November 17

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November 17 is the 321st day of the year (322nd in leap years), with 44 remaining.

Events

The Leonids are visible each year around this day.
1558 - Elizabethan era begins: Queen Mary I of England dies and is succeeded by her half-sister Elizabeth.
1603 - Sir Walter Raleigh goes on trial for treason in the converted Great hall of Winchester Castle.
1796 - Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Arcole - French forces defeat the Austrians in Italy.
1800 - The United States Congress holds its first Washington, DC session.
1839 - Giuseppe Verdi's first opera, Oberto, conte di San Bonifacio opens in Milan.
1863 - American Civil War: Siege of Knoxville begins - Confederate forces led by General James Longstreet place Knoxville, Tennessee under siege (the two week long seige and one failed attack was unsuccessful).
1856 - American Old West: 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.
1869 - In Egypt, the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, is inaugurated in an elaborate ceremony.
1903 - The Russian Social Democratic Labor Party splits into two groups; the Bolsheviks (Russian for "majority") and Mensheviks (Russian for "minority"). (NOTE: Later the Mensheviks became the majority party, meaning that the Mensheviks became the bolsheviks and the Bolsheviks mensheviks).
1922 - Former Ottoman sultan Mehmed VI went on exile in Italy.
1941 - World War II: Attack on Pearl Harbor - Joseph Grew, the United States ambassador to Japan, cables the State Department that Japan had plans to launch an attack against Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (his cable was ignored).
1962 - In Washington, DC, US President John F. Kennedy dedicates Dulles International Airport.
1967 - Vietnam War: Acting on optimistic reports he was given on November 13, US President Lyndon B. Johnson tells his nation that, while much remained to be done, "We are inflicting greater losses than we're taking...We are making progress." (two months later the Tet Offensive made him regret his words).
1969 - Cold War: Negotiators from the Soviet Union and the United States meet in Helsinki to begin SALT I negotiations aimed at limiting the number of strategic weapons on both sides.
1970 - Vietnam War: Lieutenant William Calley goes on trial for the My Lai massacre.
1970 - Luna program: The Soviet Union lands Lunokhod 1 on Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains) on the Moon. This is the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on another world and was released by the orbiting Luna 17 spacecraft.
1973 - In Orlando, Florida, US President Richard Nixon tells 400 Associated Press managing editors "I am not a crook."
1979 - Iran hostage crisis: Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini orders the release of 13 female and black American hostages being held at the US Embassy in Tehran.
1983 - The Zapatista Army of National Liberation founded.
1985 - Phrack magazine started.
1989 - Cold War: Velvet Revolution begins - In Czechoslovakia a revolution begins aimed at overthrowing the communist government (it succeeded on December 29).
1993 - Annie Proulx wins the National Book Award for her novel The Shipping News.
1995 - Public Radio International's radio program This American Life broadcasts its first episode, "New Beginnings".
1997 - In Luxor, Egypt, 62 people are killed by 6 Islamic militants outside the Temple of Hatshepsut (police killed the assailants).
2000 - Alberto Fujimori is removed from office as president of Peru.