Today in History: Saturday, November 17, 2012

On Nov. 17, 1558, Elizabeth I ascended to the English throne upon the death of Queen Mary.

1800 Congress held its first session in Washington, D.C., in the partially completed Capitol building.

1869 The Suez Canal opened in Egypt, linking the Mediterranean and the Red seas.

1934 Lyndon B. Johnson married Claudia Alta Taylor, better known as "Lady Bird."

1962 Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., was dedicated.

1968 NBC outraged football fans by cutting away from the final minutes of a game to air a TV special, "Heidi," on schedule.

1970 The Soviet Union landed an unmanned, remote-controlled vehicle on the moon.

1973 President Richard M. Nixon told an Associated Press managing editors meeting in Orlando, Fla., "I'm not a crook."

1997 Six militants opened fire at the Temple of Hatshepsut in Luxor, Egypt, killing 62 people, most of them foreign tourists. The attackers were killed by police.

2003 John Allen Muhammad was convicted of two counts of capital murder in the Washington-area sniper shootings. (He was later sentenced to death and executed.)

2003 Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger was sworn in as governor of California.

2008 The vampire romance movie "Twilight" premiered in Los Angeles.

2010 The first Guantanamo detainee to face civilian trial, Ahmed Ghailani, was convicted by federal jury in New York on one charge of conspiracy related to 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya.