On Nov. 17, 1800, Congress held its first session in Washington in the partially completed Capitol building.
On this date:
In 1558, Elizabeth I acceded to the English throne upon the death of Queen Mary.
In 1734, John Peter Zenger, who founded America's first regularly published newspaper, was arrested for allegedly libeling the colonial governor of New York.
In 1869, the Suez Canal opened in Egypt.
In 1881, Samuel Gompers organized the forerunner of the American Federation of Labor.
In 1917, French sculptor Auguste Rodin died at age 77.
In 1934, Lyndon Baines Johnson married Claudia Alta Taylor, better known as Lady Bird, in San Antonio.
In 1968, NBC outraged football fans by cutting away from the final minutes of a game to air a TV special, "Heidi," on schedule. Viewers were deprived of seeing the Oakland Raiders come from behind to beat the New York Jets 43-32.
Forty years ago, in 1969, the first round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks between the United States and the Soviet Union opened in Helsinki, Finland.
In 1970, the Soviet Union landed an unmanned, remote-controlled vehicle on the moon, the Lunokhod 1.
In 1973, President Richard Nixon told Associated Press managing editors meeting in Orlando, Fla.: "People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook." Audio Link
Thirty years ago, in 1979, Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini ordered the release of 13 black and/or female American hostages being held at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
In 1987, a federal jury in Denver convicted two neo-Nazis and acquitted two others of civil rights violations in the 1984 slaying of radio talk show host Alan Berg.
In 1989, riot police in Prague, Czechoslovakia, stormed into a crowd of more than 20,000 pro-democracy demonstrators, beating people with truncheons and firing tear gas.
In 1992, an appeals court in Washington ruled the Watergate tapes and Nixon presidential papers rightfully belonged to U.S. President Richard Nixon when he left office in 1974.
In 1993, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the North American Free Trade Agreement. Also in 1993, Nigeria Defense Minister Sani Abacha announced he had dissolved the government and declared himself the nation's ruler.
In 1997, 62 people, most of them foreign tourists, were killed when militants opened fire at the Temple of Hatshepsut in Luxor, Egypt; the attackers were killed by police.
In 1998, Israel's parliament overwhelmingly approved the Wye River land-for-peace accord with the Palestinians.
In 1999, officials close to the investigation into the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990 said a relief co-pilot alone in the cockpit had said in Arabic: "I made my decision now; I put my faith in God's hands" just before the jetliner began its fatal plunge. (In Egypt, relatives angrily rejected any notion that relief co-pilot Gameel el-Batouty had deliberately crashed the plane.)
In 2000, the Florida Supreme Court froze the state's presidential tally, forbidding Secretary of State Katherine Harris to certify results of the marathon vote count in the race between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore.
In 2001, the Taliban confirmed the death of Osama bin Laden's military chief Mohammed Atef in an airstrike three days earlier.
In 2002, the first thorough examination of many of President John F. Kennedy's medical records found he was in far greater pain and taking many more medications than the public knew at the time.
In 2003, John Allen Muhammad was convicted of two counts of capital murder in the Washington-area sniper shootings. (He was later sentenced to death and executed.) Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger was sworn in as governor of California. [If only we could ditto the parenthetical above. — Ed.]
In 2004, it was announced that Kmart was acquiring Sears in a surprise $11 billion deal. In Washington state, officials said Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi led Democratic opponent Christine Gregoire by only 261 votes. (After three counts of the ballots, Gregoire was declared the winner by just 129 votes out of 2.9 million cast.)
In 2005, a jury in Sarasota, Fla., convicted mechanic Joseph Smith of kidnapping, raping and strangling 11-year-old Carlie Brucia, whose abduction had been captured by a car-wash security camera. (Smith was later sentenced to death.) U. S. Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a decorated Vietnam veteran and ranking Democrat on the Defense Appropriations Committee who supported the 2003 invasion, called for immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
In 2006, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved marketing of silicone gel-filled breast implants, ending a 14-year moratorium on the devices. Hall of Fame college football coach Bo Schembechler died at age 77.
In 2007, at least 30 bodies wrapped in black plastic and dead for some time were found in a mass grave a Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad.
In 2008, in their first meeting since the election, Barack Obama and former rival John McCain met at the president-elect's transition headquarters in Chicago, where they pledged to work together on ways to change Washington's "bad habits." St. Louis Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols won his second NL MVP award.
Today's Birthdays November 17: Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) is 75. Rock musician Gerry McGee (The Ventures) is 72. Singer Gordon Lightfoot is 71. Singer-songwriter Bob Gaudio is 68. Movie director Martin Scorsese is 67. Actress Lauren Hutton is 66. Actor-director Danny DeVito is 65. "Saturday Night Live" producer Lorne Michaels is 65. Baseball Hall-of-Famer Tom Seaver is 65. Movie director Roland Joffe is 64. Former Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean is 61. Actor Stephen Root is 58. Rock musician Jim Babjak (The Smithereens) is 52. Actress Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio is 51. Actor William Moses is 50. Entertainer RuPaul is 49. Actor Dylan Walsh is 46. US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice is 45. Actress Sophie Marceau is 43. Actress-model Daisy Fuentes is 43. Rhythm-and-blues singer Ronnie DeVoe (New Edition; Bell Biv DeVoe) is 42. Rock musician Ben Wilson (Blues Traveler) is 42. Actor Leonard Roberts is 37. Actress Leslie Bibb is 36. Actor Brandon Call is 33. Country singer Aaron Lines is 32. Actress Rachel McAdams is 31.
Today In Entertainment History November 17
In 1968, Glen Campbell received gold records for the singles "By The Time I Get To Phoenix" and "Gentle On My Mind."
In 1970, an Elton John concert was broadcast live over a New York radio station. A recording was released in the U.S. as the album "11-17-70."
Thirty years ago, in 1979, Jethro Tull bassist John Glascock died of a heart attack after a history of heart trouble. He was 26.
In 1990, David Crosby broke his left leg, ankle and shoulder in a motorcycle accident in Los Angeles. Police said he was speeding and was not wearing a helmet.
In 1991, Fox became the first network to air a commercial for condoms. It featured a young man talking about disease infecting nice people.
In 1992, the soundtrack to "The Bodyguard" was released.
In 1995, actor Tony Randall married Heather Harlan, an understudy in one of his plays. He was 75, she was 25.
In 2006, singer Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes filed for divorce from actress Kate Hudson. They had been married six years.
Thought for Today: "Education is a private matter between the person and the world of knowledge and experience, and has little to do with school or college." — Lillian Smith, American writer and social critic (1897-1966).
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