May 17
0218 Seventh recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet.
1198 Frederick II, last of the great medieval emperors, is crowned King of Sicily at the age of three.
1215 The English barons in revolt against King John take possession of London.
1444 Birth: Sandro Botticelli, Florentine painter whose acclaimed works will include The Birth Of Venus.
1510 Death: Sandro Botticelli.
1536 Archbishop Cranmer declares Henry VIII's marriage to Anne Boleyn invalid; she will be executed on the 19th.
1630 Italian Jesuit Niccolo Zucchi, becomes the first person to see 2 belts on Jupiter's surface.
1672 Frontenac becomes the governor of New France, now known as Canada.
1673 Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette leave the Straits of Mackinac and set out to explore the Mississippi. Their journey will demonstrate that the Mississippi runs to the Gulf of Mexico. "Louis Jolliet (also spelled Joliet), was born in Quebec in 1645. He was the first important explorer born in North America from European descent. He was taught at the Jesuit seminary in Quebec, but for unknown reasons left the order in 1667, and journeyed to France, probably studying cartography there. The next year he returned to Canada, became a fur trader and met Father Jacques Marquette.Marquette was born in 1637 in Laon, France. He became a Jesuit priest, and, on his own request, was sent to Quebec in 1666. In 1668 he set up a new mission, at Chequamegon Bay near the western end of Lake Superior. When the Huron Indians that he worked among fled after Sioux attacks, he followed them and moved the mission on the northern shore of the Straits of Mackinac (between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron).Rumours had been heared about a large river in the south (the Mississippi), and the French hoped that this river would lead them to the Pacific. Louis Jolliet was sent out to search for this river, and Marquette was chosen to be the chaplain and missionary of the expedition.In 1673 Jolliet, Marquette and five others left on their journey to the Mississippi. They followed Lake Michigan to Green Bay, canoed up the Fox River, crossed over to the Wisconsin and followed that river downstream to the Mississippi.The first Indians they encountered were the Illinois, who were extremely friendly to the explorers. They expressed their great happiness to have the French visiting them, and provided them with a peace pipe to use for the remainder of the journey. As they went further on along the river, they grew more and more convinced that it flowed into the Gulf of Mexico, and not the Pacific. Yet they pushed on until almost the mouth of the Arkansas. Here the Indians told them that the sea was only ten days away, but also that hostile Indians would be found along the way. They also noticed the presence of Spanish trade goods among the Indians. Not wanting to be captured by Indians or Spanish, they decided to return..."
1741 Birth: John Penn, near Port Royal, Caroline County, Virginia. Signer of the Declaration of Independence. "John Penn was born in Caroline County, Virginia, to a family of means. His father died when he was eighteen years old, and though he had received only a rudimentary education at a country school, he had access to the library of his relative Edmund Pendleton. He was licensed to practice law in the state of Virginia at age twenty-two. In 1774 he moved to Granville County, North Carolina, where he established a law practice and soon became a gentleman member of the political community. He was elected to attend the provincial Congress in 1775 and elected to the Continental Congress that same year. He served there until 1777, participating in committee work. He was again elected in 1779, appointed to the Board of War, where he served until 1780. He declined a judgeship in his native state around that time, due to failing health. In retirement he engaged in his law practice. He died at the age of forty-eight."
1742 Frederick II defeats the Austrians at Chotusitz.
1749 Birth: Edward Jenner, English physician, pioneer of vaccination.
1792 24 New York brokers meet in Wall Street and sign an agreement to fix uniform rates of commission in the sale of stocks and bonds, thus establishing the city's first stock exchange.
1809 The Papal States are annexed by France.
1814 Norway declares its independence from Sweden with the adoption of a new constitution.
1836 Birth: Joseph Norman Lockyer. "Along with the French scientist Pierre Janssen he is credited with discovering the gas helium. Lockyer was born at Rugby in Warwickshire. After a conventional schooling suplemented by travel in Switzerland and France, he worked for some years as a civil servant in the British War office. He settled in Wimbledon in south London after marrying Winifred James. A keen amateur astronomer with a particular interest in the sun, Lockyer eventually became director of the solar physics observatory in Kensington London. In the 1860s he became fascinated by electromagnetic spectroscopy as an analytical tool for determining the gas composition of heavenly bodies. Lockyer identified a yellow strip in the spectrum of the sun that conventional scientific opinion of the time held as a known element under extraordinary circumstances. To Lockyer it suggested the existence of a previously unknown element in the sun. He named this element Helium after the Greek word 'Helios' meaning 'sun'. Lockyer's discovery was eventually confirmed in the 1890s. After his retirement in 1911, Lockyer established an observatory near his home in Salcombe Regis, Devonshire. Originally known as the Hill Observatory, the site was renamed the Norman Lockyer Observatory after his death. For a time the observatory was a part of the University of Exeter, but is now owned by the East Devon District Council, and run by the Norman Lockyer Observatory Society. The Norman Lockyer Chair in Astrophysics at the University of Exeter is currently held by Professor Tim Naylor, who heads a star formation group there. Lockyer crater on the Moon and Lockyer crater on Mars are named after him. Lockyer died at his home in Salcombe Regis in 1920."
