Historical Events on November 17

Events 1 - 200 of 201

• 473 The future Zeno I is named associate emperor by Emperor Leo I
• 1183 Battle of Mizushima: Japanese Taira clan defeat the Minamoto
• 1278 680 Jews arrested (293 hanged) in England for counterfeiting coins

• 1292 (O.S.) John Balliol becomes King of Scots

• 1511 England, Spain and the Holy Roman Empire sign anti-French covenant The Treaty of Westminster

• 1558 The independence of the Church of England is re-established upon ascension of Elizabeth I to the throne

• 1636 Brazilian general Henrique Dias wins a decisive battle against the Dutch in Brazil
• 1659 Peace of the Pyrenees is signed between France and Spain
• 1734 Printer John Zenger, arrested for libel against NY colonial governor William Cosby; later acquitted
• 1774 First City Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry formed at Carpenter's Hall, Philadelphia, one of the oldest US military units still in service
• 1785 Church of England organizes in New England

• 1798 Beginning of a 5 day New England Blizzard that covers thousands of houses and kills hundreds
• 1800 Congress holds its 1st session in Washington, D.C. in an incomplete Capitol Building
• 1800 U.S. Congress meets for the first time in the newly built Capitol in Washington, D.C., which had been established by The Residence Act of July 16, 1790
• 1812 Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Krasnoi during Napoleon's retreat from Moscow
• 1827 The Delta Phi fraternity, America's oldest continuous social fraternity, founded at Union College in Schenectady, New York
• 1831 Ecuador and Venezuela separated from Greater Colombia

• 1842 Fugitive slave George Latimer captured in Boston
• 1842 Opera "Linda di Chamounix" by Gaetano Donizetti is produced in London
• 1853 Street signs authorized at San Francisco intersections

• 1856 On the Sonoita River in present-day southern Arizona, the United States Army establishes Fort Buchanan in order to help control new land acquired in the Gadsden Purchase.
• 1858 Origin of Modified Julian Period
• 1862 Confederate Secretary of War George B. Randolph resigns

• 1863 -Dec 4th) Battle of Knoxville, Tennessee

• 1866 Opera "Mignon" by Ambroise Thomas premieres at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, Francce
• 1869 Englishman James Moore wins 1st bicycle race, racing 13K Paris to Rouen
• 1869 Suez Canal in Egypt opens, linking Mediterranean and Red seas
• 1873 Rival cities of Buda & Pest unite to form the capital of Hungary
• 1874 Emigrant ship Cospatrick catches fire & sinks off Auckland, New Zealand
• 1875 American Theosophical Society founded by Mme Blavatsky & Colonel Olcott

• 1877 Russia launches a surprise night attack that overruns Turkish forces at Kars, Armenia

• 1878 First assassination attempt against King Umberto I of Italy
• 1882 British gunboat HMS Flirt fires at and destroys village of Torofani on the Forcado River in Niger, in retaliation for attack on British owned factory that left 5 Brits missing

• 1885 The Serbian Army, with Russian support, invades Bulgaria
• 1888 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky' conducts the premiere of his 5th Symphony at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, Russia
• 1889 Union Pacific begins daily through service, Chicago-Portland & San Francisco
• 1894 Daily Racing Form founded

• 1903 Dahomey (Benin) becomes a French protectorate
• 1903 In the Treaty of Petropolis, Bolivia cedes the territory of Arce to Brazil; Bolivia gains rail and water outlets in the east
• 1905 The Eulsa Treaty is signed between Japan and Korea
• 1913 1st US dental hygienists course forms, Bridgeport, Connecticut
• 1913 The first ship sails through the Panama Canal, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans
• 1914 US declares Panama Canal Zone neutral

• 1918 German troops evacuate Brussels
• 1918 Social Democratic Party becomes Communistc Party Holland: CPH

• 1926 NHL's Chicago Black Hawks play their 1st game, beat Tor St Pats 4-1
• 1927 Tornado hits Washington, D.C.
• 1928 Boston Garden officially opens
• 1928 Notre Dame finally loses a football game at home after 23 years

