Texas. July 30 – The Parliament of Finland is dissolved by the Russian Provisional Government. New elections are held in the autumn, resulting in a bourgeois majority. July 31 – WWI – Battle of Passchendaele ("Third Battle of Ypres"): Allied offensive operations commence in Flanders. August August 2–August 3 – The Green Corn Rebellion, an uprising by several hundred farmers against the WWI draft, takes place in central Oklahoma. August 2 – Squadron Commander E.H. Dunning lands his aircraft on the ship in Scapa Flow, Orkney. He is killed 5 days later during another landing on the ship. August 3 – The New York Guard is founded. August 10 – A general strike begins in Spain; it is smashed after 3 days with 70 left dead, hundreds of wounded and 2,000 arrests. August 14 – The Republic of China declares war on Germany and Austria-Hungary. August 17 – One of English literature's important meetings takes place, when Wilfred Owen introduces himself to Siegfried Sassoon at the Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh. August 18 – The Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917 in Greece destroys 32% of the city, leaving 70,000 individuals homeless. August 29 – WWI: The Military Service Act is passed in the House of Commons of Canada, giving the Government of Canada the right to conscript men into the army. September September 14 (September 1 Old Style) – Russia is declared a republic by the Provisional Government. September 23 – Leon Trotsky is elected Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet. September 25 – The Mossovet (Moscow Soviet of People's Deputies) votes to side with the Bolsheviks. September 26–October 3 – WWI – Battle of Polygon Wood (part of the Battle of Passchendaele) near Ypres in Belgium: British and Australian troops capture positions from the Germans. September 28–29 – WWI – Second Battle of Ramadi: British troops take Ramadi from the Ottoman Empire. October October 4 – WWI: Battle of Broodseinde near Ypres – British Imperial forces overpower the German 4th Army's defences. October 12 – WWI: First Battle of Passchendaele: – Allies fail to take a German defensive position, with the biggest loss of life in a single day for New Zealand, over 800 men and 45 officers are killed, roughly 1 in 1,000 of the nation's population at this time. October 12-19 – WWI: Operation Albion – German forces land on and capture the West Estonian archipelago. October 13