1. The Oregon Territory was established on October 17, 1848, with the signing of the Organic Act by President James K. Polk. This act created the territory out of a portion of the larger Oregon Country, which had been jointly occupied by Great Britain and the United States since 1818.

2. On October 17, 1946, the Oregon State Capitol in Salem was destroyed by fire. The blaze was caused by faulty wiring in a desk lamp in the governor's office and quickly spread throughout the building, destroying most of the original structure. The current capitol was built in the late 1930s and early 1940s and opened in 1938.

3. In 2006, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled on October 17 in a landmark case that struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriage. The ruling made Oregon the eighth state in the country to allow gay marriages. However, the ruling was later overturned by voters in 2008 with the passage of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

4. October 17, 1989, marked the beginning of the World Series between the Oakland A's and the San Francisco Giants, with Game 3 being played at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. However, this game would become known not for the baseball, but for the magnitude 6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake that struck the Bay Area during the broadcast. Oregonians could feel the shaking as it was the strongest earthquake to hit the region since 1964.

5. On October 17, 1974, a small passenger aircraft crashed into a wooded hillside in the Coast Mountains of Oregon, killing all nine people on board, including Congressman Hale Boggs of Louisiana. The cause of the crash was never determined, and the wreckage was not found until almost six months later. The tragedy made national headlines and led to a massive search and rescue operation due to the importance of the people on board.