About December 17

December 17, 2025 is the 351st day of the year 2025 in the Gregorian calendar. There are 14 days remaining until the end of this year. The day of the week is Wednesday.

You can browse the full year calendar in case you need it.

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Sagittarius is the sun sign of a person born on this day. Turquoise is the modern birthstone for this month. Onyx is the mystical birthstone from Tibetan origin that dates back over a thousand years.

According to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, there are 62 days remaining before the start of the next Chinese New Year.

What Happened On December 17

  • 942
    Assassination of William I of Normandy.
  • 1583
    Cologne War: Forces under Ernest of Bavaria defeats the troops under Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg at the Siege of Godesberg.
  • 1718
    Great Britain declares war on Spain.
  • 1807
    France issues the Milan Decree, which confirms the Continental System.
  • 1819
    Simón Bolívar declares the independence of the Republic of Gran Colombia in Angostura (now Ciudad Bolívar in Venezuela).
  • 1862
    American Civil War: General Ulysses S. Grant issues General Order No. 11, expelling Jews from Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky.
  • 1865
    First performance of the Unfinished Symphony by Franz Schubert.
  • 1903
    The Wright Brothers make their first powered and heavier-than-air flight in the Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
  • 1926
    Antanas Smetona assumes power in Lithuania as the 1926 coup d'état is successful.
  • 1928
    Indian revolutionaries Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev Thapar and Shivaram Rajguru assassinate British police officer James Saunders in Lahore, Punjab to avenge the death of Lala Lajpat Rai at the hands of the police. The three were executed in 1931.
  • 1939
    World War II: Battle of the River Plate – The Admiral Graf Spee is scuttled by Captain Hans Langsdorff outside Montevideo.
  • 1941
    World War II: Japanese forces land in Northern Borneo.
  • 1944
    World War II: Battle of the Bulge – Malmedy massacre – American 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion POWs are shot by Waffen-SS Kampfgruppe Peiper.
  • 1957
    The United States successfully launches the first Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
  • 1960
    1960 Munich Convair 340 crash: 20 passengers and crew on board as well as 32 people on the ground are killed.
  • 1961
    Fire in the Gran Circus American in the city of Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the biggest tragedy in circus history.
  • 1967
    Prime Minister of Australia Harold Holt disappears while swimming near Portsea, Victoria and is presumed drowned.
  • 1983
    The IRA bombs Harrods Department Store in London, killing six people.
  • 2003
    SpaceShipOne flight 11P, piloted by Brian Binnie, makes its first supersonic flight.
  • 2005
    Anti-WTO protesters riot in Wan Chai, Hong Kong

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