This day in history – November 17
If you're a history buff, this is the perfect place to find out what happened on this day in history - November 17.
![](https://images.caxton.co.za/wp-content/uploads/sites/28/2017/11/GiuseppeVerdis_16748.jpg)
• 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.
![](https://images.caxton.co.za/wp-content/uploads/sites/28/2017/11/GiuseppeVerdis_16748-270x203.jpg)
• 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.
![](https://images.caxton.co.za/wp-content/uploads/sites/28/2017/11/H_97780-270x203.jpg)
• 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