Did you know about George Boleyn
George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford was an English courtier and nobleman who played a prominent role in the politics of the early 1530s as the brother of Anne Boleyn, second wife of King Henry VIII.
Notable Deaths on May 17
May 17 has 107 recorded notable deaths across history, from 528 to 2026. This focused page highlights 20 people with the strongest available profile context.
1536 — George Boleyn
2nd Viscount Rochford, English courtier and diplomat, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports (born 1504)
By thisDay.info Editorial Team · — Wikipedia
Notable Deaths
107 source records
528 – 2026
Today in history
Major events on May 17
See what else happened on this day in history.
- 1967 Six-Day War: President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt demands dismantling of the peace-keeping UN Emergency Force in Egypt. Source
- 1983 The U.S. Department of Energy declassifies documents showing world's largest mercury pollution event in Oak Ridge, Tennessee (ultimately found to be 4.2 million pounds [1.9 kt]), in response to the Appalachian Observer's Freedom of Information Act request. Source
Did you know about Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord
After studying theology, he became Agent-General of the Clergy in 1780.
Did you know about Harmon Killebrew
Harmon Killebrew spent most of his 22-year career in Major League Baseball (MLB) with the Minnesota Twins.
Did you know about Paul Dukas
Paul Dukas's best-known work is the orchestral piece The Sorcerer's Apprentice, the fame of which has eclipsed that of his other surviving works, largely due to its usage in the 1940 Disney film Fantasia.
Did you know about William Birdwood
Field Marshal William Riddell Birdwood, 1st Baron Birdwood, was a senior and highly decorated and distinguished British Indian Army officer.
More major people who died on May 17
Notable people are ranked by substantive profile depth and public notability.
1838
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord
French politician, Prime Minister of France (born 1754)
Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, 1st Prince of Benevento, then Prince of Talleyrand, was a French secularized clergyman, statesman, and leading diplomat. After studying theology, he became Agent-General of the Clergy in 1780. In 1789, just before the French Revolution, he became Bishop of Autun. He worked at the highest levels of successive French governments, most commonly as foreign minister or in some other diplomatic capacity. He served as the French representative to the Congress of Vienna. His career spanned the regimes of Louis XVI, the years of the French Revolution, Napoleon, Louis XVIII, Charles X, and Louis Philippe I. Those Talleyrand served often distrusted him but found him extremely useful. The name "Talleyrand" has become a byword for crafty and cynical diplomacy.
2011
Harmon Killebrew
American baseball player and sportscaster (born 1936)
Harmon Clayton Killebrew Jr., nicknamed "the Killer" and "Hammerin' Harmon", was an American professional baseball player as a first baseman, third baseman, and left fielder. He spent most of his 22-year career in Major League Baseball (MLB) with the Minnesota Twins. A prolific power hitter, Killebrew had the fifth-most home runs in major league history at the time of his retirement. He was second only to Babe Ruth in American League (AL) home runs, and was the AL career leader in home runs by a right-handed batter. Killebrew was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1984.
1935
Paul Dukas
French composer, critic, and educator (born 1865)
Paul Abraham Dukas was a French composer, critic, scholar and teacher. A studious man of retiring personality, he was intensely self-critical and abandoned and destroyed many of his compositions. His best-known work is the orchestral piece The Sorcerer's Apprentice, the fame of which has eclipsed that of his other surviving works, largely due to its usage in the 1940 Disney film Fantasia. Among these are the opera Ariane et Barbe-bleue, his Symphony in C and Piano Sonata, the Variations, Interlude and Finale on a Theme by Rameau, and a ballet, La Péri.
1951
William Birdwood
Anglo-Indian field marshal (born 1865)
Field Marshal William Riddell Birdwood, 1st Baron Birdwood, was a senior and highly decorated and distinguished British Indian Army officer. He saw active service in the Second Boer War on the staff of Lord Kitchener. Birdwood saw action again in the First World War, initially as commander of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps during the Gallipoli campaign in 1915, leading the landings on the peninsula and then the evacuation later in the year, before becoming commander of the Australian Corps and the Fifth Army on the Western Front during the closing stages of the war. He then went on to be general officer commanding the Northern Army in India in 1920 and Commander-in-Chief, India, in 1925, and retired as a field marshal.
