October 17 in History

Cyrus the Great entered Babylon without a battle. The city's priests had turned against their own king. Cyrus issued a decree allowing exiled peoples to return home and rebuild their temples. The Jews had been in Babylon for 70 years. He gave them funds to reconstruct the Temple in Jerusalem. The cylinder recording his decree still exists, written in Akkadian cuneiform.

Ricimer defeated the Roman emperor Avitus near Piacenza with help from Majorian. Avitus had ruled for just 14 months. He fled to a church, was made a bishop against his will, then died weeks later—possibly murdered. Ricimer didn't take the throne himself. He was half-barbarian and couldn't legally become emperor. He spent the next 16 years making and unmaking emperors instead.

The University of Greifswald received its founding charter, making it the second-oldest university in northern Europe. It was established to train clergy for the Duchy of Pomerania. For 200 years it was part of Sweden after the Thirty Years' War. Then it became Prussian. Then German. Then East German. Then German again. It's been closed twice, bombed once, and survived. It still operates in the same town, 565 years later.

Cornwallis sent a messenger to Washington's headquarters at Yorktown with a white flag and a note requesting terms. The British had run out of food and ammunition. French and American forces had them surrounded. The Royal Navy had been defeated offshore. Cornwallis didn't attend the surrender ceremony two days later—he claimed illness. His second-in-command handed over the sword. The war continued for two more years, but everyone knew it was over.

Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who'd declared himself Emperor Jacques I after leading Haiti's revolution, was ambushed and killed by his own generals near Port-au-Prince. They shot him, stabbed him, and left his body in the street. He'd ruled for two years with increasing brutality, ordered the massacre of remaining French colonists, and tried to reimpose forced labor. Haiti split into two countries within weeks. His body was dismembered by the crowd before burial.

Chilean miners unearthed silver at Agua Amarga, a discovery that immediately fueled the Patriot cause. This newfound wealth financed weapons and supplies, directly enabling the independence forces to sustain their war effort against Spanish rule. Without these funds, the revolution likely would have collapsed under financial strain before achieving victory.

Guglielmo Marconi's company launched the first commercial transatlantic wireless telegraph service between Glace Bay, Nova Scotia and Clifden, Ireland. Messages cost 10 cents a word, minimum ten words. The first paying customer sent a message to London. It arrived in seventeen minutes. Before this, transatlantic messages went by undersea cable or took a week by ship. Marconi had proven wireless worked. Now he was charging for it. He won the Nobel Prize four years later.

Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia declared war on the Ottoman Empire simultaneously, joining Montenegro in what became the First Balkan War. They'd secretly agreed to divide Ottoman territory in Europe before firing a shot. The Ottomans lost nearly everything in eight months. Then the victors fought each other over the division in the Second Balkan War. Two wars, 200,000 dead, borders redrawn twice. World War I started in the same region two years later.