1. In 1734, Pennsylvania politician Benjamin Franklin published his first newspaper, The Pennsylvania Gazette, which became one of the most widely-read and influential newspapers in the colonies.

2. On November 17, 1869, John Scott Harrison, the son of former U.S. President William Henry Harrison and father of future President Benjamin Harrison, died in North Bend, Ohio. His body was stolen and sold to medical students, sparking a national outcry and leading to new laws regulating the sale of cadavers.

3. In 1906, the U.S. Patent Office granted the first patent for an airplane to Pennsylvania native Samuel Langley. Despite Langley's pioneering work, the Wright Brothers are generally recognized as the first to achieve sustained, powered flight in 1903.

4. On November 17, 1962, the first field test of the Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile was conducted at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The missile, developed by Pennsylvania company Boeing, became one of the cornerstone weapons of the Cold War.

5. In 2011, Penn State University's legendary football coach, Joe Paterno, was fired amid a scandal involving former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky's alleged sexual abuse of young boys. Paterno, who had been at Penn State for over fifty years, died two months later. The scandal rocked the university and led to numerous reforms in the university's athletics program.