On This Day November 17th

 OTD

November 17th is the 321st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 44 days remain until the end of the year.

 

 Events

1558 – Elizabethan era begins: Queen Mary I of England dies and is succeeded by her half-sister Elizabeth I of England.

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

1800 – The United States Congress holds its first session in Washington, D.C.

1820 – Captain Nathaniel Palmer becomes the first American to see Antarctica. (The Palmer Peninsula is later named after him.)

1858 – Modified Julian Day zero.

1894 – H. H. Holmes, one of the first modern serial killers, is arrested in Boston, Massachusetts.

1947 – American scientists John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain observe the basic principles of the transistor, an essential element for the electronics revolution of the 20th century.

1968 – Viewers of the Raiders–Jets football game in the eastern United States are denied the opportunity to watch its exciting finish when NBC broadcasts Heidi instead, prompting changes to sports broadcasting in the U.S.

1973 – Watergate scandal: In Orlando, Florida, U.S. President Richard Nixon tells 400 Associated Press managing editors, "I am not a crook."

 

Birthdays

1503 – Bronzino, Italian painter (d. 1572)

1755 – Louis XVIII, king of France (d. 1824)

1878 – Grace Abbott, American social worker (d. 1939)

1899 – Douglas Shearer, Canadian-American engineer (d. 1971)

1906 – Soichiro Honda, Japanese engineer and businessman, co-founded the Honda Motor Company (d. 1991)

1916 – Shelby Foote, American historian and author (d. 2005)

1933 – Orlando Peña, Cuban-American baseball player and scout

1942 – Martin Scorsese, American director, producer, screenwriter, and actor

1967 – Tab Benoit, American singer-songwriter and guitarist

1989 – Seth Lugo, American baseball player

 

Holiday Spotlight

Canterbury Anniversary Day

  The Canterbury Region of New Zealand has a long history of human activity dating back to the Mori people’s settlement in the 10th Century. The people known as the Moa-hunters appear to have been the first inhabitants of Canterbury. Tribes began trading with Europeans, who brought muskets and other tools with them, in the early 19th Century. The presence of Europeans and different nationalities in Canterbury increased from the 1830s onward. The Canterbury Association was created in 1848 by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, a British nobleman, and John Robert Godley, an Anglo-Irish aristocracy, to establish an Anglican colony on the South Island.

 A preliminary party led by Godley arrived at Port Cooper in April 1850 and set up a port, houses, and shops in preparation for the main body of settlers. The first wave of 750 immigrants came to Lyttelton in a fleet of four ships in December 1850. The Canterbury Province was established in 1853 after New Zealand’s Constitution Act of 1852 was passed.

 The Abolition of the Provinces Act, which took effect on November 1, 1876, disbanded the Canterbury Province and the rest of New Zealand’s provinces. The new Canterbury Region has slightly different north boundaries, incorporating some districts from the ancient Nelson Province. In 1989, during countrywide local government reforms, the modern-day Canterbury region was founded. After the Nelson-Marlborough Regional Council was abolished in 1992, the Kaikoura District became part of the area.

 

Other Include

Electronic Greeting Card Day

Homemade Bread Day

International Happy Goose Day

International Stand Up to Bullying Day

International Students Day

National Baklava Day

National Black Cat Day

National Farm Joke Day

National Take a Hike Day

National Unfriend Day

Petroleum Day

Substitute Educators Day

The Little Mermaid Day

World Prematurity Awareness Day

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