Today In History
December 17 in History
Your birthday shares the stage with stories that shaped the world.
Wright Brothers Fly at Kitty Hawk: 12 Seconds That Change the World
Wilbur's sharp pull during their first powered attempt stalled the Flyer in three seconds, requiring three days of repairs before Orville conquered a 20 mph wind on December 17. His 12-second, 120-foot hop proved controlled flight possible, yet a sudden gust later that day tumbled the machine beyond repair, ending their immediate quest for longer distances at Kitty Hawk.
Famous Birthdays
Fernando Alonso
A boy in 1914 Havana who'd become Cuba's first male ballet star. Fernando Alonso started dancing at 19, late by any standard, but within five years he was partnering with Alicia Alonso — who'd become his wife, his artistic rival, and the face of Cuban ballet while he built its foundation. He co-founded the Ballet Nacional de Cuba in 1948, turning a tiny company into a training ground that still produces dancers who win gold in Moscow and Paris. After their divorce, he kept choreographing, kept teaching. He died at 98, having spent 79 years proving that ballet wasn't just something Cuba imported. It was something Cuba could make better than almost anyone else.
Ginger
At twelve, David Walls was already writing songs in his bedroom in South Shields, teaching himself guitar by playing along to his sister's Bowie records until the strings cut into his fingers. He became Ginger — the nickname stuck from his hair color — and spent three decades as British rock's most prolific outsider, writing over 400 songs across dozens of projects. The Wildhearts alone spawned a cult following fierce enough to crowdfund albums years before Kickstarter existed. He never broke through to stadiums, never softened his sound for radio, never stopped. Five bands, countless lineups, one compulsion: write the next song.
Willard Libby
Willard Libby was born in December 1908 in Grand Valley, Colorado. He invented radiocarbon dating. The idea: carbon-14 decays at a known rate, so if you measure how much is left in an organic sample, you can calculate when it stopped absorbing carbon — when it died. He published the method in 1949. It dated Egyptian mummies, Dead Sea Scrolls, and prehistoric bones with a precision no previous method could approach. He won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1960. Every archaeological dig in the world now runs on his math.
Art Neville
Art Neville defined the syncopated, funk-heavy sound of New Orleans as a founding member of The Meters and The Neville Brothers. His mastery of the Hammond B3 organ and soulful vocals anchored the Crescent City’s rhythm section for decades, directly influencing the development of modern funk and hip-hop sampling.
Carlo Little
Carlo Little defined the thunderous, driving backbeat that powered the early British rock and roll scene. As the drummer for Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages, he mentored a young Keith Moon and provided the rhythmic blueprint for the high-energy percussion that soon dominated the global charts during the British Invasion.
Muhammadu Buhari
A cattle herder's son from Nigeria's rural north who barely spoke English until secondary school. Lost his father at four. Rose through military ranks to seize power in a 1983 coup, ruling with an iron fist for twenty months before being overthrown. Tried three times to win the presidency democratically — failed each time. Then at 72, on his fourth attempt in 2015, he finally won, becoming Nigeria's first opposition candidate ever to defeat a sitting president at the ballot box. The general who once banned political parties ended up needing them to get back in power.
Paul Rodgers
Paul Rodgers defined the gritty, blues-infused sound of 1970s hard rock as the frontman for Free and Bad Company. His soulful, powerhouse vocals on tracks like All Right Now and Feel Like Makin' Love established the blueprint for the classic rock radio aesthetic that dominated the airwaves for decades.
Mike Mills
Mike Mills provided the melodic backbone and vocal harmonies that defined R.E.M.’s sound, transforming the band from college radio darlings into global superstars. Beyond his bass lines, his multi-instrumental versatility and songwriting contributions helped bridge the gap between alternative rock’s underground roots and the polished, chart-topping success of the nineties.
Neil Sanderson
Neil Sanderson shaped the aggressive, melodic sound of modern alternative rock as a founding drummer and primary songwriter for Three Days Grace. His rhythmic compositions helped the band secure multiple number-one hits on the Billboard Mainstream Rock charts, cementing their status as a staple of the 2000s radio landscape.
