OCTOBER 17th

On this date in:
1777	British forces under Gen. John Burgoyne surrendered to American troops in Saratoga, N.Y., in a turning point of the Revolutionary War.
1919	The Radio Corporation of America was created.
1933	Physicist Albert Einstein arrived in the United States as a refugee from Nazi Germany.
1945	Col. Juan Peron staged a coup, becoming absolute ruler of Argentina.
1957	French author Albert Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature.
1973	Arab oil-producing nations announced they would cut back oil exports to Western nations and Japan; the result was a total embargo that lasted until March 1974.
1978	President Jimmy Carter signed a bill restoring U.S. citizenship to Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
1979	Mother Teresa of India was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work on behalf of the destitute in Calcutta.
1987	First lady Nancy Reagan underwent a modified radical mastectomy at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland.
1989	An earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale struck northern California, killing 67 people and causing $7 billion worth of damage.
1997	The remains of revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara were laid to rest in his adopted Cuba, 30 years after his execution in Bolivia.
2007	President Bush, raising Beijing's ire, presented the Dalai Lama with the Congressional Gold Medal and urged Chinese leaders to welcome the monk to Beijing.

Article of the day...

Capone goes to prison

On this day in 1931, gangster Al Capone is sentenced to 11 years in prison for tax evasion and fined $80,000, signaling the downfall of one of the most notorious criminals of the 1920s and 1930s.
Alphonse Gabriel Capone was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1899 to Italian immigrants. He was expelled from school at 14, joined a gang and earned his nickname "Scarface" after being sliced across the cheek during a fight.
By 1920, Capone had moved to Chicago, where he was soon helping to run crime boss Johnny Torrio's illegal enterprises, which included alcohol-smuggling, gambling and prostitution. Torrio retired in 1925 after an attempt on his life and Capone, known for his cunning and brutality, was put in charge of the organization. Prohibition, which outlawed the brewing and distribution of alcohol and lasted from 1920 to 1933, proved extremely lucrative for bootleggers and gangsters like Capone, who raked in millions from his underworld activities.
Capone was at the top of the F.B.I.'s "Most Wanted" list by 1930, but he avoided long stints in jail until 1931 by bribing city officials, intimidating witnesses and maintaining various hideouts. He became Chicago's crime kingpin by wiping out his competitors through a series of gangland battles and slayings, including the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929, when Capone's men gunned down seven rivals. This event helped raise Capone's notoriety to a national level.
Among Capone's enemies was federal agent Elliot Ness, who led a team of officers known as "The Untouchables" because they couldn't be corrupted. Ness and his men routinely broke up Capone's bootlegging businesses, but it was tax-evasion charges that finally stuck and landed Capone in prison in 1931.
Capone began serving his time at the U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta, but amid accusations that he was manipulating the system and receiving cushy treatment, he was transferred to the maximum-security lockup at Alcatraz Island, in California's San Francisco Bay. He got out early in 1939 for good behavior, after spending his final year in prison in a hospital, suffering from syphilis. Plagued by health problems for the rest of his life, Capone died in 1947 at age 48 at his home in Palm Island, Florida.


Source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=VideoArticle&id=51784

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