Queen Elizabeth I In Procession With Her Courtiers circa 1600-1603 (1825)

Elizabethan Age begins

Born on This Day

Jeff Buckley Portrait Session

Jeff Buckley

1966 - 1997

American folk-rock musician best known for his 1994 album "Grace" with its hit cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah."

ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" - Season 19

RuPaul

1960 -

Emmy-winning singer, actor and drag icon who hosts the long-running "RuPaul's Drag Race."

14th Annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival Honors Martin Scorsese With Kirk Douglas Award For Excellence In Film

Martin Scorsese

1942 -

Oscar-winning filmmaker best known for character-driven crime dramas. His hits include "Taxi Driver," "Raging Bull" and "Goodfellas."

Jeff BuckleyGetty Images

RuPaulABC via Getty Images

Martin ScorseseGetty Images

1991

NOV17

The first condom ad on network TV airs on Fox during the teen sitcom "Herman's Head." Growing concern about AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases led to the airing of the 15-second spot.

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on November 17th

Articles of Confederation submitted to the states

On November 17, 1777, Congress submits the Articles of Confederation to the states for ratification. The Articles had been signed by Congress two days earlier, after 16 months of debate. Bickering over land claims between Virginia and Maryland delayed final ratification for almost four more years. Maryland became the last state to approve the Articles […]

Verdi’s first opera opens

Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi’s first opera, Oberto, conte di San Bonifacio, debuts in Milan. The premiere was held at La Scala, Italy’s most prestigious theater. Oberto was received favorably, and the next day the composer was commissioned by Bartolomeo Merelli, the impresario at La Scala, to write three more operas. In 1842, after some personal […]

2:06m read read

Siege of Knoxville, Tennessee, begins

On November 17, 1863, Confederate General James Longstreet places the city of Knoxville, Tennessee, under siege. After two weeks and one failed attack, he abandoned the siege and rejoined General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. The Knoxville campaign began in November when Longstreet took 17,000 troops from Chattanooga and moved to secure eastern […]

1:34m read read

Suez Canal opens

The Suez Canal, connecting the Mediterranean and the Red seas, is inaugurated in an elaborate ceremony attended by French Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III. In 1854, Ferdinand de Lesseps, the former French consul to Cairo, secured an agreement with the Ottoman governor of Egypt to build a canal 100 miles across the Isthmus of […]

The Kingston Trio brings folk music to the top of the U.S. pop charts

On November 17, 1958, the Kingston Trio’s “Tom Dooley” hits #1 on the Billboard pop chart. While they might not have wanted to acknowledge it, the fans of 1960s protest folk probably owed the very existence of the movement to three guys in candy-striped shirts who honed their act not in freight cars or in […]

1:54m read read

1st Cavalry unit ambushed in the Ia Drang Valley

During part of what would become known as the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley, a battalion from the 1st Cavalry Division is ambushed by the 8th Battalion of the North Vietnamese 66th Regiment. The battle started several days earlier when the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry engaged a large North Vietnamese force at Landing Zone […]

2:44m read read

TV viewers become outraged as football game is cut off to air “Heidi”

On November 17, 1968, the Oakland Raiders score two touchdowns in nine seconds to beat the New York Jets—and no one sees it, because they’re watching the movie Heidi instead. With just 65 seconds left to play, NBC switched off the game in favor of its previously scheduled programming, a made-for-TV version of the children’s […]

3:06m read read

SALT I negotiations begin

Soviet and U.S. negotiators meet in Helsinki to begin the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). The meeting was the climax of years of discussions between the two nations concerning the means to curb the Cold War arms race. Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency Gerard Smith was put in charge of the U.S. […]

My Lai trial begins

The court-martial of 2nd Lt. William Calley begins. Calley, a platoon leader in Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, 11th Infantry Brigade (Light) of the 23rd (Americal) Division, had led his men in a massacre of Vietnamese civilians, including women and children, at My Lai 4 on March 16, 1968. My Lai 4 was one […]

2:08m read read

A wealthy heiress is murdered by her son

Wealthy socialite Barbara Baekeland is stabbed to death with a kitchen knife by her 25-year-old son, Antony, in her London, England, penthouse. When police arrived at the scene, Antony was calmly placing a telephone order for Chinese food. Antony’s great-grandfather, Leo Baekeland, acquired his family’s fortune with the creation of Bakelite, an early plastic product. […]

1:06m read read

Nixon insists that he is “not a crook”

In the midst of the Watergate scandal that eventually ended his presidency, President Richard Nixon tells a group of newspaper editors gathered at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, that he is “not a crook.” Nixon made the now-famous declaration during a televised question-and-answer session with Associated Press editors. Nixon, who appeared “tense” to a […]

1:44m read read

Serial killer couple Charlene Williams and Gerald Gallego apprehended

Charlene Williams and Gerald Gallego, one of the most sadistic serial killing couples in American history, are finally caught after killing and sexually assaulting at least 10 people over a two-year period. Within a week of their first encounter, Charlene moved in with Gerald. The son of the first man to be executed in Mississippi’s […]

2:04m read read

President Reagan gives CIA authority to establish the Contras

On November 17, 1981, President Ronald Reagan signs off on a top secret document, National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17), which gives the Central Intelligence Agency the power to recruit and support a 500-man force of Nicaraguan rebels to conduct covert actions against the leftist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. A budget of $19 million was […]

1:58m read read

Velvet Revolution begins in Czechoslovakia

On November 17, 1989, nine days after the fall of the Berlin Wall roughly 200 miles to the south, students gather en masse in Prague, Czechoslovakia to protest the communist regime. The demonstration sets off what will become known as the Velvet Revolution, the nonviolent toppling of the Czechoslovak government and one of a series […]

Washington, D.C. sniper John Muhammad convicted

On November 17, 2003, ex-soldier John Muhammad is found guilty of one of a series of sniper shootings that terrorized the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area and dominated national headlines in October 2002. Police charged that Muhammad and his 17-year-old accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, killed 10 people and wounded three others during a three-week killing spree. […]

3:00m read read

“The Terminator” becomes “The Governator” of California

On November 17, 2003, the actor and former bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger is sworn in as the 38th governor of California at the State Capitol in Sacramento. Schwarzenegger, who became a major Hollywood star in the 1980s with such action movies as Conan the Barbarian and The Terminator, defeated Governor Gray Davis in a special recall […]

2:34m read read

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