05/17/2024
this day in history
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1904 – The United States begins construction on the Panama Canal.

1915 – At request of United States, Germany curtails its submarine warfare.

1919 – First legal Sunday baseball game in New York as 35,000 watch the Philadelphia Phillies beat the New York Giants 4-3.

1924 – VIII Summer Olympic Games open at Olympic Stadium of Colombes, Paris, France.

1932 – Al Capone enters Atlanta Penitentiary convicted of income tax evasion.

1942 – Food first rationed in the United States.

1953 – Pulitzer Prize for Literature awarded to Ernest Hemingway for “The Old Man and The Sea.”

1957 – Alan Freed hosts “Rock n’ Roll Show,” the first prime-time network rock show. It was cancelled after four episodes.

1959 – First Grammy Awards: Perry Como and Ella Fitzgerald win major awards.

1964 – “Another World” premiered on television.

1973 – Longest baseball game in Philadelphia’s Veterans Stadium as the Phillies beat the Atlanta Braves 5-4 in 20 innings.

1984 – Itaipu Dam begins generating electricity on the border between Paraguay and Brazil. It’s the world’s second largest generator of electricity and is considered one of the seven engineering wonders of the modern world.

1989 – NASA launches space shuttle Atlantis (STS-30) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

1992 – US Army and Marine Corps forces arrive in Los Angeles to end rioting following the acquittal of four police officers over the beating of Rodney King.

1998 – A federal judge in Sacramento, California, gives “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski four life sentences plus 30 years after Kaczynski accepts a plea agreement sparing him from the death penalty.

2008 – Seth MacFarlane reaches an agreement worth $100 million with Fox to keep “Family Guy” and “American Dad” on television until 2012, making MacFarlane the world’s highest paid television writer.

2015 – Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry is named Most Valuable Player for the 2014-15 NBA season.

2020 – World leaders pledge $8 billion to research treatments and a vaccine for COVID-19, with the United States and Russia not taking part.

22023 – WHO declares COVID-19 over as a global health emergency, but remains a significant threat, with seven million known deaths.

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