December 17

December 17 is the 351st day of the year (352nd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 14 days remaining.

Events

• 283 – St Gaius becomes Pope.
• 384 – St Siricius becomes Pope.
• 1586 – The reign of Emperor Go-Yozei, the 107th imperial ruler of Japan, began.
• 1637 – The Shimabara Rebellion broke out in Japan.
• 1777 – France became the first nation to recognize the United States of America
• 1830 – Santa Marta, Colombia Simon Bolivar dies.
• 1843 – A Christmas Carol, a fictional short story by Charles Dickens, was first published.
• 1862 – General Ulysses S. Grant issued General Order No. 11, expelling Jews from Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky.
• 1903 – First powered flight, by the Wright Brothers.
• 1935 – First flight of the Douglas DC-3.
• 1939 – German battleship Admiral Graf Spee was scuttled by Captain Hans Langsdorff at the Battle of the River Plate.
• 1941 – German siege of Sevastopol begins
• 1944 – Western Defense Command issues proclamation ending requirement of Japanese internment.
• 1944  – In the Malmédy massacre around 80 American POW are executed by Waffen-SS troops of Jochen Peiper’s Kampfgruppe.
• 1961 – India seizes Goa from Portugal
• 1961 – A fire at a circus in Niteroi, Brazil kills 323 people.
• 1967 – Harold Holt, Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1908) disappeared swimming near Portsea, Victoria
• 1969 – U.S. Air Force announces that its UFO investigations have found no evidence of extraterrestrial spacecraft.
• 1969  – SALT I talks begin
• 1970 – My Lai trial begins
• 1970  – Coastal cities events Mass riots in the coastal cities of Poland ended in massacre of shipyard workers in Gdynia
• 1973 – The American Psychiatric Association removes homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses.
• 1982 – Tootsie opens in theaters, starring Dustin Hoffman, Jessica Lange, Teri Garr, Dabney Coleman, Charles Durning, Bill Murray, Sydney Pollack, George Gaynes, and Geena Davis.
• 1989  – The first episode of The Simpsons airs on FOX
• 1989  – Brazil holds its first free election in 25 years.
• 1989  – Full scale street manifestations and riots in Timisoara ignite the Romanian Revolution
• 1997 – A chartered Yakovlev-42 from Ukraine crashes into the mountains near Katerini, Greece killing 70
• 1998 – Claudia Benton is murdered in her West University, Texas home by Angel Maturino Resendiz. She is his fifth murder victim in his fourth incident.
• 2002 – Peace accord signed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• 2003 – First supersonic flight by Scaled Composites SpaceShipOne
• 2003  – The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is the third and final Lord of the Rings movie to open in theaters.

Births

• 1267 – Emperor Go-Uda of Japan
• 1619 – Prince Rupert, Royalist commander in the English Civil War
• 1770 – Ludwig van Beethoven, German composer (d. 1827)
• 1778 – Humphry Davy, chemist (d. 1829)
• 1796 – Thomas Chandler Haliburton, novelist (d. 1865)
• 1799 – Titian Peale, artist (d. 1885)
• 1807 – John Greenleaf Whittier, American poet and abolitionist (d. 1892)
• 1830 – Jules Alfred Huot de Goncourt, French publisher (d. 1870)
• 1853 – Herbert Beerbohm Tree, actor (d. 1917)
• 1872 – Mistinguett, actress, singer (d. 1956)
• 1873 – Ford Madox Ford, English writer (d. 1939)
• 1874 – William Lyon Mackenzie King, tenth Prime Minister of Canada (d. 1950)
• 1892 – Sam Barry, basketball coach (d. 1950)
• 1893 – Erwin Piscator, film director (d. 1966)
• 1894 – Arthur Fiedler, American conductor (d. 1979)
• 1894  – Hans Henny Jahnn, writer (d. 1959)
• 1901 – Lee Strasberg, actor, director, and acting teacher (d. 1982)
• 1903 – Erskine Caldwell, author (d. 1987)
• 1903 – Ray Noble, musician {d. 1978}
• 1906 – Simo Häyhä, sniper (d. 2002)
• 1908 – Willard Frank Libby, physicist and chemist (d. 1980)
• 1911 – André Claveau, French singer, Eurovision Song Contest winner (d. 2003)
• 1916 – Penelope Fitzgerald, writer (d. 2000)
• 1929 – William Safire, columnist
• 1930 – Bob Guccione, American magazine publisher
• 1930  – Bob Mathias, athlete
• 1930  – Armin Mueller-Stahl, actor
• 1931 – Constantin Freiheer von Heeremann, German farmer and union leader
• 1938 – Gordon Lightfoot, musician
• 1938  – Peter Snell, New Zealand athlete
• 1939 – Eddie Kendricks, musician
• 1941 – Gene Clark, musician
• 1942 – Paul Butterfield, musician (d. 1987)
• 1943 – Ron Geesin, musician
• 1943  – Lauren Hutton, model and actress
• 1944 – Jack L. Chalker, novelist
• 1944  – Lorne Michaels, producer
• 1944  – Bernard Hill, actor
• 1945 – Elvin Hayes, basketball star
• 1945 – Ernie Hudson, actor
• 1947 – Wes Studi, actor
• 1951 – Ken Hitchcock, hockey coach
• 1955 – Brad Davis, basketball player
• 1968 – Paul Tracy, Canadian race car driver
• 1971 – Antoine Rigaudeau, French basketball player
• 1973 – Paula Radcliffe, runner
• 1975 – Nick Dinsmore, professional wrestler
• 1975  – Milla Jovovich, actress and model
• 1976 – Takeo Spikes, American football player
• 1979 – William Green, American football player

Deaths

• 1187 – Pope Gregory VIII
• 1195 – Baldwin V, Count of Hainaut (b. 1150)
• 1273 – Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, Persian poet and sufi mystic (b. 1207)
• 1663 – Queeen Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba (b. 1583)
• 1812 – Kaspar Hauser, German foundling
• 1830 – Simón Bolívar, Latin American politician and activist (b. 1783)
• 1897 – Alphonse Daudet, French writer (b. 1840)
• 1907 – William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, English physicist (b. 1824)
• 1909 – King Leopold II of Belgium (b. 1835)
• 1917 – Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, physician
• 1957 – Dorothy L. Sayers, writer (b. 1893)
• 1964 – Victor Franz Hess, American physicist (b. 1883)
• 1987 – Irving Allen, producer
• 1987  – Marguerite Yourcenar, novelist (b. 1903)
• 1992 – Dana Andrews, actor (b. 1909)
• 1998 – Claudia Benton, child psychologist
• 1999 – Grover Washington Jr., musician (b. 1943)
• 2003 – Ed Devereaux, Australian actor (b. 1925)
• 2003  – Otto Graham, American football player (b. 1921)

Holidays and observances

• National Day in Bhutan (1907)
• Roman Empire – Saturnalia, in honor of Saturn, began.

External links

• BBC: On This Day

December 16 – December 18 – November 17 – January 17 — listing of all days