November 17

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.
• 1796 - Battle of Arcole[?] - French defeat Austrians
• 1800 - United States Congress holds its first session in Washington, DC
• 1869 - Suez Canal opens
• 1922 - Former Ottoman sultan Mehmed VI went on exile in Italy
• 1941 - Joseph Grew[?], United States ambassador to Japan, cables the State Department that Japan is on the verge of launching an attack against Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
• 1969 - SALT I negotiations begin
• 1970 - Lieutenant William Calley goes on trial for the My Lai massacre
• 1973 - U.S. President Richard Nixon tells press "I am not a crook."
• 1983 - Zapatista Army of National Liberation founded.
• 1985 - Phrack magazine started.
• 1989 - Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia

Births:

• 9 - Vespasian, Roman Emperor (+ 79)
• 1717 - Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, mathematician (+ 1783)
• 1755 - King Louis XVIII of France (+ 1824)
• 1790 - August Ferdinand Möbius, mathematician (+ 1868)
• 1799 - Titian Peale[?], artist
• 1816 - August Wilhelm Ambros, composer (+ 1876)
• 1878 - Grace Abbott[?], social worker, activist (+ 1939)
• 1887 - Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, British commander in World War II (+ 1976)
• 1888 - Kurt Goetz[?], author (+ 1960)
• 1899 - Douglas Shearer, pioneer motion-picture sound engineer (+ 1971)
• 1901 - Lee Strasberg[?], director, acting teacher (+ 1982)
• 1901 - Walter Hallstein, politician (+ 1982)
• 1904 - Isamu Noguchi[?], sculptor
• 1905 - Queen Astrid of Belgium, (+ 1935)
• 1906 - Soichiro Honda, automobile pioneer (+ 1992)
• 1911 - Christian Fouchet[?], diplomat (+ 1974)
• 1916 - Shelby Foote[?], historian
• 1925 - Rock Hudson, actor (+ 1985)
• 1937 - Peter Cook, comedian, satirist and writer (+ 1995)
• 1938 - Gordon Lightfoot, singer
• 1942 - Martin Scorsese, film director
• 1943 - Lauren Hutton[?], actress
• 1944 - Danny DeVito, actor
• 1944 - Lorne Michaels, producer
• 1944 - Tom Seaver[?], baseball player
• 1949 - Jon Avnet[?], producer, director
• 1958 - Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, actress
• 1960 - RuPaul, actor
• 1966 - Sophie Marceau, actress
• 1966 - Jeff Buckley, musician
• 1973 - Alexei Urmanov[?], figure skating champion

Deaths:

• 1558 - Queen Mary I of England
• 1796 - Catherine the Great of Russia
• 1917 - Auguste Rodin, sculptor
• 1920 - Franz Brentano, philosopher
• 1929 - Herman Hollerith, statistician
• 1936 - Madame Ernestine Schumann-Heink[?], opera singer
• 1940 - Eric Gill, sculptor, typographer and writer
• 1959 - Heitor Villa-Lobos, Brazilian composer
• 2002 - Abba Eban, Israeli diplomat and politician

Holidays and Observances:

November 16 - November 18 - October 17 - December 17 -- listing of all days

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December