November 17 is a bit of an odd day in the history of, well, history. It’s not that nothing ever happened — it’s more like a number of things that did happen might was well not have. Maybe an example is in order. In 1810, the Napoleonic Wars were still in progress in Europe, and Great Britain was one of the countries allied against the French. Sweden had remained outside the conflict, though, and was one of Great Britain’s major trading partners. Then in early November, France gave Sweden an ultimatum with three demands: declare war against Great Britain, seize all British ships in Sweden, and confiscate all British products in Sweden. If Sweden didn’t, France would declare war. So on November 17, Sweden declared war on Great Britain, thus mollifying France. But evidently the French war inspectors failed to properly verify events, because the war Sweden declared was only on paper. Trade continued, and so did the Anglo-Swedish War. It lasted until the middle of 1812 without a single battle — or, for that matter, a single shot. Just to keep things official, when the British happened to be in Örebo, Sweden, to sign a treaty to end the Anglo-Russian War (everybody had taken that one much more seriously), Britain and Sweden signed a treaty too, ending their war.
Another oddity of November 17 is that in 1858, it was not only day 17 of November, it was also day 0. Of the Julian calendar, that is. You might remember that the Julian calendar was replaced (in most places) by the Gregorian calendar a bit before that — in 1582, in fact. And although the Julian calendar is different, it’s not so different that all the dates were counting down until they reached zero in 1858. In fact, nobody around in 1858 had any idea that it was day 0, because that wasn’t decided until 1957. Before that, the Julian day 0 was January 1, 4713 BCE. Or November 16, 1858. Or December 31, 1899. And then in 1979, NASA decided that (this time really for reals) May 24, 1968 was Julian day 0. If you don’t like any of those, there are more to choose from. And just by the way, even though Julian dates are still used nowadays, the process often involves negative dates. That doesn’t really have much to do with the old calendar — for instance, there’s very little evidence that anyone at the time was aware that a given day might be something like -42. Calendars are basically big, complicated lies.
Speaking of big lies, November 17 features some of those, too. In 1603, Walter Raleigh was arrested and charged with treason; almost certainly the result of a plot cooked up by his enemies in the royal court of Queen Elizabeth. Then on the same day in 1800, the US Congress held its first session in Washington, DC, where it still meets. It seems there have been reports from time to time of things said in those sessions that may not have been entirely true. November 17, 1947 marked the date the Screen Actors Guild implemented an “anti-Communist” oath of loyalty. It was based on an “informant” who testified to Congress about supposed Communist and Socialist opinions held by some people in the film industry. This was the beginning of the Hollywood blacklist that was one of the hallmarks of the McCarthy era (after Joseph McCarthy, a US Senator and demagogue). Many people were forced to lie about their identity and work under assumed names.
The anonymous informant, by the way, turned out to be Ronald Reagan, who would eventually be elected US President. But before that happened, November 17 had a couple of more non-events up its non-sleeve. In 1967, another President, Lyndon Johnson, announced to the country that in the Vietnam War, “We are inflicting greater losses than we’re taking…We are making progress.” Apparently satisfied by that whopper, the American public settled back onto their sofas and exactly one year later, November 17, 1968, got something to really get upset about: the football game between the Raiders and the Jets was starting to come to an exciting close, when the TV suddenly cut to the movie Heidi instead. The game was down to its final minute, and that’s when the Raiders scored two touchdowns to come from behind and win.
November 17 wasn’t done with non-events involving US Presidents, either. In 1973, it was the date chosen by Richard Nixon to announce that “I am not a crook.” Inquiries unrelated to that specific incident have revealed that in the main, people who protest that they are not crooks are, in fact, crooks.
That brings us up to the current century, and boy, did November 17 have something special in store for 2020. It was the day of the first known case of COVID-19. Thanks a lot, November 17.
