This day in history – November 17

• 1278 680 arrested (293 hanged) in England for counterfeiting coins.

• 1603 English explorer, writer and courtier Sir Walter Raleigh goes on trial for treason.

• 1839 Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Oberte Conti Di” premieres in Milan.

• 1855 David Livingstone becomes the first European to see Victoria Falls, in what is now Zambia and Zimbabwe.

• 1869 Suez Canal in Egypt opens, linking Mediterranean and Red seas.

• 1874 Emigrant ship Cospatrick catches fire & sinks off Auckland, NZ.

• 1876 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s patriotic Slavonic March made its premiere in Moscow to a warm reception by the Russian people.

• 1888 Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony premieres in St Petersburg.

• 1894 Serial killer H. H. Holmes is arrested in Boston after being tracked there from Philadelphia by the Pinkertons.

• 1913 The first ship sails through the Panama Canal, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

• 1917 Lenin defends “temporary” removal of freedom of the press.

• 1927 Tornado hits Washington, D.C.

• 1933 Marx brothers film “Duck Soup” directed by Leo McCarey and starring the Marx Brothers is released in the US

• 1945 New world air speed record 606 mph (975 kph) set by HJ Wilson of RAF

• 1968 Alexandros Panagoulis is condemned to death for attempting to assassinate Greek dictator George Papadopoulos.

• 1970 British newspaper Sun puts 1st pinup girl on page 3 (Stephanie Rahn)

• 1987 The Madonna compilation album “You Can Dance” is released

• 1991 First TV condom ad aired (FOX- TV).

• 1992 Erling Kagge begins successful exploration at South pole

• 1998 Whitney Houston releases “My Love is Your Love”.

• 2003 Britney Spears, at 21 years old, becomes the youngest singer to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

• 2006 Official naming of element 111, Roentgenium (Rg).

• 2008 “Twilight”, based on the book by Stephenie Meyer, directed by Catherine Hardwicke, starring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, premieres in Los Angeles

• 2012 50 schoolchildren and a bus driver are killed after a train collides with a school bus in Manfalut, Egypt

• 2013 50 people are killed after a Boeing 737 aircraft crashes in Kazan, Russia.

• 2014 The Church of England adopts legislation enabling the appointment of female bishops

• 2015 Actor Charlie Sheen confirms that he is HIV-positive

• 2015 Ireland’s first same-sex wedding takes place – Cormac Gollogly and Richard Dowling marry in Clonmel, County Tipperary.

• 2015 Suicide bomber kills more than 30 in a market in Yola, north-eastern Nigeria, with Boko Haram blamed.

Source: www.onthisday.com