In History, Today on December 17

Pope Paul III excommunicated King Henry VIII of England.

France formally recognized the United States of America as an independent nation.

The Wright brothers made the first controlled, sustained flight of a powered, heavier-than-air aircraft at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

World War II: The German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee was scuttled by its crew off Montevideo, Uruguay.

The Malmedy massacre occurred during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II, where German troops killed American prisoners of war.

The United States Air Force closed its Project Blue Book, concluding that there was no evidence of extraterrestrial life behind UFO sightings.

The first episode of The Simpsons, "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire," aired on Fox, marking the beginning of the longest-running American sitcom.

The United States and 34 other nations signed the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The United States government announced the capture of Saddam Hussein, the former President of Iraq, who had been hiding in a hole near his hometown of Tikrit.

Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian street vendor, set himself on fire in protest of police corruption and ill treatment. This act became a catalyst for the Tunisian Revolution and the wider Arab Spring.

The United States formally ended its military mission in Iraq with a ceremony in Baghdad, marking the withdrawal of the last U.S. troops from the country.

U.S. President Barack Obama announced the beginning of the process to normalize relations with Cuba, ending a 54-year stretch of hostility between the two nations.

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized the emergency use of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, the second vaccine to receive such approval in the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic.