November 17th

Today's Highlight in History:
On November 17th, 1800, Congress held its first session in Washington in the partially completed Capitol building.

On this date:
In 1558, Elizabeth the First ascended the English throne upon the death of Queen Mary.

In 1869, the Suez Canal opened in Egypt.

In 1917, sculptor August Rodin died in Meudon, France. (pictured left: Rodin sculpture "The Thinker" at La Villa des Brillants, Meudon, France)

In 1925, actor Rock Hudson was born in Winnetka, Illinois.

In 1934, Lyndon Baines Johnson married Claudia Alta Taylor, better known as "Lady Bird."

In 1962, Washington's Dulles International Airport was dedicated by President Kennedy.

In 1970, the Soviet Union landed an unmanned, remote-controlled vehicle on the moon, the "Lunokhod One."

In 1973, President Nixon told Associated Press managing editors meeting in Orlando, Florida, "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 female and black American hostages being held at the US Embassy in Tehran.

In 1997, 62 people, most of them foreign tourists, were killed when six militants opened fire at the Temple of Hatshepsut in Luxor, Egypt; the attackers were killed by police.

Ten years ago: President Bush, on the first visit to Czechoslovakia by a US president, told a cheering crowd of 100,000 in Prague that "America will stand with you" through hard times ahead.

Five years ago: The commander of US forces in the Pacific called the rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan girl "absolutely stupid" and said in Washington the incident could have been avoided if the US servicemen involved had simply paid for sex. (Admiral Richard C. Macke later apologized for his remarks, and took early retirement.)

One year ago: Officials close to the investigation into the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990 said a relief co-pilot alone in the cockpit had said, in Arabic: "I made my decision now; I put my faith in God's hands" just before the jetliner began its fatal plunge. (In Egypt, relatives angrily rejected any notion that relief co-pilot Gameel el-Batouty had deliberately crashed the plane.)

"There's one thing that keeps surprising you about stormy old friends after they die -- their silence."

-- Ben Hecht, American author and screenwriter (1893-1964).