• 1929 Pascual Ortiz Rubio elected president of Mexico

• 1931 Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney opens Whitney Museum of American Art on West Eighth Street. NY, after the Met Museum refuses to accept her collection [1]
• 1932 German government of von Papen resigns
• 1933 Marx brothers film "Duck Soup" directed by Leo McCarey and starring the Marx Brothers is released in the US
• 1933 United States recognizes Soviet Union, opens trade
• 1936 Edgar Bergen and dummy Charlie McCarthy become an overnight success on radio
• 1937 Britain's Lord Halifax visits Germany, beginning of appeasement
• 1938 Italy passes its own version of anti-Jewish Nuremberg laws
• 1939 German U-boat torpedoes passenger ship
• 1939 The Rome-Rio de Janeiro air connection created
• 1940 Green Bay Packers become 1st NFL team to travel by plane
• 1941 Virgil Thomson's 2nd Symphony, premieres
• 1945 New world air speed record 606 mph (975 kph) set by HJ Wilson of RAF
• 1947 The U.S. Screen Actors Guild implements an anti-Communist loyalty oath.
• 1948 Britain's House of Commons votes to nationalize steel industry
• 1951 Britain reports development of the world's first nuclear-powered heating system
• 1953 St Louis Browns officially become the Baltimore Baseball Club Inc
• 1953 The remaining human inhabitants of the Blasket Islands, Kerry, Ireland are evacuated to the mainland
• 1953 United States joins the United Nations in condemning Israel's raid on Jordan on October 4, 1953

• 1956 USSR performs atmospheric nuclear test
• 1957 WBOY TV channel 12 in Clarksburg, West Virginia (NBC/ABC) begins broadcasting
• 1958 KAII TV channel 7 in Wailuku, HI (NBC) begins broadcasting
• 1959 De Beers firm of South Africa announces synthetic diamond

• 1959 William Shea shows proposed NYC stadium with transparent roof
• 1960 New MLB Washington franchise is awarded to Elwood Quesada

• 1962 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh, Semipalitinsk USSR
• 1964 British Labour Party installs weapon embargo against South Africa
• 1965 General Meeting of UN refuses admittance of People's Republic of China
• 1965 The NVA ambushes American troops of the 7th Cavalry at Landing Zone Albany in the la Drang Valley, almost wiping them out
• 1965 William Eckert is unanimously elected commissioner of baseball
• 1966 Leonids meteor shower peaks (150,000+ per hour)
• 1967 Beatles Ltd & Apple Music Ltd swap names

• 1967 French author Régis Debray sentenced to 30 years in Bolivia
• 1967 Surveyor 6 becomes 1st man-made object to lift off Moon
• 1968 "Heidi Game", NBC cuts to show "Heidi" and misses Raider's rally to beat Jets, 43-32
• 1968 Alexandros Panagoulis is condemned to death for attempting to assassinate Greek dictator George Papadopoulos

• 1968 KHNE TV channel 29 in Hastings, NB (PBS) begins broadcasting
• 1969 SALT-discussions open in Helsinki Finland
• 1970 British newspaper Sun puts 1st pinup girl on page 3 (Stephanie Rahn)

• 1970 Russia lands Lunokhod 1 unmanned remote-controlled vehicle on Moon
• 1973 Greek regime attacks students with tanks, 100s killed
• 1973 Teri Garr plays new nurse, Lt Suzanne Marquetten, on "The Sniper" episode of TV series M*A*S*H

• 1974 Aliança Operário-Camponesa (Worker-Peasant Alliance) founded in Portugal as a front of PCP(m-l).
• 1974 Bonnie Bryant becomes the only left-handed player in history to win an LPGA Tour event; scores a 3-stroke victory in the Bill Branch Golf Classic in Fort Myers, Florida
• 1974 Union of Banana Exporting Countries (UPEB) forms
• 1976 China performs nuclear test at Lop Nor, PRC
• 1977 Bernard Pomerance's "Elephant Man" premieres in London

• 1979 Daniel Okrent sketches out 1st draft rules for Rotisserie Baseball on a flight to Austin, TX
• 1979 NY Stars (WBL) home opener at Madison Square Garden in NYC

• 1980 WHHM Television in Washington, D.C., becomes the first African-American public-broadcasting television station
• 1981 NBA NY Knick Bill Cartwright, ties record of 19 of 19 free throws

• 1983 Harm Wiersma retains checkers world championship
• 1983 Philadelphia Flyers win 13th straight NHL game
• 1984 Golden State Warrior Purvis Short scores career high 59 points though team loses to NJ Nets 124-110
• 1984 Islanders score 20 assists against Rangers

• 1985 Howard Stern begins broadcasting on 92.3 WXRK FM New York, N.Y.
• 1985 NBC's premiere of controversial TV thriller "Hostage Flight"
• 1985 NY Jets best offensive production beating Tampa Bay 62-28
• 1987 George Bell is 1st Blue Jay ever to win the AL MVP

