May 17 in History

Historical Events on May 17

1395

Battle of Rovine: The Wallachians defeat an invading Ottoman army.
1521

Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, is executed for treason.
1536

George Boleyn, 2nd Viscount Rochford and four other men are executed for treason.
1536

Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn's marriage is annulled.
1590

Anne of Denmark is crowned Queen of Scotland.
1642

Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve (1612-1676) founds the Ville Marie de Montréal.
1673

Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette begin exploring the Mississippi River.
1792

The New York Stock Exchange is formed under the Buttonwood Agreement.
1805

Muhammad Ali becomes Wāli of Egypt.
1809

Emperor Napoleon I orders the annexation of the Papal States to the French Empire.
1814

Occupation of Monaco changes from French to Austrian.
1814

The Constitution of Norway is signed and Crown Prince Christian Frederick of Denmark is elected King of Norway by the Norwegian Constituent Assembly.
1859

Members of the Melbourne Football Club codified the first rules of Australian rules football.
1863

Rosalía de Castro publishes Cantares Gallegos, the first book in the Galician language.
1865

The International Telegraph Union (later the International Telecommunication Union) is established in Paris.
1869

Imperial Japanese forces defeat the remnants of the Tokugawa shogunate in the Battle of Hakodate to end the Boshin War.
1875

Aristides wins the first Kentucky Derby.
1900

Second Boer War: British troops relieve Mafeking.
1902

Greek archaeologist Valerios Stais discovers the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient mechanical analog computer.
1914

The Protocol of Corfu is signed, recognising full autonomy to Northern Epirus under nominal Albanian sovereignty.
1915

The last British Liberal Party government (led by Herbert Henry Asquith) falls.
1933

Vidkun Quisling and Johan Bernhard Hjort form Nasjonal Samling — the national-socialist party of Norway.
1939

The Columbia Lions and the Princeton Tigers play in the United States' first televised sporting event, a collegiate baseball game in New York City.
1940

World War II: Germany occupies Brussels, Belgium.
1943

World War II: Dambuster Raids commence by No. 617 Squadron RAF.
1954

The United States Supreme Court hands down a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.
1967

Six-Day War: President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt demands dismantling of the peace-keeping UN Emergency Force in Egypt.
1969

Venera program: Soviet Venera 6 begins its descent into the atmosphere of Venus, sending back atmospheric data before being crushed by pressure.
1973

Watergate scandal: Televised hearings begin in the United States Senate.
1974

The Troubles: Thirty-three civilians are killed and 300 injured when the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) detonates four car bombs in Dublin and Monaghan, Republic of Ireland.
1974

Police in Los Angeles raid the Symbionese Liberation Army's headquarters, killing six members, including Camilla Hall.
1977

Nolan Bushnell opened the first Chuck E. Cheese's in San Jose, California.
1980

General Chun Doo-hwan of South Korea seizes control of the government and declares martial law in order to suppress student demonstrations.
1980

On the eve of presidential elections, Maoist guerrilla group Shining Path attacks a polling location in Chuschi (a town in Ayacucho), starting the Internal conflict in Peru.
1983

The U.S. Department of Energy declassifies documents showing world's largest mercury pollution event in Oak Ridge, Tennessee (ultimately found to be 4.2 million pounds), in response to the Appalachian Observer's Freedom of Information Act request.
1983

Lebanon, Israel, and the United States sign an agreement on Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.
1984

Prince Charles calls a proposed addition to the National Gallery, London, a "monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend", sparking controversies on the proper role of the Royal Family and the course of modern architecture.
1987

An Iraqi Dassault Mirage F1 fighter jet fires two missiles into the U.S. Navy warship USS Stark, killing 37 and injuring 21 of her crew.
1990

The General Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO) eliminates homosexuality from the list of psychiatric diseases.
1992

Three days of popular protests against the government of Prime Minister of Thailand Suchinda Kraprayoon begin in Bangkok, leading to a military crackdown that results in 52 officially confirmed deaths, hundreds of injuries, many disappearances, and more than 3,500 arrests.
1994

Malawi holds its first multi-party elections.
1995

Shawn Nelson steals an M60 tank from the California Army National Guard Armory in San Diego and proceeds to go on a rampage.
1997

Troops of Laurent Kabila march into Kinshasa. Zaire is officially renamed Democratic Republic of the Congo.
2000

Arsenal and Galatasaray fans clash in the 2000 UEFA Cup Final riots in Copenhagen
2004

The first legal same-sex marriages in the U.S. are performed in the state of Massachusetts.
2006

The aircraft carrier USS Oriskany is sunk in the Gulf of Mexico as an artificial reef.
2007

Trains from North and South Korea cross the 38th Parallel in a test-run agreed by both governments. This is the first time that trains have crossed the Demilitarized Zone since 1953.
2014

A plane crash in northern Laos kills 17 people.

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