1877 Edwin T. Holmes of Boston, Massachusetts installs the first telephone switchboard burglar alarm.
1885 Germany annexes Northern New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago.
1885 Klara Hitler gives birth to a boy, Gustav. (See December 10)
1890 The first weekly comic, called Comic Cuts, is published in London.
1900 Birth: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iranian leader.
1900 Boer War: Mafeking, a small town in the northern Cape, is relieved after a 217 day siege by the Boers, leading to mass celebration in Britain.
1919 Death: Guido von List dies of a lung inflammation in a Berlin guest house before he can reach Brockhusen's home. He is later cremated in Leipzig and his ashes are placed in an urn at the Vienna Central Cemetery. "...Guido von List (the aristocratic von was self-assumed) was raised a Catholic but early took interest in Nordic paganism, which he coupled with a profound attraction to nature. An ardent rebel against modernity, which he associated with the spreading metropolis of fin-de-siècle Vienna and all its decadent ways, List's happiest moments came on rambles through the Austrian countryside, and he began his literary career with newspaper pieces on the rural scene, depicted as highly spiritualized. He was concerned to furnish an ideological backdrop to the pan-German movement led by such nationalist politicians as Georg von Schoenerer and Vienna Mayor Karl Lueger. Later, List worked out what was essentially a clairvoyant reconstruction of the distant past, elaborating a vast mythology of an ancient Wotanist priesthood, the Armanenschaft. They supposedly held sway in Europe until the Christian conversion, but now were confined to clandestine status, perpetuating the ancient Aryan lore through a small élite, among whom he numbered himself. Eventually, List built up a fairly wide readership and a Guido von List Society, sponsored by prestigious people, was established. With the coming of the First World War, the appeal of such a philosophy grew greatly, especially in Germany, and List also found a wider field for analysis of the destructive elements arrayed against the Central Powers. He dubbed these the Great International Party, in a fair anticipation of the World Zionist Organizations and Trilateral Commissions of our own day..."
1933 Strikes and walkouts are banned in Germany.
1933 Spain nationalizes church property and bans church-run schools.
1933 Holocaust: The Bernheim Petition is submitted to the League of Nations. Sent to the League of Nations by Franz Bernheim and the Comite des Delegations Juives (Committee of Jewish Delegations), the petition demands that the Nazis rescind their anti-Jewish legislation in Upper Silesia since it is in contravention to the German-Polish Convention of May 15, 1922. The League will agree and the German government will cancel the anti-Jewish regulations. This will remain in effect until the convention expires on July 15, 1937.
1934 Colonel Bronislaw Pieracki, Polish minister of the interior, is assassinated by an anti-Semitic terrorist group in Warsaw.
1934 The German American Protective Alliance announces a counter-boycott against Jewish businesses at Madison Square Garden.
1938 The Czech government confiscates two Nazi-run newspapers, Die Rundschau and F.S., published by Sudeten German parties led by Konrad Henlein.
1938 The US Congress passes the Vinson Naval Act, providing for a two-ocean navy. Above: The USS Carl Vinson. "...Later in life, when asked by journalist Lou Stockstill about his personal motives, Vinson remarked, “I wanted to serve on a committee where I could see the results of my labors. When you authorize the construction of a military base or a big carrier you can see the results.” Fortuitously, eight Democrats on the committee were “defeated, died or resigned,” and by 1923 Vinson was the ranking party member. He achieved results far beyond his expectations. Vinson earned the title “Father of the Two-Ocean Navy” during the 1920s and ’30s, a period when America was more focused on “disarmament and isolationism than [on] preparing for war.” During this period, he served as chairman or ranking minority member of the Naval Affairs and Armed Services Committees. Perhaps the zenith of his clout was realized on Jan. 5, 1938, when “The troubling international situation had prompted [President] Roosevelt to summon Vinson to the White House for a conference” on Adolf Hitler’s rapid naval armament, a tremendous threat to U.S. security. Vinson, who co-authored the Vinson-Trammell Act of 1934, demanded that the United States expand its construction of battleships and aircraft carriers to make the U.S. Navy “a Navy second to none” by increasing “the total tonnage of the Navy by 20 percent,” he said. This was a controversial move at the time. “Critics called him a dictator,” Cook wrote. But Vinson, who insisted that his committee meetings be held publicly, efficiently conducted the meetings of the Naval Affairs Committee. During the battle for funding, Vinson rapidly emptied his witness chair in a controlled and orderly fashion. When challenged by a witness to be allowed to complete her 10-minute testimony after he had demanded she step down, Vinson characteristically “peered down at the witness from his lofty seat” and said, “You talk so fast … You put an awful heap in the five minutes.” Ultimately, Vinson delivered on his promise..."
