On this day in history - November 17

What Happened On This Day – November 17

• 2003 Arnold Schwarzenegger sworn in as Californian Governor

  The bodybuilder and actor best known for his role as a cyborg in the science fiction movie, The Terminator, replaced then Governor Gray Davis. Schwarzenegger was elected for another term as governor in 2007.

• 1989 Velvet Revolution begins

  A week after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a demonstration of by students commemorating International Students Day in Prague was violently shut down by riot police. The incident led to mass strikes and nonviolent around the country that ended communist rule in erstwhile Czechoslovakia and paved the way for the first democratic elections in the country in 41 years.

• 1973 Athens Polytechnic Uprising Ends

  The popular protests against the military junta under Georgios Papadopoulos began on November 14 when students at the polytechnic went on a strike. On the morning of November 17, the military crashed into the campus grounds using a tank and put an end of the protests. While no one was thought to have been killed on the polytechnic campus, many people were killed in clashes around the city. Today, all schools and universities are closed on November 17 to commemorate the uprising.

• 1869 Construction on Suez Canal finished

  The 120 miles (193 kms) long artificial waterway connecting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea took 10 years to be built and was opened to ships. The canal connected Europe to Asia without ships having to go all the way around Africa.

• 1858 The start of Modified Julian Date

  Mostly used by astronomers and astrophysicists, 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 past since Noon January 1, 4713 B.C.E. The MJD gives the number of days past Midnight November 17, 1858. MJD was first used in 1957 by scientists at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory to track satellites.