Ryan Key
Ryan Key defined the pop-punk sound of the early 2000s as the frontman of Yellowcard, famously integrating the violin into high-energy rock anthems. His songwriting propelled the album Ocean Avenue to platinum status, securing the band a permanent place in the era's alternative music landscape.
Craig Kielburger
Craig Kielburger mobilized a global youth movement against child labor after reading about the murder of Iqbal Masih at age twelve. By co-founding Free the Children, he transformed student activism into a sustainable model for international development, eventually building over 1,000 schools and water projects across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Ryuichi Ogata
Ryuichi Ogata rose to fame as a vocalist and dancer for the J-pop trio W-inds, helping define the boy band sound in early 2000s Japan. His departure from the group in 2020 prompted a public conversation about the intense mental health pressures faced by performers within the Japanese entertainment industry.
Historical Events
Wilbur's sharp pull during their first powered attempt stalled the Flyer in three seconds, requiring three days of repairs before Orville conquered a 20 mph wind on December 17. His 12-second, 120-foot hop proved controlled flight possible, yet a sudden gust later that day tumbled the machine beyond repair, ending their immediate quest for longer distances at Kitty Hawk.
The United States Air Force shuts down Project Blue Book after concluding that most UFO sightings stem from mass hysteria, hoaxes, or simple misidentifications of ordinary objects. This definitive dismissal ends decades of official speculation and forces the public to confront the mundane explanations behind celestial anomalies rather than extraterrestrial theories.
The U.S. Army announced it would close its Japanese-American internment camps, allowing over 100,000 people to return home after nearly three years of imprisonment without charge or trial. Many returned to find their homes, businesses, and farms seized or destroyed, and formal government redress would not come until the Civil Liberties Act of 1988.
Kim Jong-il died in December 2011 on his private train, according to the North Korean government, which announced it two days later. He had ruled North Korea since 1994, when he succeeded his father Kim Il-sung. His regime presided over a famine in the mid-1990s that killed somewhere between 240,000 and 3.5 million people — the range reflects how little outsiders could verify. He accelerated the country's nuclear program, met with South Korean President Kim Dae-jung in 2000 in the only inter-Korean summit, and maintained a regime with no free press, no political opposition, and no legal emigration. Power passed to his son Kim Jong-un.
Rome's newest festival promised something radical: slaves ate first. For one December day, masters served their own household workers at banquet tables, roles reversed, social order suspended. The Senate had approved it to honor Saturn, god of agriculture and time before hierarchy existed. Participants wore soft caps instead of togas. Gambling was legal. You could say anything to anyone without punishment. The experiment worked so well it expanded to seven days, then survived Rome itself—nearly every culture that followed invented some version of the same idea. What started as controlled chaos became the template for every holiday that lets people briefly pretend the rules don't apply.
The garrison commander took Totila's gold and opened the Asinarian Gate at midnight. What followed wasn't a massacre — it was something stranger. Totila's Ostrogoths walked through Rome's streets and found a population already starved to near-extinction by their own Byzantine defenders. The city that once held a million people now sheltered maybe 500. Totila ordered no killings. He burned sections of the walls instead, then left. Rome, unconquered by foreign armies for 800 years, fell not to force but to a bribe. And the Gothic king who bought it didn't even want to stay.
The three Myinsaing brothers topple King Kyawswa of Pagan on December 17, 1297, shattering central authority across the Irrawaddy Valley. This coup fractures the once-unified kingdom into warring principalities, ending nearly two centuries of centralized rule and triggering decades of regional fragmentation that reshape Burmese politics forever.
Margaret II and her son William I signed a peace treaty on December 17, 1354, to end decades of civil strife known as the Hook and Cod wars. This agreement finally halted the violent factional fighting that had torn Holland and Hainaut apart, allowing both regions to stabilize their economies and rebuild their shattered towns under unified rule.
