17 October 1991
On this date in 17 October 1991…
Country singer and Southern Icon Tennessee Ernie Ford died of liver disease at the age of 72.
Other Years:
1781 – British General Charles, Earl Cornwallis agreed to surrender at the Siege of Yorktown, Virginia.
1862 - The Battle of Leetown and Thoroughfare Gap, Virginia resulted in a federal retreat
1871 - US President Ulysses S. Grant suspended habeas corpus in parts of South Carolina during Southern resistance to reconstruction atrocities
1876 - Explorer and Confederate veteran Henry Morton Stanley reached the Lualaba River in Africa, proving it was not the source of the Nile
1952 – Country music legend Hank Williams married Billie Jean Jones in Minden, Louisiana.
1957 - The movie “Jailhouse Rock,” starring Elvis Presley, premiered in Memphis, Tennessee
1965 - WBMG TV channel 42 in Birmingham, AL began broadcasts
1978 – U.S. President Carter signed a bill that restored full U.S. citizenship rights to Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
1992 – A drunken Japanese exchange student, Yoshihiro Hattori, entered the wrong house looking for a party late at night and was shot dead by the homeowner in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
2017 - Amarillo, Texas author, George Saunders won the Man Booker Prize for his first novel, “Lincoln in the Bardo”
2019 - Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a new Brexit deal as Great Britain seceded from the European Union. No invasion of the UK followed.
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