12 History Lessons + 7 Births & 7 Deaths for November 17, 2025
Today’s History:
- 1558 – Elizabeth I becomes Queen of England, marking the start of the Elizabethan era.
- 1800 – The U.S. Congress convenes its first session in Washington, D.C.
- 1855 – Explorer David Livingstone sights Victoria Falls on the Zambezi River.
- 1869 – The Suez Canal officially opens, linking the Mediterranean and Red Seas.
- 1889 – (Heidi Game precursor) — ok to skip
- 1939 – (student protests) — skip
- 1968 – The “Heidi Game”: NBC cuts away from an NFL thriller to air the film “Heidi,” prompting nationwide outrage and new live-sports policies.
- 1970 – Soviet rover Lunokhod 1 lands on the Moon, the first successful remote-controlled rover on another world.
- 1973 – President Richard Nixon declares, “I am not a crook,” in a televised press conference amid Watergate.
- 1989 – Velvet Revolution begins in Czechoslovakia with a mass student demonstration in Prague.
- 1993 – The U.S. House of Representatives approves NAFTA.
- 1997 – Luxor massacre in Egypt leaves 62 people dead at the Temple of Hatshepsut.
- 2003 – Arnold Schwarzenegger is sworn in as Governor of California.
- 2006 – Sony releases the PlayStation 3 in North America.
- 2013 – A major tornado outbreak strikes the U.S. Midwest, devastating Washington, Illinois.
Today’s Birthdays:
- 1942 – Martin Scorsese, filmmaker (Taxi Driver; Goodfellas; The Irishman) (83).
- 1944 – Danny DeVito, actor/producer (Taxi; Twins; It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) (81).
- 1960 – RuPaul, entertainer/producer (RuPaul’s Drag Race) (65).
- 1966 – Sophie Marceau, French actor/filmmaker (La Boum; Braveheart) (59).
- 1974 – Leslie Bibb, actor (Popular; Iron Man) (51).
- 1978 – Rachel McAdams, actor (Mean Girls; Spotlight) (47).
- 1978 – Tom Ellis, actor (Lucifer; Miranda) (47).
Today’s Deaths:
- 1858 – Robert Owen, Welsh social reformer and cooperative movement pioneer (87).
- 1917 – Auguste Rodin, French sculptor (The Thinker; The Kiss) (77).
- 1959 – Heitor Villa-Lobos, Brazilian composer (Bachianas Brasileiras) (72).
- 1990 – Robert Hofstadter, American physicist, Nobel laureate (electron scattering/atomic nuclei) (75).
- 1998 – Esther Rolle, American actor (Good Times) (78).
- 2006 – Ferenc Puskás, Hungarian football legend (Real Madrid; “Mighty Magyars”) (79).
- 2013 – Doris Lessing, British novelist, Nobel laureate (The Golden Notebook) (94).
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