December 17: What Happened on This Day in History (High_school Level)?

(Page last edited 10/12/2017)

1. 1577 - Francis Drake sails from Plymouth, England, on a secret mission to explore thePacific coast of the Americas for Queen Elizabeth I of England.
2. 1790 - Discovery of the Aztec calendar stone.
3. 1865 - First performance of the Unfinished Symphony by Franz Schubert.
4. 1896 - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's Schenley Park Casino, which was the first multi-purpose arena with the technology to create an artificial ice surface in North America, is destroyed in a fire.
5. 1903 - The Wright brothers make their first powered, heavier-than-air flight in theWright Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
6. 1938 - Otto Hahn discovers the nuclear fission of the heavy element uranium, the scientific and technological basis of nuclear energy.
7. 1957 - The United States successfully launches the first Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
8. 1969 - The SALT I talks begin.
9. 2003 - SpaceShipOne flight 11P, piloted by Brian Binnie, makes its first supersonic flight.
10. 2010 - Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire. This act became the catalyst for the Tunisian revolution and the wider Arab Spring.
11. Famous Birthdays: émilie du Châtelet (French mathematician and physicist), Ludwig van Beethoven (German pianist and composer), Joseph Henry (American physicist), Mary Cartwright (English mathematician), Willard Libby (American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate)

For famous birthdays and other daily events in history, visit our Daily Dose Activities.

Click Here for Yesterday in History: December 16

Click Here for Tomorrow in History: December 18

For more history resources on Internet 4 Classrooms, visit our Social Studies and History index. For Pre K-8th Grade Level History and Social Studies Resources, visit our Grade Level Index.