History for December 17

History for December 17 - On-This-Day.com:
Humphry Davy 1778, Joseph Henry 1797, Arthur Fiedler 1896 


William Safire 1929, Ernie Hudson 1945 - Actor, Eugene Levy 1946 


Barry Livingston 1953 - Actor, Sean Patrick Thomas 1970 - Actor, Giovanni Ribisi 1974 - Actor 


1791 - A traffic regulation in New York City established the first street to go "One Way." 


1830 - South American patriot Simon Bolivar died in Colombia. 


1903 - The first successful gasoline-powered airplane flight took place near Kitty Hawk, NC. Orville and Wilbur Wright made the flight. 


1939 - The German pocket battleship Graf Spee was scuttled by its crew, bringing the World War II Battle of the Rio de la Plata off Uruguay to an end. 


1957 - The United States successfully test-fired the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time. 


1959 - The film "On the Beach" premiered in New York City and in 17 other cities. It was the first motion picture to debut simultaneously in major cities around the world. 


1969 - Television history was made when Tiny Tim and Miss Vicki Budinger were married on "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson. 


1976 - WTCG-TV, Atlanta, GA, changed its call letters to WTBS, and was uplinked via satellite. The station became the first commercial TV station to cover the entire U.S. 


1986 - Wayne "Danke Schoen" Newton won a $19.2 million suit against NBC News. NBC had aired reports claiming a link between Newton and mob figures. The reports were proven to be false. 


2004 - U.S. President George W. Bush signed into law the largest overhaul of U.S. intelligence gathering in 50 years. The bill aimed to tighten borders and aviation security. It also created a federal counterterrorism center and a new intelligence director.