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Brown v. Board of Ed is decided

Born on This Day

Sugar Ray Leonard

1956 -

Welterweight boxer who won the Olympic gold in 1976, then won 36 out of 40 professional bouts.

Enya

1961 -

Irish singer and composer whose ethereal voice on hits like 1988's "Orinoco Flow" popularized New Age music.

Trent Reznor

1965 -

Frontman for the industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails, best known for "Closer." Oscar winner for scoring "The Social Network."

Sugar Ray LeonardBettmann Archive

EnyaGetty Images

Trent ReznorGetty Images for GQ

1939

MAY17

NBC airs the first televised US sports event: a college baseball game between Princeton and Columbia—shot with a single camera and broadcast to a few hundred TV sets in New York City.

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on May 17th

England declares war on France, officially entering the Seven Year’s War

England declares war on France, officially launching them into the Seven Years’ War, a global conflict played out in North America as the French and Indian War. However, fighting and skirmishes between England and France had been going on in North America for several years. In the early 1750s, French expansion into the Ohio River […]

Writer Dorothy Richardson, pioneer of stream of consciousness, is born

Influential English writer Dorothy Richardson, whose stream-of-consciousness style will influence James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, is born on May 17, 1873. Richardson, though seldom read today, was widely read and discussed in her own time. The daughter of a grocer who went bankrupt when she was 17, Richardson was well-educated and highly independent. After her […]

Apache leader Geronimo flees Arizona reservation, setting off panic

For the second time in two years, the Apache leader Geronimo breaks out of an Arizona reservation, sparking panic among Arizona settlers. A famous medicine man, Geronimo achieved national fame by being the last American Indian to surrender formally to the United States. For nearly 30 years, Geronimo and his followers resisted the attempts of Americans […]

The Memphis Belle flies its 25th bombing mission

On May 17, 1943, the crew of the Memphis Belle, one of a group of American bombers based in Britain, becomes one of the first B-17 crews to complete 25 missions over Europe and return to the United States. The Memphis Belle performed its 25th and last mission, in a bombing raid against Lorient, a German […]

The FBI Laboratory weighs in on the “dirty” lyrics of “Louie Louie”

Based on outcry from parents who bought into what may have started as an idle rumor, the FBI launched a formal investigation in 1964 into the supposedly pornographic lyrics of the song “Louie, Louie.” That investigation finally neared its conclusion on May 17, 1965, when the FBI Laboratory declared the lyrics of “Louie Louie” to […]

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Norwegian ethnologist Thor Heyerdahl sails papyrus boat

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. Heyerdahl was attempting to prove his theory that Mediterranean civilizations sailed to America in ancient times and exchanged cultures with the people […]

Televised Watergate hearings begin

In Washington, D.C., the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, headed by Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina, begins televised hearings on the escalating Watergate scandal. One week later, Harvard law professor Archibald Cox was sworn in as special Watergate prosecutor. On June 17, 1972, five men were arrested for breaking into and illegally […]

LAPD raid leaves six SLA members dead

In Los Angeles, California, police surround a home where the leaders of the terrorist group known as the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) are hiding out. The SLA had kidnapped Patricia Hearst, of the wealthy Hearst family publishing empire, months earlier, earning headlines across the country. Police found the house when a local mother reported that […]

One million protesters take to the streets in Beijing

On May 17, 1989, a crowd of protesters, estimated to number one million, marches through the streets of Beijing calling for a more democratic political system. Just a few weeks later, the Chinese government moved to crush the protests. Protests in China had been brewing since the mid-1980s when the communist government announced that it […]

Final episode of “Beverly Hills, 90210” airs

Donna Martin (Tori Spelling) and David Silver (Brian Austin Green) finally say their vows, and on-and-off couple Kelly Taylor (Jennie Garth) and Dylan McKay (Luke Perry) reunite, as the curtain closes on the teen drama series Beverly Hills, 90210 after 10 seasons. The final episode of the show, which premiered on October 4, 1990, on […]

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First legal same-sex marriage performed in Massachusetts

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. Over the course of the day, 77 other same-sex couples tied the knot across the state, and hundreds more applied for marriage licenses. The day was characterized […]

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