Drake left Plymouth with five ships and 164 men on what Elizabeth called a trading voyage. She lied. Her real orders: raid Spanish colonies along the Pacific coast and claim new lands for England. Spain controlled that ocean completely—no English ship had ever entered it. Drake's crew didn't know the true mission. Neither did Spain, which made peace with England that same year. By the time Spanish authorities realized an English pirate was loose in their private sea, Drake had already captured a treasure ship carrying 80 pounds of gold and 26 tons of silver. Only one of his five ships made it home. But that one carried enough stolen wealth to fund the English treasury for seven years.
Ernest of Bavaria's cannons blasted Godesberg Castle for three weeks straight. Inside, Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg — the prince-archbishop who'd converted to Protestantism and married his mistress — watched his walls crumble. He'd sparked the Cologne War by refusing to give up his throne after his conversion. When the fortress fell, his men were slaughtered or captured. Gebhard escaped and spent the rest of his life in exile, dying broke in Strasbourg. Ernest took the archbishopric and kept it Catholic for another two centuries. One marriage, one war, one religion locked in place.
Bolívar stood in Angostura — a river town Spain couldn't hold — and declared something that didn't exist yet: Gran Colombia. Not just Venezuela. Not a single colony freed. He announced a republic spanning modern Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Panama before most of it was even liberated. The wars would drag on another four years. But the declaration worked backward: it created the nation first, then dared his army to make it real. They did. Within a decade, Bolívar's imagined country controlled two million square miles. Then ego and geography tore it apart — the republic fractured into four countries by 1831, twelve years after he conjured it into existence.
Grant believed Jewish merchants were smuggling cotton to the North, enriching themselves while his army struggled for supplies. He gave families 24 hours to leave — women, children, elderly, anyone with Jewish heritage. Some had lived there for generations. Some had sons fighting for the Union. Didn't matter. Lincoln revoked the order three weeks later, but by then entire communities had already scattered. Grant never quite apologized. Thirty years later, when he ran for president, Jewish voters remembered — and forgave him anyway. He'd learned. What stuck wasn't the expulsion order itself, but how fast collective punishment can become official policy when someone needs a scapegoat.
The first building in North America with artificial ice — real hockey in September, real figure skating in July — burned to the ground in 12 minutes. Schenley Park Casino had opened just two years earlier with a radical brine-cooled floor system that cost $100,000, more than most entire arenas at the time. Pittsburgh's elite skated there in summer tuxedos while outside temperatures hit 90 degrees. The fire started in the chemical room housing the ice-making equipment. By the time firefighters arrived, the wooden structure was already collapsing. The technology survived: within a decade, 20 North American cities had copied the system.
Orville Wright steers the Wright Flyer into a 12-second hop that shatters centuries of human limitation. This feat forces engineers to abandon rigid gliders for powered propulsion, launching an era where global travel shrinks from months to hours and reshapes warfare, commerce, and culture forever.
Up to 1,000 residents of Darwin marched on Government House to demand the removal of the Northern Territory administrator, protesting wartime labor restrictions and the government's heavy-handed treatment of returned soldiers. The rebellion forced the administrator's recall and became the largest civil disturbance in Australian outback history.
Fun Facts
Zodiac Sign
Sagittarius
Nov 22 -- Dec 21
Fire sign. Optimistic, adventurous, and philosophical.
Birthstone
Tanzanite
Violet blue
Symbolizes transformation, intuition, and spiritual growth.
Next Birthday
--
days until December 17
Quote of the Day
“The most important of my discoveries have been suggested to me by my failures.”
Share Your Birthday
Create a beautiful birthday card with events and famous birthdays for December 17.
Create Birthday CardExplore Nearby Dates
See a specific year's pack
Born on December 17? Open your personalized history pack for that year.
Popular Dates
Explore more about December 17 in history. See the full date page for all events, browse December, or look up another birthday. Play history games or talk to historical figures.