On November 17th...

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1558 Mary I, Queen of England, died.

1603 English explorer Sir Walter Raleigh went on trial for treason.

1685 Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, Sieur de La Vérendrye, French explorer of the Canadian Northwest, was born.

1732 James Oglethorpe and about 120 colonists set sail from England for what is now Georgia.

1734 John Peter Zenger was arrested for publishing "libelous and seditious" articles.

1749 Inventor Nicolas Appert was born.

1755 King Louis XVIII of France was born.

1796 Catherine the Great of Russia died.

1800 The U.S. Congress met in Washington, D.C., for the first time.

1827 The Delta Phi fraternity, America's oldest continuous social fraternity, was founded at Union College in Schenectady, New York.

1855 David Livingstone became the first European to see Victoria Falls.

1869 The Suez Canal opened.

1875 The American Theosophical Society was founded.

1887 British General Bernard L. Montgomery was born.

1889 Union Pacific began daily through service from Chicago to Portland and San Francisco.

1894 The Daily Racing Form was founded.

1906 Soichiro Honda, founder of the Honda Motor Company, was born.

1912 Businessman Bebe Rebozo was born.

1913 The Panama Canal opened.

1917 Sculptor François-Auguste-René Rodin died.

1925 Actor Rock Hudson was born.

1928 Boston Garden opened.
1928 Notre Dame lost its first football game in 25 years.

1938 Italy passed its own version of the anti-Jewish Nuremberg laws.
1938 Singer Gordon Lightfoot was born.

1940 The Green Bay Packers became the first NFL team to travel by airplane.

1942 Film director Martin Scorsese was born.

1944 Singer Gene Clark was born.
1944 Actor Danny DeVito was born.
1944 Model Lauren Hutton was born.
1944 Film/television producer Lorne Michaels was born.
1944 Baseball player Tom Seaver was born.

1947 The U.S. Screen Actors Guild implemented an anti-Communist loyalty oath.

1948 Britain's House of Commons voted to nationalize the steel industry.
1948 Politician Howard Dean was born.

1956 Fullback Jim Brown, of Syracuse, scored 43 points against Colgate to set an NCAA record.

1958 The Sudanese Army overthrew the government of Prime Minister Abdullah Khalil in a bloodless coup.

1959 De Beers announced its creation of a synthetic diamond.

1960 Entertainer RuPaul was born.

1962 Dulles International Airport, Washington, D.C., was dedicated.

1966 Model Daisy Fuentes was born.

1973 U.S. President Richard Nixon delivered his "I'm not a crook" speech.

1975 Actress Diane Neal was born.

1998 Actress Esther Rolle died.

2002 Israeli Prime Minister Abba Eban died.

2006 College football coach Bo Schembechler died.

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This page was last updated on November 16, 2017.