Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/December 17

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 * 497 BC – The temple to the Roman god Saturn was dedicated in the Roman Forum; its anniversary was celebrated as Saturnalia.
 * 546 – Rome was sacked by the Ostrogoths led by Totila after a year-long siege.
 * 1583 – Cologne War: Forces under Ernest of Bavaria defeated Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg's troops at the siege of Godesberg.
 * 1790 – The Aztec sun stone, now a modern symbol of Mexican culture, was excavated in the Zócalo, the main square of Mexico City.
 * 1862 – American Civil War: Union General Ulysses S. Grant issued General Order No. 11, expelling Jews from Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky.
 * 1903 – Aboard the Wright Flyer (pictured) in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville and Wilbur Wright conducted the first successful flights of a powered fixed-wing aircraft.
 * 1918 – About 1,000 demonstrators marched (pictured) on Government House in Darwin, Australia, where they burned an effigy of Administrator John Gilruth and demanded his resignation.
 * 1926 – A coup d'état by the Lithuanian military replaced the democratically elected President Kazys Grinius with Antanas Smetona.
 * 1939 – World War II: After sustaining moderate damage in the Battle of the River Plate two days earlier, the German cruiser Graf Spee was scuttled by its commander, Hans Langsdorff, to avoid its internment by Uruguay.
 * 1944 – Nazi troops under Joachim Peiper killed unarmed prisoners of war, captured during the Battle of the Bulge, with machine guns near Malmedy, Belgium.
 * 1945 – The modern flag of Kurdistan was raised for the first time in Mahabad, Iran.
 * 1951 – The Civil Rights Congress presented a document to the United Nations Genocide Convention charging the United States government with genocide against African Americans.
 * 1983 – The Troubles: The Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated a car bomb outside Harrods in London, killing six people and injuring about 90 others.
 * 1989 – The Simpsons, the longest running American prime-time entertainment series, made its debut on the Fox television network with the episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire".
 * 1990 – American gay rights activist William E. Woods brought three same-sex couples to fill out marriage licenses in Honolulu, leading to the eventual legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States.


 * Born/died this day: | Roger L'Estrange |b|1616| Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba |d|1663| Domenico Cimarosa |b|1749| Ludwig van Beethoven |baptised|1770| Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma |d|1847| Aubrey Faulkner |b|1881| Elizabeth Garrett Anderson |d|1917| Kenneth E. Iverson |b|1920| Daniel Inouye |d|2012| Eva Ekvall |d|2011