Events in History on May 17

1544 Scot Earl Matthew Lennox signs secret treaty with Henry VIII

1742 Battle of Chotusitz: Prussia led by Frederick the Great defeats Austria

1824 The diaries of Lord Byron are burnt by six of the poet's friends at the office of John Murray in London, sometimes described as “the greatest crime in literary history”

1871 Native American fighter General William T. Sherman escapes from the Comanches in an ambulance

1876 7th US Cavalry under General George Armstrong Custer leaves Fort Lincoln

1881 Frederick Douglass appointed recorder of deeds for Washington, D.C.

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

1915 Last liberal British government of H. H. Asquith falls

1921 US President Warren G. Harding opens (via telephone) 1st Valencia Orange Show

1926 Chiang Kai-shek is made supreme warlord in Canton

1942 Dutch SS vows loyalty to Hitler

1943 Millionaire Howard Hughes crashes into Lake Mead, while test flying his Sikorsky S-43, killing CAA inspector Ceco Cline and Richard Felt

1961 Fidel Castro offers to exchange Bay of Pigs prisoners for 500 bulldozers

1975 Mick Jagger punches a restaurant window, gets 20 stitches

1977 Menachem Begin's Likoed party wins election in Israel

1984 Prince Charles calls proposed addition to the National Gallery, London, a "monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend," sparking controversy on the role of the Royal Family and course of modern architecture.

1989 Nelson Mandela receives a BA from University of South Africa

1990 The Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong designed by I. M. Pei opens as the first supertall skyscraper outside the US

1993 Intel's new Pentium processor is unveiled

2001 US President George W. Bush calls for reduced regulations to encourage more oil, gas, and nuclear production