Wednesday, May 17, 2017

THIS DAY IN HISTORY ― MAY 17

May 17 is the 137th day of the year (138th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 228 days remaining until the end of the year.

NATIONAL PACK RAT DAY 


218 ― The 7th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet.


1769 ― On this day in 1769, George Washington launches a legislative salvo at Great Britain’s fiscal and judicial attempts to maintain its control over the American colonies ("taxation without representation"). 


1775 ― American Revolutionary War: the Continental Congress bans trade with Canada.


1792 ― Twenty-four merchants form the New York Stock Exchange at 70 Wall Street.


1814 
― Denmark cedes Norway to Sweden (National Day) and their Constitution is adopted. The day becomes the Norwegian National (Constitution) Day.

1865 
― The International Telegraph Union (later the International Telecommunication Union) is established.


1881 
― Abolitionist orator, writer, statesman and former slave, Frederick Douglass, is appointed recorder of deeds for Washington, DC.


1883 
― William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody's first wild west show premieres in Omaha.

1884 ― Alaska becomes a territory of the United States in a transaction with Russia called "Seward's Folly".

1885 ― For the second time in two years, the Apache Chief Geronimo breaks out of an Arizona reservation, sparking panic among Arizona settlers.


1897 ― The first successful submarine that can run submerged for any considerable distance and combines electric and gasoline engines is launched in the USA by its designer John Philip Holland.

1900 ― In China, three villages within 100 miles of Peking are burned by Boxers (The Righteous and Harmonious Fists) and 60 Chinese Christians are killed.


1920 
― The first flight by Dutch airlines KLM (Koninklijke-Luchtvaart-Maatschappij).


1926 
― Chiang Kai-shek is made supreme warlord in Canton. Chiang would fight for China against the Japanese in WWII and then against the Chinese Communists under Mao Zedpong. When defeated by the communists he would become the first ruler of independent China on Taiwan.

1933 
― Vidkun Quisling and Johan Bernhard Hjort form the Norwegian Nasjonal Samling — the national-socialist party of Norway.

1943 ― The United States Army contracts with the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School to develop the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer).



1943 ― On this day in 1943, the crew of the Memphis Belle, one of a group of American bombers based in Britain (VIII Bomber Command), becomes the first B-17 crew to complete 25 missions over Europe.

1954 ― US Supreme Court unanimously rules on Brown v Topeka Board of Education reversed 1896 "separate but equal" Plessy v Ferguson decision.

1960 - The first atomic reactor system patents are issued to J. W. Flora of Canoga Park, CA.

1967 - The Butler Act, a Tennessee statue prohibiting the teaching of evolution, is repealed after 42 years. The law was famously challenged in 1925 by the ACLU in the trial of John Scopes, a high science teacher who agreed to be arrested after teaching evolution (The Scopes "Monkey" Trial). HE was defended by Clarence Darrow and prosecuted by William Jennings Bryan.

1969 ― The Baltimore Colts, Cleveland Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers agree to move from the NFL's National Conference (NFC) to the American Conference (AFC). The Colts would relocate to Indianapolis (1984). Baltimore would be without an NFL franchise until (1995) when Cleveland moved there to become the Ravens. Cleveland would be without an NFL team until a new Browns organization is granted in 1999.


1970 
― Henry Louis "Hank" Aaron becomes the 9th MLB player to accumulate 3,000 career hits. He retires with 3,771, third all-time.

1970 ― On May 17, 1970, Norwegian ethnologist Thor Heyerdahl and a multinational crew set out from Morocco across the Atlantic Ocean in Ra II, a papyrus sailing craft modeled after ancient Egyptian sailing vessels.

1973 ― The U.S. Senate Watergate Committee begins its televised hearings.

1974 ― In Los Angeles, California, police surround a home in Compton where the leaders of the terrorist group known as the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) are hiding out. Six SLA members are killed in the ensuing gun battle.

2004 ― Marcia Kadish, 56, and Tanya McCloskey, 52, of Malden, Massachusetts, marry at Cambridge City Hall in Massachusetts, becoming the first legally married same-sex partners in the United States.



2015 – At least 9 people are killed and 18 injured, some by law enforcement and others in gunfire exchanges, in a shootout between rival biker gangs in Waco, Texas.



BORN TODAY 

1749Edward Jenner, English physician and microbiologist, developed the smallpox vaccine (d. 1823)

1860 Charlotte Barnum, American mathematician and social activist (d. 1934)

1912 Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner, American inventor (d. 2006)

From Wikipedia and Google (images), ex as noted. 

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