Birthday Paper › What happened on …? › May 17

Events on May 17

• 1648 The Battle of Zusmarshausen in Bavaria was the last major engagement of the Thirty Years' War involving foreign armies on German soil. The armies of France and Sweden defeated the combined imperial and Bavarian army.
• 1814 After the end of the Danish-Norwegian personal union, Norway briefly became independent. Christian Frederick was elected king at Eidsvoll. The constitution signed there remains in force to this day with minor amendments, and May 17 is Norway's national holiday.
• 1861 The Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell presented the world's first color photograph in a lecture at the Royal Institution.
• 1902 The Greek archaeologist Valerios Stais discovered the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient artifact made of gears, in a lump of corroded material from a shipwreck.
• 1940 During the Western Campaign of World War II, Brussels was handed over to the Germans without a fight. After initial successes, an attack by the 4th French Armored Division under Charles de Gaulle on Montcornet had to be called off because of massive attacks by German dive bombers.
• 1946 In Potsdam-Babelsberg, Deutsche Film AG (DEFA), the state-owned film studio of the German Democratic Republic, was founded.
• 1954 The Supreme Court of the United States, led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, banned racial segregation in public schools in its unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education.
• 1972 Three weeks after the failed vote of no confidence in Willy Brandt, the German Bundestag ratified the Eastern Treaties with Poland and the Soviet Union.
• 1974 After a 4:0 victory in the replay against Atlético Madrid at Heysel Stadium in Brussels, FC Bayern Munich became the first German football club to win the European Cup Winners' Cup.
• 1990 The World Health Organization (WHO) of the UN removed homosexuality from the disease classification.
• 1992 The new Munich Airport in Erdinger Moos was opened. All flight operations moved overnight from Munich-Riem Airport to the new airport after the last scheduled flight from Riem had been completed shortly before midnight on the previous day.
• 2019 Spiegel Online and the Süddeutsche Zeitung triggered the so-called Ibiza affair by publishing a video in Austria. This led to Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache's resignation, the collapse of the ÖVP and FPÖ coalition under Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, and new elections being called.

Born on May 17

• 1886 Alfonso XIII., Spanish king
• 1901 Werner Egk, German composer
• 1904 Jean Gabin, French film actor
• 1911 Maureen O’Sullivan, American actress
• 1940 Valie Export, Austrian media artist
• 1952 Bernhard Brink, German schlager singer and television presenter
• 1961 Enya, Irish musician
• 1981 Cosma Shiva Hagen, German actress
• 1990 Fabian Giefer, German footballer
• 2002 Léon Marchand, French swimmer

Is your birthday on May 17?

Then there is a newspaper that tells only the story of your day: what was going on in the world on May 17 of your birth year, which song was at the top, what the weather was like at your birthplace, plus birthday twins and a personal greeting.

• For every birth year from 1946
• 4 to 10 pages, always €14.90, as a PDF to print
• With a greeting page for voice and video messages

Create the paper for May 17 · €14.90

Day and month are already filled in, you only choose the birth year.

Source of events and birthdays: German Wikipedia article „17. Mai“, licence CC BY-SA 4.0, selected, shortened and translated by Birthday Paper.

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