On This Day May 17

1993
First use of an artificial liver to keep a person alive after removing their liver is announced by doctors at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in California.

1991
Jeffrey Dahmer: Milwaukee police officers find a 14-year-old, drugged, naked, and bleeding. They return him to Dahmer who then killed him moments later.

1985
World record for motionlessness: William Fuqua sits 24 hours on a motorcycle. (source: Guinness Book of World Records)

1973
Watergate: Senate Watergate hearings begin investigating the Nixon administration's abuse of power in trying to undermine the Democratic Party and the opposition to the Vietnam War.

1973
First woman in the U.S. Marine Band: French horn player Staff Sgt. Ruth Johnson.

1971
First state to ban sex discrimination: Washington makes it illegal to discriminate in hiring based on sex, age, marital status, race, creed, color, or national origin. The law went into effect in July.

1967
Evolution: Tennessee repeals its law banning the teaching of Darwin's Theory of Evolution.

1955
Nuclear Power: The first atomic reactor patent is granted to Enrico Fermi and Leo Szilard of the U.S.

1954
Segregation: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that separate educational facilities for black and white children are not "separate but equal" and therefore violate the Constitution.

1945
First atomic reactor patent: Enrico Fermi and Leo Szilard of the U.S. receive patent 2,708,656.

1939
First televised baseball game: Princeton beats Columbia 2-1, televised by NBC's W2XBS of New York City.

1910
Commission of Fine Arts is established, reviews plans for public buildings, parks, and monuments in Washington D.C.

1875
First Kentucky Derby: Oliver Lewis, riding Aristides, wins the Churchill Downs classic.

1956
Sugar Ray Leonard, American boxer, winner of the world welterweight, light middleweight, and middleweight titles.

1948
Carlos May, only major-league baseball player whose birth month and day appeared on his uniform, his number was of course 17.

1936
Dennis Hopper, American actor, director. Film: Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Easy Rider (1969).

1918
Birgit Nilsson, Swedish soprano, famed for her roles in Brunnhilde, Salome, and Elektra.

1911
Maureen O'Sullivan, Irish actress. Film: Jane of the Tarzan movies with Johnny Weissmuller.

1760 d. 1819
John Greenwood, American dentist. He made George Washington's dentures and also invented the foot-powered drill.

1749 d. 1823
Edward Jenner, English physician. He invented the vaccination (1796), after observing that people wouldn't catch smallpox if they were already infected with cowpox, which he then used as a vaccination.

2005 b. 1934
Frank Gorshin, American actor. TV: Batman (The Riddler). He also played the half-whiteface, half-blackface Bele in a Star Trek episode.

1992 b. 1903
Lawrence Welk, American orchestra leader, "Ah-one, an' ah-two."

1981 b. 1895
Jeanette Ridlon Piccard, American scientist and Episcopal priest. She was the first American woman to qualify as a free-balloon pilot (1934) and the first person to successfully fly a balloon through a layer of clouds (1934).

1875 b. 1821
John Cabell Breckinridge, 14th U.S. Vice-President (1857-61). He was the youngest U.S. vice president (age 36 years and 48 days). He also served as the Confederate secretary of war during the Civil War.

1838 b. 1754
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, French statesman. He was foreign minister to Napoleon Bonaparte and King Louis XVIII, and was ambassador to Britain.

1838 b. 1754
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord, French diplomat and statesman.

1829 b. 1745
John Jay, 6th president of the Continental Congress (1778-79), co-author of the Federalist papers (1787), Secretary of State ad interim (until Thomas Jefferson could take office, 1790), the first chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1789-95) and governor of New York (1795-1801).

May 17

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