This is a list of selected May 17 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Before doing so, please review the selected anniversaries guidelines. If your suggestion is potentially controversial or relates to a day currently or soon to appear on the Main Page, post it on the talk page instead.
Please note:
- Events listed on the Main Page are selected based on article quality and to provide a diverse range of topics, rather than solely on the importance or significance of the events.
- Only four or five events are featured each day; therefore, not all important or significant events can be included.
- An event is generally excluded if it is already the subject of the scheduled featured article, featured list or picture of the day.
To report an error in content currently on the Main Page, see Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors. If a listed event is inaccurate, please first seek consensus and update the corresponding article before making changes here.
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Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia; | unreferenced section |
| Constitution Day in Norway (1814); | unreferenced section |
| 1792 – Twenty-four stockbrokers signed the Buttonwood Agreement to establish the New York Stock Exchange. | refimprove section |
| 1814 – The Constitution of Norway was signed and Danish Crown Prince Christian Frederik was elected King of Norway by the Norwegian Constituent Assembly. | refimprove |
| 1863 – Rosalía de Castro published the first book in the Galician language: Cantares gallegos, a collection of her poetry. | unreferenced section |
| 1875 – The American Thoroughbred racehorse Aristides won the first running of the Kentucky Derby. | Aristedes: refimprove; Derby: refimprove section |
| 1900 – Second Boer War: The Siege of Mafeking in South Africa was lifted after 217 days, a decisive victory for the British against the Boers. | lots of CN tags (6) |
| 1980 – On the eve of the Peruvian general election, the Maoist guerrilla group Shining Path attacked a polling location in the town of Chuschi, Ayacucho, starting the internal conflict in Peru. | {{prose}} |
| 1992 – Three days of popular protests against the government of Prime Minister of Thailand Suchinda Kraprayoon began in Bangkok, leading to a military crackdown that resulted in 52 officially confirmed deaths, many disappearances, hundreds of injuries, and over 3,500 arrests. | unreferenced section |
| 1995 – After 18 years as Mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac was inaugurated as President of France. | refimprove section |
| 1997 – The First Congo War came to an end when Laurent-Désiré Kabila proclaimed himself president of Zaire, which was also renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo. | refimprove section |
| 2006 – The U.S. Navy deliberately sank the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany, the largest vessel ever sunk to create an artificial reef. | multiple issues |
Eligible
- 1395 – An outnumbered Wallachian army repulsed an Ottoman invasion force in the Battle of Rovine.
- 1521 – English nobleman Edward Stafford, whose father had been beheaded for rebelling against King Richard III, was himself executed for treason against King Henry VIII.
- 1865 – The International Telecommunication Union, which standardizes and regulates international radio and telecommunications, was founded as the International Telegraph Union in Paris.
- 1902 – The Antikythera mechanism (fragment pictured), the oldest known surviving geared mechanism, was discovered among artifacts retrieved from a shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera.
- 1914 – Under the Protocol of Corfu, the Principality of Albania officially recognized Northern Epirus as an autonomous self-governing region.
- 1954 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education, outlawing racial segregation in public schools because "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal" and therefore unconstitutional.
- 1974 – The Troubles: The Ulster Volunteer Force detonated a series of car bombs in Dublin and Monaghan, Ireland, killing 34 people and injuring almost 300 more.
- 1977 – The first Chuck E. Cheese location, the first family restaurant to integrate food, animated entertainment, and an indoor arcade, opened in San Jose, California, U.S.
- 2004 – Massachusetts became the first U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage.
- 2009 – Dalia Grybauskaitė (pictured) became the first woman to be elected as president of Lithuania, receiving 69.1% of the vote.
- Born/died this day: Martin Delrio (b. 1551) | Samuel Clarke (d. 1729 | Seth Warner (b. 1743)) | Sebastian Kneipp (b. 1821) | Cool Papa Bell (b. 1903) | Dorothy Levitt (d. 1922) | Hazel R. O'Leary (b. 1937) | Enya (b. 1961) | Maggie Laubser (d. 1973)
Notes
- 2003–04 Arsenal F.C. season appears on May 15, so 2000 UEFA Cup Final should not appear in the same year
- Plessy v. Ferguson appears on May 18, so Brown v. Board of Education should not appear in the same year
May 17: Galician Literature Day in Galicia, Spain
- 1590 – Anne of Denmark was crowned queen consort of Scotland in a ceremony at Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh.
- 1642 – The Société Notre-Dame de Montréal founded Fort Ville-Marie, a permanent mission that eventually grew into the Canadian city of Montreal.
- 1947 – After renegotiating a contract with the makers of her signature Chanel No. 5 perfume, Coco Chanel (pictured) received a share of wartime profits from its sale, making her one of the richest women in the world.
- 2000 – Following the killing of two English football fans by Galatasaray supporters in the previous month, British and Turkish hooligans rioted on the day of the UEFA Cup Final in Copenhagen, Denmark.
- Mary, Queen of Hungary (d. 1395)
- Caroline of Brunswick (b. 1768)
- B. S. Chandrasekhar (b. 1945)