History of the Day for:
May 17
- 1620: At a fair in Turkey, the first merry-go-round was operated.
- 1756: Britain declared war on France in the French & Indian War.
- 1803: John Hawkins and Richard French patented the Reaping Machine.
- 1809: Napoleon annexed the Papal States.
- 1845: The rubber band was patented.
- 1846: Antoine Joseph Sax patented the saxophone.
- 1875: Oliver Lewis riding Aristides won $2,850 in the first running of the Kentucky Derby.
- 1883: Buffalo Bill Cody's first wild west show premiered in Omaha.
- 1884: Alaska became a territory.
- 1939: NBC televised the first sports event, a college baseball game between Columbia and Princeton; The first fashion show was aired.
- 1946: President Truman seized control of the nation's railroads to delay a strike.
- 1948: The Soviet Union recognized Israel.
- 1949: Britain recognized the Republic of Ireland and reaffirmed Northern Ireland's dependence.
- 1954: The Supreme Court ruled in "Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka" that segregated public schools were inherently unequal.
- 1960: J.W. Flora patented the first atomic reactor system.
- 1961: Castro offered to exchange Bay of Pigs prisoners for 500 bulldozers.
- 1973: The Senate began hearings on the Watergate scandal.
- 1975: NBC paid $5 million for the rights to show "Gone with the Wind" one time.
- 1980: Eighteen people died in rioting in Miami after an all-white jury acquitted four Miami police officers of fatally beating a black insurance executive.
- 1984: Mario Soto of the Cincinnati Reds threw four strikeouts in one inning.
- 1987: An Iraqi warplane attacked the U.S. Navy frigate "Stark," killing 37 U.S. sailors.
- 1993: Intel's new Pentium processor was unveiled.
- 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. Zaire is officially renamed Democratic Republic Of Congo.
- 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.