Today is Thursday, Nov. 17, the 321st day of 2011. There are 44 days left in the year.
Today’s highlight:
On Nov. 17, 1911, the African-American fraternity Omega Psi Phi was founded at Howard University in Washington, D.C.
On this date:
In 1558, Elizabeth I acceded to the English throne upon the death of Queen Mary.
In 1800, Congress held its first session in Washington in the partially completed Capitol building.
In 1869, the Suez Canal opened in Egypt.
In 1934, Lyndon Baines Johnson married Claudia Alta Taylor, better known as Lady Bird, in San Antonio, Texas.
In 1969, the first round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks between the United States and the Soviet Union opened in Helsinki, Finland.
In 1973, President Richard Nixon told Associated Press managing editors in Orlando, Fla.: “People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook.”
In 1979, Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini ordered the release of 13 black and/or female American hostages being held at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
In 1987, a federal jury in Denver convicted two neo-Nazis and acquitted two others of civil rights violations in the 1984 slaying of radio talk show host Alan Berg.
In 1991, the first national TV commercial for condoms (Trojan) aired during an episode of the Fox situation comedy “Herman’s Head.”
Ten years ago:
The Taliban confirmed the death of Osama bin Laden’s military chief Mohammed Atef in an airstrike three days earlier. Burhanuddin Rabbani, the Afghan president ousted five years earlier by the Taliban, returned to the capital, Kabul. Lennox Lewis knocked out Hasim Rahman in the fourth round to get back his WBC and IBF heavyweight titles in Las Vegas. Former U.S. Sen. Harrison A. Williams Jr., a Democrat whose political career was ended by the Abscam bribery scandal, died in Denville, N.J., at age 81.
Five years ago:
Cast into the minority in midterm elections, House Republicans chose John Boehner of Ohio to lead them. Ivan J. Hill was convicted in Los Angeles of being the “60 Freeway Slayer” of six women (Hill was later sentenced to death). The FDA ended a 14-year virtual ban on silicone-gel breast implants. College football coaching legend Bo Schembechler died in Southfield, Mich., at age 77. Grammy- and Tony-winning singer Ruth Brown died at age 78.
One year ago:
House Democrats elected Nancy Pelosi to remain as their leader despite massive party losses in midterm elections. Republicans voted to keep Boehner as their top House leader, making him speaker in the new Congress. A hand-count of votes affirmed the re-election of Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, the first Senate candidate in more than 50 years to win a write-in campaign. The first Guantanamo detainee to face civilian trial, Ahmed Ghailani, was convicted by federal jury in New York on just one charge of conspiracy, among more than 280 counts related to 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Ghailani’s native Tanzania.
Associated Press
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