#TodayInHistory – September 17

September 17 – Some important events on this day.

642 👉🏼 Arab forces under Amr ibn al-‘As conquer Alexandria
1156 👉🏼 Emperor Frederick Barbarossa issues the ‘Privilegium Minus’ decree, which elevated Austria to a duchy.
1598 👉🏼 Dutch sailors discover island of Mauritius
1683 👉🏼 Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek is the first to report the existence of bacteria
1859 👉🏼 Joshua Abraham Norton, English-born resident of San Francisco, proclaims himself his Imperial Majesty Emperor Norton I, Emperor of the United States of America
1862 👉🏼 Battle of Antietam [Battle of Sharpsburg], bloodiest day in the American Civil War: 22,000 dead, wounded or missing in first battle on Union soil
1900 👉🏼 Commonwealth of Australia proclaimed
1916 👉🏼 WWI flying ace The Red Baron of the German Luftstreitkräfte, wins his first aerial combat near Cambrai, France
1940 👉🏼 Nazis deprive Jews of possessions
1940 👉🏼 Adolf Hitler indefinitely postpones Operation Sealion, the planned German invasion of Great Britain
1953 👉🏼 1st successful separation of Siamese (conjoined) twins
1956 👉🏼 Television is first broadcast in Australia.
1964 👉🏼 Beatles are paid a then record $150,000 for a concert (Kansas)
1978 👉🏼 Anwar Sadat, Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter sign the Camp David Accords, frameworks for peace in the Middle East and between Egypt and Israel
1983 👉🏼 Vanessa Williams becomes first Black Miss America