December 17, Black motorcyclist beaten to death after leading police chase

Today is Wednesday, Dec. 17, the 351st day of 2025. There are 14 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Dec. 17, 1979, Arthur McDuffie, a Black insurance broker and former Marine, was beaten by police after leading them on a chase with his motorcycle in Miami. McDuffie died four days later. (Four white police officers accused of beating McDuffie were acquitted in 2000, sparking riots in Miami that led to several deaths and millions of dollars in damages.)

Also on this date:

In 1777, France becomes one of the first nations to officially recognize the independence of the United States.

In 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright conducted the first successful manned, powered airplane flights near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, using their experimental craft, the Wright Flyer.

In 1933, the Chicago Bears defeated the New York Giants 23-21 in the first NFL championship game.

In 1944, U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Henry C. Pratt rescinded incarceration orders for people of Japanese ancestry during World War II; more than 110,000 people, about two-thirds of them U.S. citizens, had been forced into camps after a February 1942 executive order by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

In 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Clean Air Act into law; it was the first federal legislation targeting the control of air pollution.

In 1975, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme was sentenced to life in prison for her attempt on the life of President Gerald R. Ford in Sacramento, California. (She was paroled in August 2009.)

In 1989, “The Simpsons” debuts on Fox television; it has become the longest-running animated U.S. TV series.

In 1992, President George H.W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari signed the North American Free Trade Agreement in separate ceremonies; NAFTA went into effect in 2004 and was replaced by the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement in 2020.

In 2014, the United States and Cuba announced they would restore diplomatic relations, which had been severed in 1961 after Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution overthrew a U.S.-backed government. Full diplomatic relations resumed in 2015.

In 2024, Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, a senior Russian general, was killed by a bomb hidden in a scooter outside his apartment building in Moscow, a day after Ukraine’s security service accused him of directing the use of banned chemical weapons in Russia’s war in Ukraine. A Ukrainian official said the service carried out the attack in which Kirillov’s assistant also died.