Historical Events on this Day in History

May 17

• 1521 – Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, is executed for treason.
• 1536 – George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford and four other men are executed for treason.
• 1590 – Anne of Denmark is crowned Queen of Scotland.
• 1642 – Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve (1612–1676) founds the Ville Marie de Montréal.
• 1673 – Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette begin exploring the Mississippi River.
• 1775 – American Revolutionary War: the Continental Congress bans trade with Canada.
• 1792 – The New York Stock Exchange is formed.
• 1805 – Muhammad Ali becomes Wāli of Egypt.
• 1809 – Napoleon I of France 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 the Danish Crown Prince Christian Frederik is elected King of Norway by the Norwegian Constituent Assembly.
• 1849 – A large fire nearly burns St. Louis, Missouri to the ground.
• 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.
• 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.
• 1919 – The British War Department orders use of National Star Insignia on all airplanes.
• 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.
• 1940 – World War II: the old city centre of the Dutch town of Middelburg is bombed by the German Luftwaffe, to force the surrender of the Dutch armies in Zeeland.
• 1943 – The United States Army contracts with the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School to develop the ENIAC.
• 1943 – World War II: the Dambuster Raids by No. 617 Squadron RAF on German dams.
• 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.
• 1970 – Thor Heyerdahl sets sail from Morocco on the papyrus boat Ra II to sail the Atlantic Ocean.
• 1973 – Watergate scandal: Televised hearings begin in the United States Senate.
• 1974 – Police in Los Angeles, California, raid the Symbionese Liberation Army's headquarters, killing six members, including Camilla Hall.
• 1974 – Dublin and Monaghan bombings: Thirty-three civilians are killed when the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) explodes car bombs in Dublin and Monaghan, Republic of Ireland.
• 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 the town of Chuschi, 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, many disappearances, hundreds of injuries, and over 3,500 arrests.
• 1994 – Malawi holds its first multi-party elections.
• 1997 – Troops of Laurent Kabila march into Kinshasa. Zaire is officially renamed Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• 2004 – Massachusetts becomes the first U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage.
• 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.
• 2009 – Dalia Grybauskaitė is elected the first female President of Lithuania.
• 2011 Queen Elizabeth II's historic first visit to the Republic of Ireland. The first visit of a british monarch to Ireland since 1906.