December 17 Birthday

Famous Birthdays on December 17

• John Greenleaf Whittier (1807)

  American poet and abolitionist known for Snow-Bound and his lifelong advocacy against slavery.

• Milla Jovovich (1975)

  American actress and model known for The Fifth Element and the Resident Evil film series.

This Day in History

• 1777 — France formally recognized the independence of the United States, becoming the first foreign nation to do so, a critical diplomatic step following the American victory at Saratoga.

• 1903 — Orville and Wilbur Wright achieved the first sustained, controlled, powered flight of a heavier-than-air aircraft at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

What December 17 Says About You

December 17 is a date about a single leap forward that changed what seemed physically possible, twice, more than a century apart. In 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright achieved the first sustained, controlled flight of a powered aircraft at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina — a flight that covered only 120 feet and lasted just twelve seconds, shorter than the wingspan of a modern airliner, yet unmistakably proved that mechanical flight was achievable, opening the door to the entire subsequent history of aviation within a single human lifetime. The brothers made three further flights that same morning, the longest covering 852 feet in 59 seconds, before a gust of wind damaged the aircraft beyond repair for the day, an inauspicious end to a genuinely historic morning. A hundred twenty-six years earlier, on the same date in 1777, France formally recognized the independence of the fledgling United States, becoming the first foreign nation to do so and providing the young country with the diplomatic and, soon after, military legitimacy it badly needed following the pivotal American victory at Saratoga. Both events share a common shape: a small, uncertain step — a twelve-second flight, a single nation's recognition — that turned out to be the opening move in something enormously larger. Sagittarius, ruling mid-December, is closely tied to breakthrough and the pursuit of what hasn't been achieved before. John Greenleaf Whittier, born on this date in 1807, spent much of his literary career devoted to the cause of abolition, using his considerable popularity as a poet to advance a political conviction most of his peers avoided in verse, a different kind of leap taken well before it was safe or popular to make it; his best-known poem, Snow-Bound, published in 1866, drew directly on his own rural Quaker upbringing in Massachusetts, and decades of outspoken anti-slavery journalism cost him real readership among audiences who preferred he confine himself to nature poetry. Milla Jovovich, born in 1975, began as a child fashion model before moving into film in her teens, and went on to build one of the more unusual leading careers in modern action cinema, anchoring all six installments of the Resident Evil franchise across roughly fifteen years, a franchise commitment few actresses of her stature have matched. Numerology reduces the 17th to day number 8, tied to ambition, matching a date whose two headline moments both delivered outsized long-term consequences from a small, uncertain beginning. Courage before uncertain outcomes is an old association carried by zircon, blue topaz, turquoise, and tanzanite, a theme suited to two brothers testing an untested machine on a windy beach. Only five witnesses observed the Wright brothers' first flight that morning, and the only newspaper account published the next day, in a Virginian-Pilot piece, got several basic details wrong, including the flight's duration, a reminder of how uncertain the moment's significance still seemed even to those who saw it firsthand. France's recognition of American independence followed extensive negotiation in Paris led by Benjamin Franklin, whose personal popularity among the French public and skillful courting of the French court proved decisive in securing both diplomatic recognition and, soon after, crucial military support.