Taisto Armas Mäki was a Finnish long-distance runner who was known as one of the "Flying Finns."  Mäki, like his coach and close friend Paavo Nurmi, set world records for two miles, 5000 metres, and 10,000 metres, all of which he held simultaneously between 1939 and 1942.  On September 17, 1939, Mäki became the first man to run 10,000 metres in under 30 minutes, breaking his own world record in a time of 29:52.6. 

Narendra Damodardas Modi was born on September 17, 1950, in Vadnagar, Mehsana district, Bombay State, to a Gujarati Hindu family of grocers (present-day Gujarat).Narendra Damodardas Modi is an Indian politician who has been the country's 14th and current Prime Minister since 2014. Modi served as Gujarat's chief minister from 2001 to 2014 and is a Member of Parliament from Varanasi.

The United States Constitution was signed on September 17, 1787, at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by 39 delegates to the Constitutional Convention representing 12 states, who endorsed the four-month-long convention's creation.

Tamil was designated a classical language of India in 2004, which means it meets three criteria: it has ancient origins, an independent tradition, and a significant body of ancient literature. More than 66 million people spoke Tamil in the early twenty-first century.

Ravichandran Ashwin is a cricketer from India. He is an all-rounder who bats right-handed and bowls right-arm off-break for Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan Royals in the Indian Premier League.

NASA's space shuttle Enterprise rolled out of the Palmdale manufacturing facilities in 1976, greeted by NASA officials and cast members from the television series 'Star Trek.' Dr. James D. Fletcher, NASA Administrator; DeForest Kelley, who played Dr. "Bones" McCoy on the series; George Takei (Mr. Sulu); James Doohan (Chief Engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott); Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura); Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock); series creator Gene Roddenberry; an unnamed NASA official; and Walter Koenig (Ensign Pavel Chekov). (Image courtesy of NASA)

The Sardar Sarovar Dam is a concrete gravity dam built on the Narmada River in Navagam, near the town of Kevadiya in Gujarat, India. The dam was built to supply water and power to four Indian states: Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru laid the project's foundation stone on April 5, 1961.

Hyderabad has been a part of India for seventy years. The state of Hyderabad, ruled by Mir Osman Ali Khan, the seventh Nizam of the Asaf Jahi dynasty, surrendered to Indian forces on this day in 1948, thirteen months after India gained independence. However, in the run-up to D-Day, India and Hyderabad engaged in a game of wits, with both expecting the other to blink first.

Maqbool Fida Husain was an Indian artist known for his use of bright colours and bold narrative paintings in a modified Cubist style. He was a celebrated and internationally recognised Indian artist of the twentieth century. He was a founding member of the Bombay Progressive Artists' Group. M.F.