May 17
1540 - Afghan chief Sher Khan defeated Mongul Emperor Humayun at Kanauj.
1630 - Italian Jesuit Niccolo Zucchi saw the belts on Jupiter's surface.
1681 - Louis XIV sent an expedition to aid James II in Ireland. As a result, England declares war on France.
1756 - Britain declared war on France, beginning the French and Indian War.
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.
1956 - The first synthetic mica (synthamica) was offered for sale in Caldwell Township, NJ.
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 all-white jury in Tampa acquitted four former Miami police officers of fatally beating black insurance executive Arthur McDuffie. Eight people were killed in the rioting.
1985 - Bobby Ewing died on the season finale of "Dallas" on CBS-TV. He returned the following season.
1987 - Eric ‘Sleepy’ Floyd of the Golden State Warriors set a playoff record for points in a single quarter with 29.
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.
1997 - Rebel leader Kabila declared himself president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire.
1997 - Sylvester Stallone and Jennifer Flavin were married in London.
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.
2000 - Austria, the U.S. and six other countries agreed on the broad outline of a plan that would compensate Nazi-Era forced labor.
2000 - It was announced that Terra Networks SA and Lycos would be merging with the new name to be Terra Lycos. Terra made the deal happen with the purchase of $12.5 billion in stock.
2001 - The U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp based on Charles M. Schulz's "Peanuts" comic strip.
2002 - Legoland Deutschland opened in Günzburg, Germany.
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.