• 1989 Bret Saberhagen signs record $2,966,667 per year KC Royal contract
• 1989 Student demonstration in Prague put down by riot police, leading to an uprising (the Velvet Revolution) that will topple the communist government on Dec. 29
• 1990 American singer David Crosby breaks his left leg, ankle and shoulder in a motorcycle accident in Los Angeles, California
• 1991 1st TV condom ad aired (FOX- TV)
• 1991 Detroit Lion Mike Utley is paralized in a game vs LA Rams

• 1992 "The Bodyguard" movie soundtrack is released by Arista Records (Billboard Album of the Year 1993)
• 1992 Blue Jay Nigel Wilson is 1st pick of Marlins in expansion draft
• 1992 Dateline NBC airs a demonstration show General Motors trucks, blowing up on impact, later revealed NBC rigged test
• 1992 Erling Kagge begins successful exploration at South pole
• 1993 Antonov AN-124 flies in South Iran against mountain: 17 killed

• 1993 US House of Representatives approve Nafta
• 1994 3rd Germany government of Kohl forms
• 1994 Irish government of Reynolds resigns
• 1996 "Present Laughter" opens at Walter Kerr Theater NYC
• 1996 Time White and T. Assebework discover the first fossils of 2.5 million year old Australopithecus garhi, an ancestor on the human family tree, in Bouri, Middle Awash, Ethiopia
• 1997 In Luxor, Egypt, 62 people are killed by 6 Islamic militants outside the Temple of Hatshepsut, known as Luxor massacre (The police then kill the assailants).

• 1998 Tori Amos release a compilation of her videos, "Tori Amos: The Complete Collection: 1992-1998"

• 2000 A catastrophic landslide in Log pod Mangartom, Slovenia, kills 7, and causes millions of SIT of damage. It is one of the worst catastrophes in Slovenia in the past 100 years.

• 2004 Kmart Corp. announces it is buying Sears, Roebuck and Co. for $11 billion USD and naming the newly merged company Sears Holdings Corporation.

• 2005 Italy's choice of national anthem, "Il Canto degli Italiani", becomes official in law for the first time, almost 60 years after it was provisionally chosen following the birth of the republic.
• 2006 Official naming of element 111, Roentgenium (Rg).

• 2008 Japan, the world's second-biggest economy, slides into its first recession in seven years
• 2012 50 schoolchildren and a bus driver are killed after a train collides with a school bus in Manfalut, Egypt
• 2013 50 people are killed after a Boeing 737 aircraft crashes in Kazan, Russia
• 2013 Abdulla Yameen becomes the President of the Maldives

• 2013 Giorgi Margvelashvili becomes the President of Georgia
• 2014 The Church of England adopts legislation enabling the appointment of female bishops

• 2015 Ireland's 1st same-sex wedding takes place - Cormac Gollogly and Richard Dowling marry in Clonmel, County Tipperary
• 2015 Suicide bomber kills more than 30 in a market in Yola, north-eastern Nigeria, with Boko Haram blamed
• 2016 Smaller pyramid find within 2 known Kukulkan "nesting" pyramids announced at Chichen Itza in Yucatan, Mexico, dating to 550-80 AD
• 2018 Ireland beats Rugby World Cup champions New Zealand, 16-9 at Aviva Stadium, Dublin; first victory over the All Blacks ever on home soil; flyhalf Johnny Sexton kicks 3 penalties and a conversion
• 2018 Missing Argentine naval submarine ARA San Juan with 44 on board found on sea floor a year after it disappeared off coast of Argentina
• 2018 Protests across France against rising fuel prices leave 400 injured

• 2021 British Columbia declares a state of emergency after an "atmospheric river" storm causes widespread rain and flooding [1]
• 2021 Delhi authorities order schools shut till further notice and construction halted as Supreme Court calls for a "pollution lockdown" as city battles winter smog
• 2021 Garbiñe Muguruza becomes first Spanish player to win WTA Finals defeating Estonian Anett Kontaveit 6–3, 7–5 in Zapopan, Mexico
• 2021 Record number of Americans, over 100,000, died of drug overdoses April 2020 - April 2021 according to the CDC [1]
• 2021 US capitol rioter QAnon Shaman [Jacob Chansley] sentenced to three years in prison by a federal court [1]
• 2021 US National Book Award given to Jason Mott (fiction), Tiya Miles (nonfiction) and Martín Espada (poetry)

• 2023 Earth's hottest day: global average surface temperature more than 2°C (2.06°C) above pre-industrial levels for the first time according to Copernicus Climate Change Service [1]
• 2023 High profile AI boss Sam Altman sacked from the company he co-founded - OpenAI, the company behind the ChatGPT bot, after the company board "lost confidence" in him [1]

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