Key Historical Events on November 17:
- 1558 – Elizabeth I becomes Queen of England upon the death of her half-sister, Mary I, beginning the Elizabethan Age.
- 1777 – The Articles of Confederation are submitted to the states for ratification by the U.S. Congress.
- 1800 – The U.S. Congress holds its first session in the newly built Capitol building in Washington, D.C..
- 1869 – The Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean and Red Seas, is officially inaugurated in Egypt.
- 1968 – In the infamous “Heidi Game”, the NBC television network cuts away from the final minutes of a New York Jets vs. Oakland Raiders football game to air the movie Heidi, missing a dramatic Raiders comeback.
- 1969 – The United States and the Soviet Union begin the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I) in Helsinki to discuss curbing the nuclear arms race.
- 1973 – During the Watergate scandal, President Richard Nixon tells a group of Associated Press editors, “People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook”.
- 1989 – A student demonstration in Prague is put down by police, sparking the nonviolent Velvet Revolution, which leads to the end of communist rule in Czechoslovakia.
- 1993 – The U.S. House of Representatives approves the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
- 2003 – Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger is sworn in as the 38th Governor of California.
