Historical Events on 17 May

Historical Events on 17 May

1521 - Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, is executed for treason.
1536 - George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford is 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.
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 fire threatens to burn St. Louis, Missouri to the ground.
1860 - German football club TSV 1860 München is founded
1863 - Rosalía de Castro publishes Cantares Gallegos, her first book in the Galician language.
1865 - The International Telegraph Union (later the International Telecommunication Union) is established.
1875 - Aristides wins the first Kentucky Derby.
1895 - The first Omonoia station of the Athens metro is inaugurated in Greece.
1900 - Second Boer War: British troops relieve Mafeking.
1902 - Greek archaeologist Valerios Stais discovers the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient mechanical analog computer.
1915 - The last British Liberal Party government (Herbert Henry Asquith) falls.
1919 - War Department (UK) orders use of National Star Insignia on all airplanes.
1927 - U.S. Army aviation pioneer, Major Harold Geiger, dies in the crash of his Airco DH.4 de Havilland plane at Olmstead Field, Pennsylvania
1933 - Vidkun Quisling and Johan Bernhard Hjort form Nasjonal Samling â€" the national-socialist party of Norway.
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 - World War II: the Dambuster Raids by No. 617 Squadron RAF on German dams.
1943 - The United States Army contracts with the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School to develop the ENIAC.
1954 - The United States Supreme Court hands down a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.
1963 - Bruno Sammartino defeats Nature Boy Buddy Rogers in 48 seconds in Madison Square Garden for the WWWF Heavyweight Championship. It begins the longest heavyweight championship reign in professional wrestling history.
1967 - Six-Day War: President Abdul 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: Hearings begin in the United States Senate and are televised.
1974 - Police in Los Angeles, California, raid the Symbionese Liberation Army's headquarters, killing six members, including Camilla Hall.
1974 - Thirty-three people are killed by terrorist bombings in Dublin and Monaghan, Ireland.
1980 - General Chun Doo-hwan of South Korea 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 - Lebanon, Israel, and the United States sign an agreement on Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.
1983 - 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 Appalachian Observer's Freedom of Information Act request.
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 fighter jet fires two missiles into the U.S. warship USS Stark (FFG-31), killing 37 and injuring 21 of her crew.
1990 - the WHO takes Homosexuality out of its list of mental illnesses.
1992 - In Thailand, the so-called Black May begins. Thai police and protesters start attacking one another. By midnight, the current Thai government declares a state of emergency, and military troops open fire.
1994 - Malawi holds its first multiparty elections.
1995 - After 18 years as the mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac takes office as President of France.
1997 - Troops of Laurent Kabila march into Kinshasa.
2000 - In the Philippines an explosion rocks Glorietta 2 injuring 13 persons, mostly teenagers. According to local authorities, the homemade bomb was placed in front of a toilet beside a video arcade.
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 to be 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.