Important Events From This day in History – 17th November

Today in History

• 2003 Arnold Schwarzenegger sworn in as Californian Governor

  Former Governor Gray Davis was replaced by the bodybuilder and actor best known for his role as a cyborg in the science fiction film The Terminator. In 2007, Schwarzenegger was re-elected governor for a second term.

• 1989 Velvet Revolution begins

  A week after the fall of the Berlin Wall, riot police violently dispersed a student demonstration in Prague commemorating International Students Day. The incident sparked nationwide nonviolent protests, effectively ending communist rule in former Czechoslovakia and paving the way for the country’s first democratic elections in 41 years.

• 1973 Athens Polytechnic Uprising Ends

  Protests against the military junta led by Georgios Papadopoulos began on November 14 with a strike by polytechnic students. On the morning of November 17, the military used a tank to crash into the campus grounds, effectively ending the protests. While no one was killed on the polytechnic campus, many people were killed in clashes throughout the city. To commemorate the uprising, all schools and universities are closed on November 17th.

• 1869 Construction on Suez Canal finished

  The 120-mile-long (193-kilometer-long) artificial waterway connecting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea took ten years to construct and is now open to ships. The canal connected Europe to Asia without requiring ships to circumnavigate Africa.

• 1858 The start of Modified Julian Date

  The Modified Julian Date (MJD) is a dating method that is defined by subtracting 2,400,000.5 days from the current Julian date (JD), which is calculated by counting the number of days since Noon on January 1, 4713 B.C.E. The MJD indicates how many days have passed since November 17, 1858. Scientists at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory used MJD to track satellites for the first time in 1957.