November 17

Today in History
• 1278 - 680 Jews arrested (293 hanged) in England for counterfeiting coins
• 1558 - Elizabeth I aged 25, ascends the English throne
• 1558 - The independence of the Church of England is re-established
• 1774 - First City Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry formed at Carpenter's Hall, Philadelphia
• 1785 - Church of England organizes in New England
• 1800 - U.S. Congress meets for the first time in the newly built Capitol in Washington, D.C
• 1853 - Street signs authorized at San Francisco intersections
• 1869 - Suez Canal in Egypt opens, linking Mediterranean and Red seas


Holidays - Traditional and Obscure
• BBC Children in Need Appeal
• Canterbury Anniversary Day
• Christchurch Show Day
• International Students Day
• National Baklava Day
• National Hiking Day
• National Homemade Bread Day
?• World Prematurity Day

Birthdays
• 9-79 AD - Vespasian, Roman Emperor (69-79 AD)
• 331 - Flavius Claudius Julianus, Julian the Apostate, emperor
• 1755 - Louis XVIII, 1st post-revolutionary king of France, 1814-24
• 1790 - August Ferdinand Mobius, mathematician, inventor, Mobius strip
• 1799 - Titian Ramsey Peale, U.S., artist/naturalist, American Ornithology
• 1854 - Louis HG Lyautey, French minister of Defense, 1916-17
• 1878 - Grace Abbott, American social worker (US Children's Bureau)
• 1894 - Sophocles Venizelos, premier of Greece, 1944, 50-51