Under Tuesday, May 17, the book of history records, among other things:
352: Liberius becomes Bishop of Rome and Pope, succeeding Julius I. Exiled to Thrace in 355 because of his opposition to Arianism, he was able to return to Rome in 358.
1202: France’s King Philip II Augustus declares the English crown forfeited of all its possessions in Brittany, Normandy, Anjou and Poitou.
1257: Richard of Cornwall from the House of Plantagenet, brother of the English king Henry III., is elected Roman-German king in Aachen after the death of William of Holland. But he can hardly assert himself any more than his rival king Alfonso of Castile. His successor Rudolf von Habsburg ended the phase of the so-called interregnum.
1642: Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve founds the settlement of Ville-Marie, today’s Montreal, in the colony of New France.
1697: The Royal Castle in Stockholm falls victim to a fire that almost completely destroys the structure.
1742: In the Battle of Chotusitz in Bohemia during the First Silesian War, Prussia under Frederick II defeated the Austrian army under Charles of Lorraine. 3,000 Prussian and 7,000 Austrian soldiers are killed.
1792: Several New York brokers sign the “Buttonwood Agreement” on Wall Street: founding date of the New York Stock Exchange.
1837: The publisher Arunah Shepherdson Abell founds the liberal American daily newspaper “The Baltimore Sun” in Baltimore.
1877: The world’s first telephone exchange goes into operation at the Holmes Burglar Alarm Co. in Boston.
1917: Austro-Hungarian naval forces sink two Entente destroyers and 14 steamers in the Strait of Otranto.
1932: In Friesach in Carinthia, a National Socialist is elected mayor of a municipality for the first time in Austria.
1937: The socialist Juan Negrín becomes prime minister of Spain’s legal republican government, which is increasingly being harassed by the Franco putschists.
1957: Switzerland: The first nuclear reactor called “Sapphire” is put into operation in Würenlingen.
1967: The death sentence against Marinus van der Lubbe, who was executed in 1934 and whom the Nazi authorities held responsible for the Reichstag fire, is lifted in Berlin.
1972: The German Bundestag ratifies the agreements with the USSR and Poland on the renunciation of force and the immutability of existing borders (Eastern Treaties).
1977: Parliamentary elections in Israel: After 29 years, the Social Democratic Labor Party loses power. Victory goes to the right-wing Likud bloc of Menachem Begin, who becomes the new prime minister. General Moshe Dayan becomes foreign minister. The election result is seen as a setback for the United States’ Middle East peace initiative.
1987: 37 US soldiers are killed in an Iraqi missile attack on the US frigate “Stark” in the Persian Gulf.
1997: The Congolese rebels led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila take the capital Kinshasa hours after dictator Mobutu Sese Seko fled the country.
2002: The German Bundestag decides to enshrine animal protection as a state goal in the Basic Law.
2007: The Bayerische Landesbank (BayernLB) offers more than 1.5 billion euros for the majority of the Kärntner Hypo Group Alpe Adria Bank. The value of the entire Hypo was set at 3.1 billion, the Bavarians want to acquire 50 percent plus one share. For the state of Carinthia, as the main owner, Bayern are the clear favorites from the start. The deal will be closed on October 9th, the final purchase price is more than 1.6 billion euros.
2007: The director of the Klagenfurt municipal theater, Dietmar Pflegerl, dies at the age of 63. He ran the theater for 15 years, since 2002 he had been battling severe cancer.
2012: Facebook goes public. At $38 a share, the company earns $16 billion and is valued at $104 billion. This is the largest IPO of an Internet company – and a big flop. The stock rises slightly to $45 on the first day and then steadily falls. The value halved in mid-August.
birthdays: Karl Ferdinand Graf von Buol-Schauenstein, Austria statesman and diplomat (1797-1865); August Thyssen, German industrialist (1842-1926); Odd Hassel, Norway. Chemist; Nobel Prize 1969 (1897-1981); Sándor Végh, Hungarian-French violinist/conductor (1912-1997); Antje Weisgerber, German actress (1922-2004); Karl Wittlinger, German dramatist (1922-1994); Miloslav Vlk, Czech Catholic theologian (1932-2017); Hazel O’Leary, former US politician (1937); Peter Hoeg, Danish Writer (1957).
days of death: Georg Joseph Ritter von Hauberrisser, German architect from Austria. origin (1841-1922); Gunnar Myrdal, Swedish national economist/politician (1898-1987); Zoltán Káldy, Hungarian Bishop (1919-1987); Egmont Foregger, East. lawyer, civil servant and politician (independent); 1987-90 Minister of Justice (1922-2007); Dietmar Pflegerl, Austria Theater director and director of the Stadttheater Klagenfurt (1943-2007); Donna Summer, US singer (1948-2012).
name days: Walter, Bruno, Jodokus, Paschal, Torpetus, Patrich, Dietmar, Restituta, Framhild.
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