May 17 is the 137th day of the year (138th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar; 228 days remain until the end of the year.
1681 - Louis XIV sent an expedition to aid James II in Ireland. As a result, England declares war on France.
1792 - The New York Stock Exchange was founded at 70 Wall Street by 24 brokers.
1814 - Denmark ceded Norway to Sweden. Norway's constitution, which provided a limited monarchy, was signed.
1875 - The first Kentucky Derby was run at Louisville, KY.
1877 - The first telephone switchboard burglar alarm was installed by Edwin T. Holmes.
1881 - Frederick Douglass was appointed recorder of deeds for Washington, DC.
1926 - The U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires was damaged by bombs that were believed set by sympathizers of Sacco and Vanzetti.
1932 - The U.S. Congress changed the name 'Porto Rico' to 'Puerto Rico.'
1939 - The first fashion to be shown on television was broadcast in New York from the Ritz-Carleton Hotel.
1940 - Germany occupied Brussels, Belgium and began the invasion of France.
1946 - U.S. President Truman seized control of the nation's railroads, delaying a threatened strike by engineers and trainmen.
1948 - The Soviet Union recognized the new state of Israel.
1954 - The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled for school integration in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka. The ruling declared that racially segregated schools were inherently unequal.
1973 - The U.S. Senate Watergate Committee began its hearings.
1975 - NBC TV bought the rights to show ' Gone With the Wind.' The one time rights cost NBC $5,000,000.
1980 - Rioting erupted in Miami's Liberty City neighborhood after an allwhite jury in Tampa acquitted four former Miami police officers of fatally beating black insurance executive Arthur McDuffie. Eight people were killed in the rioting.
1987 - An Iraqi warplane attacked the U.S. Navy frigate Stark in the Persian Gulf, killing 37 American sailors. Iraq and the United States called the attack a mistake.
1990 - Kelsey Grammer was sentenced to 30 days in jail for DWI.
1996 - U.S. President Clinton signed a measure requiring neighborhood notification when sex offenders move in. Megan's Law was named for 7-year-old Megan Kanka, who was raped and killed in 1994.
1998 - New York Yankees pitcher David Wells became the 13th player in modern major league baseball history to throw a perfect game.
1999 - Eric Ford, a tabloid photographer, was sentenced to 6 months at a halfway house, 3 years probation and 150 hours of community service. The sentence stemmed from a charge that Ford had eavesdropped on a call between Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman and then sold a recording of the conversation.
1999 - Alex Trebek received a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame.
2000 - Thomas E. Blanton Jr. and David Luker surrendered to police in Birmingham, AL. The two former Ku Klux Klan members were arrested on charges from the bombing of a church in 1963 that killed four young black girls.
2001 - The U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp based on Charles M. Schulz's 'Peanuts' comic strip 2006 - The U.S. aircraft carrier Oriskany was sunk about 24 miles off Pensacola Beach. It was the first vessel sunk under a Navy program to dispose of old warships by turning them into diving attractions. It was the largest man-made reef at the time of the sinking.
2007 - Trains crossed the border dividing North and South Korea for the first time since 1953.
2016 - The U.S. Senate approved legislation that would allow families of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to sue the government of Saudi Arabia.