On November 17, 1989, riot police put down student protests against the communist government in Czechoslovakia. The incident started a series of non-violent protests that finally forced the communists from power two weeks later.

Learn more about the Velvet Revolution.

On November 17, 1973, President Richard Nixon defended his actions in the Watergate affair, urging the nation to put Watergate behind it and telling a press conference "I'm not a crook."