Template:Selected anniversaries/December 17

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  498 BC: Dionysus gives speech which anticipates the coming of Saturnalia.

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  497 BC: The first Saturnalia festival celebrated in ancient Rome.

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  1706: Mathematician and physicist Émilie du Châtelet born. She will translate and comment upon on Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica.

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  1835: Felice Casorati born. Casorati will contribute the Casorati–Weierstrass theorem in complex analysis.

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  1842: Mathematician and academic Marius Sophus Lie born. He will largely create the theory of continuous symmetry and apply it to the study of geometry and differential equations.

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  1900: Mathematician and academic Mary Cartwright born. She will do pioneering work in what will later be called chaos theory.

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  1907: Lord Kelvin dies. He did much to unify the emerging discipline of physics in its modern form.

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  1938: Physicist Otto Hahn discovers the nuclear fission of the heavy element uranium, the scientific and technological basis of nuclear energy.