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May 17 Birthday Events Poster

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May 17 Historical Events

The following events took place on May 17. The list is arranged in chronological order.

Found 53 events. Showing 1 - 30.

  • 1395
    Battle of Rovine, 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
    The annulment of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn’s marriage.
  • 1590
    Anne of Denmark is crowned Queen of Scotland.
  • 1642
    Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve (1612–1676) founds the Ville Marie de Montréal.
  • 1673
    Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette begin exploring the Mississippi River.
  • 1775
    American Revolutionary War: the Continental Congress bans trade with Quebec.
  • 1792
    The New York Stock Exchange is formed under the Buttonwood Agreement.
  • 1805
    Muhammad Ali becomes Wāli of Egypt.
  • 1808
    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 Crown Prince Christian Frederick of Denmark is elected King of Norway by the Norwegian Constituent Assembly.
  • 1849
    A large fire nearly burns St. Louis, Missouri to the ground.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.

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