedral in Rheims.

1660 - The Regicides who had ordered the death of Charles I in 1649 - among them Adrian Scroope, Thomas Scot, Gregory Clement - were themselves executed at Charing Cross.

1806 - Haiti's despotic Emperor, Jacques I, was assassinated.

1814 - The London Beer Flood occurred at the Meux and Company Brewery on Tottenham Court Road in the London parish of St. Giles, killing nine.

1860 - The first playing of The Open Championship (referred to outside the UK as the British Open) was held at Scotland's Prestwick Golf Club; nowadays, of course, Britain's premier golfing event rotates between nine different courses. For the record, the winner of that first tournament was Willie Park, Snr., who was awarded a championship belt for his efforts.

1931 - Al Capone was convicted of income tax evasion, apparently.

1933 - Albert Einstein, fleeing Nazi Germany, arrived in Princeton, New Jersey.

1956 - The world's first commercial nuclear power station was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II at Sellafield, in the English county of Cumbria; when it was finally shut in March 2003 the main reactor had been in continuous operation for nearly 47 years.

1961 - As many as 400 Algerian protesters were massacred by the Paris police at the instigation of Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon, then chief of the city's Prefecture of Police.

1965 - The New York World's Fair closed after two years.

1967 - The musical Hair began its long run off-Broadway at the Public Theater.

1979 - Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

1980 - Queen Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to be received at the Vatican when she visited Pope John Paul II.

1989 - The San Francisco Bay Area was badly shaken by the Loma Prieta earthquake, a 7.1 magnitude reminder of the Earth's power which occurred at 5:04 PM local time, during that day's rush hour.

2005 - Stephen Colbert's The Colbert Report debuted.
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