This Day in History

On Nov. 17, 1973, President Richard Nixon told Associated Press managing editors in Orlando, Florida: “People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook.”

On this date:

In 1558, Elizabeth I acceded to the English throne upon the death of her half-sister, Queen Mary, beginning a 44-year reign.

In 1800, Congress held its first session in the partially completed U.S. Capitol building.

In 1869, the Suez Canal opened in Egypt.

In 1889, the Union Pacific Railroad Co. began direct, daily railroad service between Chicago and Portland, Oregon, as well as Chicago and San Francisco.

In 1917, French sculptor Auguste Rodin died in Meudon at age 77.

In 1947, President Harry S. Truman, in an address to a special session of Congress, called for emergency aid to Austria, Italy and France. (The aid was approved the following month.)

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 white supremacists of civil rights violations in the 1984 slaying of radio talk show host Alan Berg. (Both men later died in prison.)

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

In 2001, the Taliban confirmed the death of Osama bin Laden’s military chief Mohammed Atef in an airstrike three days earlier.

In 2003, Arnold Schwarzenegger was sworn in as the 38th governor of California.

In 2006, former “Seinfeld” star Michael Richards unleashed a barrage of racial epithets during a stand-up routine at the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood.

Ten years ago: In their first meeting since the election, Barack Obama and former rival John McCain met at the president-elect’s transition headquarters in Chicago, where they pledged to work together on ways to change Washington’s “bad habits.” St. Louis Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols won his second NL MVP award.