Nov 17 in History
1278 — All Jews in England (about 3,000 at the time) are arrested on suspicion of coin clipping and counterfeiting, imprisoned in castles across the country and their home searched (ransacked). Of the 680 held in the Tower of London, 293 are hanged in 1279. Edward I expels all Jews in 1290.
1558 — Mary I, 42, (denounced as “Bloody Mary” due to the execution of 283 Protestants, most by burning, during her five-year reign) dies. Elizabeth I, her halfsister, becomes queen of England and re-establishes a Protestant church (Church of England).
1869 — The Suez Canal is opened in Egypt, linking the Mediterranean and Red seas. The French imperial yacht Aigle — with Empress Eugenie, Napoleon III’s wife, and Ferdinand de Lesseps, developer of the canal, on board — leads the first ships to enter at Port Said. 1887 — Bernard Law Montgomery, British Field Marshall who defeats Rommel in North Africa in 1942 and leads Allied troops from D-day to the end of World War 2, is born in London.
1903 — Vladimir Lenin’s efforts to impose his own radical views on the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party split the party into two factions — the Bolsheviks (majority) and Mensheviks (minority).
1917 — Sculptor Auguste Rodin, 77, (“The Kiss”, “The Thinker”) dies in Meudon, France. He married Rose Beuret on January 29, 53 years into their relationship. She died on February 16. Rodin was sick the whole year (influenza in January). On November 16 his physician announced “the patient’s condition is grave” due “to congestion of the lungs. In a 1923 book Marcell Tirel, Rodin’s secretary, alleges that Rodin’s death was largely due to cold, and the fact that he had no heat at Meudon. Rodin requested permission to stay in the (heated) Hotel Biron, a museum of his works. The director of the museum refused.
1925 — Actor Rock Hudson (Roy Harold Scherer jnr) is born in Winnetka, Illinois.
1947 — The Screen Actors Guild votes to force its officers to take a “non-communist” pledge.
1950 — Lhamo Dondrub, 15, the 14th Dalai Lama, is formally enthroned as the temporal ruler of Tibet.. 1968 — NBC outrages football fans by cutting away from the final minutes of a New York Jets-Oakland Raiders game — with the Jets leading 32-29 — to a scheduled TV special, “Heidi”. Viewers are deprived of seeing the Raiders win 43-32.
1977 — Ryk Neethling, member of the SA 4x100m freestyle relay team that wins gold in world-record time at the 2004 Athens Olympics and the first South African to compete in four consecutive Games (1996-2008), is born in Bloemfontein.