On This Day in History September 17 Historical Events 1683 Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek is the first to report the existence of bacteria  Page one of the original copy of the Constitution of the United States 1787 US Constitution is signed by delegates at the Philadelphia Convention  1862 Battle of Antietam [Battle of Sharpsburg]: Bloodiest day in the American Civil War with 22,000 dead, wounded, or missing in the first major battle on Union soil  — Take our Civil War Quiz 1916 World War I flying ace, The Red Baron of the German Luftstreitkräfte, wins his first aerial combat near Cambrai, France  1940 Adolf Hitler indefinitely postpones Operation Sealion, the planned German invasion of Great Britain  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  More Historical Events  Famous Birthdays Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben 1730 - 1794 Hank Williams 1923 - 1953 Maureen Connolly 1934 - 1969 Narendra Modi 74th Birthday Also Marquis de Condorcet and Phil Jackson (79).  More Famous Birthdays  Famous Deaths William Henry Fox Talbot 1800 - 1877 Spiro Agnew 1918 - 1996 Also Hildegard von Bingen and Philip IV.  More Famous Deaths  The Diary of a Dead Officer Mud and blood were features of the First World War trenches, and soldier Arthur Graeme West’s vivid descriptions of it all were captured in his diaries.  Mud and Blood in the Trenches