“If you tell Congress everything about the world situation, they get hysterical. If you tell them nothing, they go fishing.”

— Harry S. Truman

November 17, 1800 – The United States Congress holds its first session in Washington, D.C.

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"I couldn't sleep."

The suicide note left by Patrick Quinlan, former caretaker of “Murder Castle,” a mixed-use building owned by killer H. H. Holmes, after drinking strychnine.

November 17, 1894 – H. H. Holmes, one of the first modern serial killers, is arrested in Boston, MA.

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"I am not a crook."

November 17, 1973 – Responding to the allegations of wrongdoing, Richard Nixon emphatically utters this line, in front of 400 Associated Press managing editors at an Orlando Disney resort.

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“The world is paralyzed, and humanity is in quarantine. It is a strange symmetry that I was born in one pandemic and will die during another.”

― Isabel Allende

November 17, 2019 – The first known case of COVID-19 is traced to a 55-year-old man who had visited a market in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China.

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“When you find out who you’re not allowed to criticize, then you will realize who is in control.”

― Voltarine de Cleyre

Born November 17, 1866