November 17: Nazis storm University of Prague, President Nixon: 'I am not a crook'

Maine Fast Fact: Maine Yankee nuclear power plant opened in 1972 but closed in 1997.

Births:

• 1925: Rock Hudson, American actor
• 1942: Martin Scorsese, American film director
• 1943: Lauren Hutton, American actress and model
• 1944: Danny DeVito, American actor; Lorne Michaels, Canadian writer and comedian, creator and producer of Saturday Night Live; Gene Clark, American singer-songwriter, co-founding member of the folk-rock group The Byrds
• 1946: Martin Barre, English rock musician, guitarist for the band Jethro Tull
• 1948: Howard Dean, American politician, Democratic Party chairman
• 1951: Stephen Root, American actor
• 1955: Yolanda King, human rights activist, daughter of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King
• 1960: RuPaul, American drag entertainer
• 1966: Daisy Fuentes, Cuban model and actress; Richard Fortus, American musician, rhythm guitarist for the band Guns N’ Roses
• 1978: Rachel McAdams, Canadian actress
• 1980: Isaac Hanson, American musician, part of the group Hanson

Deaths:

• 1979: John Glascock, English musician, bass guitarist for the band Jethro Tull
• 1558: Queen Mary I, Queen of England and Ireland

History:

• 1558: Elizabeth I of England succeeds the throne after the death of her half-sister Queen Mary I and the start of the Elizabethan era.
• 1603: English explorer and writer Sir Walter Raleigh goes on trial for treason.
• 1777: The Articles of Confederation are submitted to the states for ratification.
• 1800: The United States Congress holds its first session in Washington, D.C. in the completed Capitol building.
• 1820: Captain Nathaniel Palmer becomes the first American to see Antarctica.
• 1855: David Livingstone becomes the first European to see the Victoria Falls in what is now Zambia-Zimbabwe.
• 1871: The National Rifle Association is given a charter by New York state.
• 1869: The Suez Canal opens in Egypt, linking the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea.
• 1911: The Omega Psi Phi fraternity is founded at Howard University in Washington, D.C, the first African-American fraternity at a historically black college.
• 1919: King George V of the United Kingdom names today Armistice Day (which is later renamed Remembrance Day).
• 1933: The United States recognizes the Soviet Union.
• 1939: The Nazis storm the University of Prague, nine Czech students are executed for anti-Nazi demonstrations, all Czech universities are shut down and over 1,200 Czech students are sent to concentration camps.
• 1969: Negotiators from the United States and the Soviet Union meet in Helsinki, Finland and begin the SALT I negotiations to limit the number of strategic weapons on both sides.
• 1970: Lunokhod 1 from the Soviet Union lands on the Moon, the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on another world; Douglas Engelbart receives a patent for the first computer mouse.
• 1973: President Richard Nixon tells 400 Associated Press editors in Orlando, Florida “I am not a crook.”
• 1989: A student demonstration in Prague is stopped which sparks an uprising to overthrow the communist government of Czechoslovakia, the beginning of the Velvet Revolution.
• 2003: Arnold Schwarzenegger is sworn in as governor of California.
• 2004: Kmart Corp. announces it is buying Sears, Roebuck and Co. for $11 billion and naming it Sears Holdings Corp.

November 17 is International Students’ Day, a day held to commemorate the anniversary of the 1939 Nazi storming of the University of Prague. In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, today is the Struggle for Freedom and Democracy Day, commemorating the beginning of the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia in 1989.