March 14 » The Gold Standard Act is ratified, placing the United States currency on the gold standard.
May 17 » Second Boer War: British troops relieve Mafeking.
May 26 » Thousand Days' War: The Colombian Conservative Party turns the tide of war in their favor with victory against the Colombian Liberal Party in the Battle of Palonegro.
June 25 » The Taoist monk Wang Yuanlu discovers the Dunhuang manuscripts, a cache of ancient texts that are of great historical and religious significance, in the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang, China.
July 2 » Jean Sibelius' Finlandia receives its première performance in Helsinki with the Helsinki Philharmonic Society conducted by Robert Kajanus.
August 14 » The Eight-Nation Alliance occupies Beijing, China, in a campaign to end the bloody Boxer Rebellion in China.
Day of death December 17, 1979
The temperature on December 17, 1979 was between 5.2 °C and 9.5 °C and averaged 7.9 °C. There was 1.3 mm of rain during 2.9 hours. The heavily clouded was. The average windspeed was 5 Bft (very strong wind) and was prevailing from the west-southwest. Source: KNMI
In The Netherlands , there was from Monday, December 19, 1977 to Friday, September 11, 1981 the cabinet Van Agt I, with Mr. A.A.M. van Agt (CDA/KVP) as prime minister.
February 7 » Pluto moves inside Neptune's orbit for the first time since either was discovered.
February 13 » An intense windstorm strikes western Washington and sinks a ⁄2-mile-long section of the Hood Canal Bridge.
March 8 » Philips demonstrates the compact disc publicly for the first time.
May 9 » Iranian Jewish businessman Habib Elghanian is executed by firing squad in Tehran, prompting the mass exodus of the once 100,000-strong Jewish community of Iran.
May 25 » American Airlines Flight 191: A McDonnell Douglas DC-10 crashes during takeoff at O'Hare International Airport, Chicago, killing all 271 on board and two people on the ground.
November 12 » Iran hostage crisis: In response to the hostage situation in Tehran, US President Jimmy Carter orders a halt to all petroleum imports into the United States from Iran.
When copying data from this family tree, please include a reference to the origin: Donald Staley, "Staley ancestry", database, Genealogy Online (https://www.genealogieonline.nl/staley-ancestry/P200.php : accessed January 5, 2026), "Walter D Swetnam (1900-1979)".
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