Portal:Biography/Selected anniversaries/December 17

Births

 * 1619 – Prince Rupert of the Rhine, German admiral and scientist (d. 1682)
 * 1874 – William Lyon Mackenzie King, 10th Prime Minister of Canada (d. 1950)
 * 1905 – Mohammad Hidayatullah, 11th Chief Justice of India (d. 1992)
 * 1905  – Simo Häyhä, Finnish sniper (d. 2002)
 * 1908 – Willard Libby, American chemist and Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1980)
 * 1913 – Burt Baskin, co-founder of Baskin-Robbins (d. 1967)

Deaths

 * 942 – William I Longsword, 2nd ruler of Normandy (b. c. 900)
 * 1273 – Rumi, Persian jurist, theologian, and poet (b. 1207)
 * 1830 – Simón Bolívar, 2nd President of Venezuela (b. 1783)
 * 1933 – Thubten Gyatso 13th Dalai Lama (b. 1876)
 * 1964 – Victor Francis Hess, Austrian-American physicist and Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1883)
 * 2011 – Kim Jong-il, 2nd Supreme Leader of North Korea (b. 1941)