1995
Toe Blake
Canadian ice hockey player and coach (born 1912)
Joseph Hector "Toe" Blake was a Canadian ice hockey player and coach in the National Hockey League (NHL). Blake played in the NHL from 1935 to 1948 with the Montreal Maroons and Montreal Canadiens. He led the NHL in scoring in 1939, while also winning the Hart Trophy for most valuable player, and served as captain of the Canadiens from 1940 to his retirement. He won the Stanley Cup three times as a player: in 1935 with the Maroons, and in 1944 and 1946 with the Canadiens. While with the Canadiens, Blake played on a line with Elmer Lach and Maurice Richard which was dubbed the Punch line, as all three were highly-skilled players. In 2017, Blake was named one of the '100 Greatest NHL Players' in history. He was also known as "The Old Lamplighter" due to his skill for putting the puck in the net.
2014
Gerald Edelman
American biologist and immunologist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1929)
Gerald Maurice Edelman was an American biologist who shared the 1972 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for work with Rodney Robert Porter on the immune system. Edelman's Nobel Prize-winning research concerned discovery of the structure of antibody molecules. In interviews, he has said that the way the components of the immune system evolve over the life of the individual is analogous to the way the components of the brain evolve in a lifetime. There is a continuity in this way between his work on the immune system, for which he won the Nobel Prize, and his later work in neuroscience and in philosophy of mind.
1943
Johanna Elberskirchen
German author and activist (born 1864)
Johanna Elberskirchen was a German feminist writer and activist for the rights of women, gays and lesbians as well as blue-collar workers. She published books on women's sexuality and health among other topics. Her last known public appearance was in 1930 in Vienna, where she gave a talk at a conference organised by the World League for Sexual Reform. She was open about her own homosexuality which made her a somewhat exceptional figure in the feminist movement of her time. Her career as an activist was ended in 1933, when the Nazi Party rose to power. There is no public record of a funeral but witnesses report that Elberskirchen's urn was secretly put into the grave of Hildegard Moniac, who had been her life partner.
1765
Alexis Clairaut
French mathematician, astronomer, and geophysicist (born 1713)
Alexis Claude Clairaut was a French mathematician, astronomer, and physicist. He was a prominent Newtonian whose work helped to establish the validity of the principles and results that Sir Isaac Newton had outlined in the Principia of 1687. Clairaut was one of the key figures in the expedition to the Lapland that helped to confirm Newton's deduction of the figure of the Earth. In that context, Clairaut deduced what is now known as Clairaut's theorem. He also tackled the gravitational three-body problem, being the first to obtain a satisfactory result for the apsidal precession of the Moon's orbit. In mathematics he is also credited with Clairaut's theorem on mixed partial derivatives, Clairaut's equation, and Clairaut's relation in differential geometry.
528
Empress Dowager Hu of Northern Wei
Empress Dowager Hu, formally Empress Ling (靈皇后), was an empress dowager of the Xianbei-led Chinese Northern Wei dynasty (515–528). She was a concubine of Emperor Xuanwu, and she became regent and empress dowager after her son Emperor Xiaoming became emperor after Emperor Xuanwu's death in 515. She was considered to be intelligent but overly lenient, and during her regency, many agrarian rebellions occurred while corruption raged among imperial officials. In 528, she was believed to have poisoned her son Emperor Xiaoming after he tried to have her lover Zheng Yan (鄭儼) executed. This caused the general Erzhu Rong to attack and capture the capital Luoyang. Erzhu threw her into the Yellow River to drown.
1922
Dorothy Levitt
English racing driver and journalist (born 1882)
Dorothy Elizabeth Levitt was a Jewish British racing driver and journalist. She was the first British woman racing driver, holder of the world's first water speed record, the women's world land speed record holder, and an author. She was a pioneer of female independence and female motoring and taught Queen Alexandra and the Royal Princesses how to drive. In 1905, she established the record for the longest drive achieved by a lady driver by driving a De Dion-Bouton from London to Liverpool and back over two days, receiving the soubriquets in the press of the Fastest Girl on Earth, and the Champion Lady Motorist of the World.
1395
Konstantin Dejanović/Constantine Dragaš
Serbian ruler (born 1355)
Konstantin (Kostadin) Dejanović or Konstantin Dragaš was a Serbian magnate that ruled a large province in eastern Macedonia under Ottoman suzerainty, during the fall of the Serbian Empire. He succeeded his older brother Jovan Dragaš, who had been an Ottoman vassal since the Battle of Maritsa (1371) which had devastated part of the Serbian nobility. The brothers had their own government and minted coins according to the Nemanjić style. His daughter Jelena married Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos in 1392. He fell at the Battle of Rovine, serving the Ottomans against Wallachia, fighting alongside Serbian magnates Stefan Lazarević and Marko Mrnjavčević.
