November 17

Vespasian, who endowed Rome's first publicly salaried chair of rhetoric (held by Quintilian), was born near Reate in the Sabine country.

Max von Oppenheim, who in 1899 located Tell Halaf and brought its early Mesopotamian sculpture and Neolithic painted pottery to wider notice, died on this day in 1946.

Mirra Alfassa, known as the Mother and co-guide of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram at Pondicherry, died at the age of ninety-five.

The U.S. Patent Office granted Douglas Engelbart a patent for the 'X-Y position indicator for a display system'—the wooden prototype of the computer mouse.