more events on November 17
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2000
Controversial President of Peru Alberto Fujimori removed from office.
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1993
Gen. Sani Abacha leads a military coup in Nigeria that overthrows the government of Ernest Shonekan.
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US House of Representatives passes resolution to establish the North American Free Trade Agreement.
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1989
Student demonstration in Prague put down by riot police, leading to an uprising (the Velvet Revolution) that will topple the communist government on Dec. 29.
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1986
Renault President Georges Besse is shot to death by leftists of the Direct Action Group in Paris.
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1980
WHHM Television in Washington, D.C., becomes the first African-American public-broadcasting television station.
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1970
Soviet unmanned Luna 17 touches down on the moon.
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1967
The American Surveyor 6 makes a six-second flight on the moon, the first liftoff on the lunar surface.
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1965
The NVA ambushes American troops of the 7th Cavalry at Landing Zone Albany in the Ia Drang Valley, almost wiping them out.
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1951
Britain reports development of the world’s first nuclear-powered heating system.
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1949
Nguyen Tan Dung, Prime Minister of Vietnam (2006– )
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1944
Lorne Michaels, israeli-American TV producer; created Saturday Night Live.
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Danny DeVito, actor, director, producer (Taxi TV series; Throw Momma from the Train, Pulp Fiction).
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Gene Clark, singer, songwriter; member of the bands The Byrds, The New Christy Minstrels, and Dillard & Clark.
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1942
Martin Scorsese, film director (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull).
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1941
German Luftwaffe general and World War I fighter-ace Ernst Udet commits suicide. The Nazi government tells the public that he died in a flying accident.
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1938
Gordon Lightfoot, Canadian singer, songwriter, musician (“Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” “In the Early Morning Rain”).
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1931
Charles Lindbergh inaugurates Pan Am service from Cuba to South America in the Sikorsky flying boat American Clipper.
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1925
Rock Hudson, actor (McMillan & Wife TV series; Giant).
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1918
German troops evacuate Brussels.
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Influenza deaths reported in the United States have far exceeded World War I casualties.
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1916
Shelby Foote, American writer, famous for his three-volume narrative on America’s Civil War.
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1913
The first ship sails through the Panama Canal, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
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1903
Vladimir Lenin’s efforts to impose his own radical views on the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party splits the party into two factions, the Bolsheviks, who support Lenin, and the Mensheviks.
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1902
Eugene Paul Wigner, Hungarian-born physicist.
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1887
Bernard Law Montgomery, British field marshal who defeated Rommel in North Africa and led Allied troops from D-Day to the end of World War II.
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1885
The Serbian Army, with Russian support, invades Bulgaria.
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1877
Russia launches a surprise night attack that overruns Turkish forces at Kars, Armenia.
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1869
The Suez Canal is formally opened.
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1862
Union General Ambrose Burnside marches north out of Washington, D.C., to begin the Fredericksburg campaign.
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1842
A grim abolitionist meeting is held in Marlboro Chapel, Boston, after the imprisonment of a mulatto named George Latimer, one of the first fugitive slaves to be apprehended in Massachusetts.
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1800
The Sixth Congress (2nd session) convenes for the first time in Washington, D.C.
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1796
Napoleon Bonaparte defeats an Italian army near the Alpone River, Italy.
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1755
Louis XVIII, King of France.
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1636
Henrique Dias, Brazilian general, wins a decisive battle against the Dutch in Brazil.
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1558
The Church of England is re-established.
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Queen Elizabeth ascends to the throne of England.
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375
Enraged by the insolence of barbarian envoys, Valentinian, the Emperor of the West, dies of apoplexy in Pannonia in Central Europe.