1939 Sweden, Norway and Finland reject Germany's offer of nonaggression pacts, but Denmark, Estonia and Latvia accept.
1939 Britain's King George VI and Queen Elizabeth arrive in Quebec on the first visit to Canada by reigning British sovereigns.
1939 Holocaust:: A German census lists 330,539 Jews in Greater Germany; 138,819 males and 191,720 females. These figures include 94,530 Jews in what was formerly Austria and 2,363 in the Sudetenland.
1939 WW2: Sweden, Norway and Finland announce they will remain firmly neutral.
1940 WW2: As the Nazi war machine sweeps easily across France, General Halder writes in his diary, "The Führer is terribly nervous. He is frightened by his own success, is unwilling to take any risks and is trying to hold us back." (Payne)
1940 WW2: May 17-18 Hitler names Arthur Seyss-Inquart as chief executive of the Netherlands. His first order is to arrest all German refugees who had come to the Netherlands since 1933. After 10 days in a concentration camp, most are transported to Poland. (Architect)
1941 WW2: Rudolf Hess is imprisoned in the Tower of London.
1943 WW2: The Memphis Belle, one of a group of American bombers based in Britain, becomes the first B-17 to complete 25 missions over Europe. The Memphis Belle performs its 25th and last mission, in a bombing raid against Lorient, a German submarine base. But before return back home to the United States, film footage is shot of Belle's crew receiving combat medals. This is but one part of a longer documentary on a day in the life of an American bomber, which includes dramatic footage of a bomber being shot out of the sky, with most of its crew parachuting out, one by one. Another film sequence shows a bomber returning to base with its tail fin missing. What looks like damage inflicted by the enemy is, in fact, the result of a collision with another American bomber. The Memphis Belle documentary will not be released for another 11 months, as more footage will be compiled to demonstrate the risks these pilots run as they bomb 'the enemy again and again and again-until he has had enough.' The film's producer, Lieutenant Colonel William Wyler, is known for such nonmilitary fare as The Letter, Wuthering Heights, and Jezebel.
1954 In a major civil rights victory, the US Supreme Court hands down an unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, ruling that racial segregation in public educational facilities is unconstitutional. The historic decision, which brings an end to federal tolerance of racial segregation, specifically deals with Linda Brown, a young African American girl who had been denied admission to her local elementary school in Topeka, Kansas. The Brown v. Board of Education decision serves to greatly motivate the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s and will ultimately lead to the abolishment of racial segregation in all public facilities and accommodations.
1956 The first synthetic mica (synthamica) is offered for sale, in Caldwell Township, New Jersey. Mica is a crystal-like substance used in electronic applications. It aids in resisting heat and electricity.
1960 The Kariba Dam in Rhodesia, on the Zambesi River, is opened by the British Queen Mother.
1968 In France, after many days of rioting, students and workers on strike march in protest over conditions in schools and universities in Paris and many other cities.
1973 Watergate: The Senate Committee under Senator Sam Ervin begins its proceedings.
1978 The first compact discs are created by scientists working for Philips.
1978 Charlie Chaplin's coffin is found, 10 miles from the Swiss cemetery where he had been buried, after it was stolen on 2 March. Police arrest two men who'd been demanding a ransom.
1980 Rioting claims 18 lives in Miami's Liberty City after an all-white jury in Tampa acquits four former Miami police officers of fatally beating black insurance executive Arthur McDuffie.
1983 Israel and Lebanon sign a peace treaty.
1987 An Iraqi F-I Mirage fighter fires two Exocet missiles at the US Navy frigate USS Stark while it is on patrol in the Persian Gulf, killing 37 sailors and wounding 62 others. Iraq and the United States will both declare that the attack is made in mistake.
1988 Algeria and Morocco decide to restore diplomatic relations after 12 years of bitter political disputes.
1990 Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev meets in Moscow with Lithuanian Prime Minister Kazimiera Prunskiene, Gorbachev's first face-to-face meeting with a senior official of the Baltics.
1994 Kamuzu Banda, one of Africa's longest-serving leaders (Malawi), is toppled from power in the country's first multiparty elections.
1995 The Senate ethics committee concludes that Senator Bob Packwood (R-Oregon) has to face a full-scale Senate investigation of charges that include making improper advances toward women.
1999 Labour Party leader Ehud Barak unseats Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israeli elections.
2000 The Sierra Leone rebel leader Foday Sankoh is held by British forces as involvement in civil war increases.
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