2022
Vangelis
Greek musician, composer (born 1943)
Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou, mainly known professionally as Vangelis, was a Greek composer, arranger, performer and record producer. He released material of wide musical genres such as electronic music, progressive rock, ambient, and classical orchestral music. He is primarily known for his film scores, composing the Academy Award-winning score to Chariots of Fire (1981), as well as composing the scores of Blade Runner (1982), Missing (1982), Antarctica (1983), The Bounty (1984), 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992), and Alexander (2004), and the 1980 PBS documentary series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage by Carl Sagan.
1934
Cass Gilbert
American architect (born 1859)
Cass Gilbert was an American architect. An early proponent of skyscrapers, his works include the Woolworth Building, the United States Supreme Court Building, the state capitols of Minnesota, Arkansas, and West Virginia, the Detroit Public Library, and the Saint Louis Art Museum and Public Library. His public buildings in the Beaux Arts style reflect the optimistic American sense that the nation was heir to Greek democracy, Roman law and Renaissance humanism. Gilbert's achievements were recognized in his lifetime; he served as president of the American Institute of Architects in 1908–09.
1606
False Dmitriy I
pretender to the Russian throne (born 1582)
False Dmitry I or Pseudo-Demetrius I reigned as the Tsar of all Russia from 10 June 1605 until his death on 17 May 1606 under the name of Dmitriy Ivanovich. Dmitry ascended to the throne after the deposition of Tsar Feodor II and ruled for 11 months before he was assassinated in the 1606 Moscow Uprising and replaced with Tsar Vasili IV. Dmitry was a pretender who impersonated Dmitry of Uglich, a son of Ivan the Terrible, and his reign formed part of the Time of Troubles.
1987
Gunnar Myrdal
Swedish economist, sociologist, and politician, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1898)
Karl Gunnar Myrdal was a Swedish economist and sociologist. In 1974, he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences along with Friedrich Hayek for "their pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and for their penetrating analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena." When his wife, Alva Myrdal, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982, they became the fourth ever married couple to have won Nobel Prizes, and the first and only to win independent of each other.
1947
George Forbes
New Zealand farmer and politician, 22nd Prime Minister of New Zealand (born 1869)
George William Forbes was a New Zealand politician who served as the 22nd prime minister of New Zealand from 28 May 1930 to 6 December 1935. He was the last leader of the remnant of the Liberal Party having entered the House of Representatives in 1908 as a Radical in that party. Forbes was a co-founder of the United Party in 1927. Later he was a founder of the New Zealand National Party in 1936 and the party's first parliamentary leader.
924
Li Maozhen
Chinese warlord and king (born 856)
Li Maozhen, born Song Wentong (宋文通), courtesy name Zhengchen (正臣), formally Prince Zhongjing of Qin (秦忠敬王), was the only ruler of the Chinese Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period state Qi (901–924). He had become a powerful warlord during the reign of Emperor Zhaozong of Tang, the penultimate emperor of the preceding Tang dynasty, with his power centered on his capital Fengxiang, and at times had effective control of Emperor Zhaozong. However, his power gradually waned due to defeats at the hands of fellow warlords Wang Jian and Zhu Quanzhong. After Zhu usurped the Tang throne and established Later Liang, Li Maozhen refused to submit and continued to use the Tang-bestowed title of Prince of Qi as well as maintain the Tang era name, but his territory became even more reduced due to wars with Former Shu and Later Liang. After Later Liang was conquered by Later Tang, whose Emperor Zhuangzong claimed to be a legitimate successor of Tang, Li Maozhen submitted as a subject and was created the Prince of Qin in 924. He died soon thereafter, and was succeeded as by his son Li Jiyan as the military governor (Jiedushi) of Fengxiang, but as Li Jiyan was not made the Prince of Qi or Qin at that point, this was typically viewed as the end of Qi as an independent state.
2007
Lloyd Alexander
American soldier and author (born 1924)
Lloyd Chudley Alexander was an American author of more than 40 books, primarily fantasy novels for children and young adults. Over his seven-decade career, Alexander wrote 48 books, and his work has been translated into 20 languages. His most famous work is The Chronicles of Prydain, a series of five high fantasy novels whose conclusion, The High King, was awarded the 1969 Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature. He won U.S. National Book Awards in 1971 and 1982.
1510
Sandro Botticelli
Italian painter (born 1445)
Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, better known as Sandro Botticelli or simply Botticelli, was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. Botticelli's posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th century, when he was rediscovered by the Pre-Raphaelites who stimulated a reappraisal of his work. Since then, his paintings have been seen to represent the linear grace of late Italian Gothic and some Early Renaissance painting, even though they date from the latter half of the Italian Renaissance period.