| 17 June 656 | Arab Caliphate [political events] | The rapid growth of the Arab caliphate causes social and political tensions, culminating in the murder of the caliph Uthman in his own home in Medina (in modern Saudi Arabia) by rebel soldiers. The Islamic prophet Muhammad's son-in-law, Ali, becomes the fourth caliph, though many suspect him of complicity in Uthman's murder. |
| 17 June 1025 | Poland [births and deaths] | Boleslaw I Chrobry (the Brave), first king of Poland 1024–25 who made Poland a major European state, dies at Gniezno, Poland (c. 58). |
| 17 June 1056 | England, Wales [administration] | Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, King of Wales, defeats and kills Bishop Leofgar of Hereford at Cleobury. Later in the year he is defeated by Earl Harold of Wessex and Earl Leofric of Mercia, and so compelled to recognize the lordship of King Edward the Confessor, who cedes to him English lands west of the River Dee. |
| 17 June 1128 | England, Anjou, France [diplomacy] | King Henry I of England's daughter Matilda, widow of the late emperor Henry V of Germany, marries Geoffrey Plantagenet, heir to the county of Anjou; she is recognized in England as her father's heir. |
| 17 June 1307 | England [births and deaths] | Edward I Longshanks, king of England 1272–1307, son of Henry III, who subdued Wales, dies in Burgh by Sands, near Carlisle, England (68). |
| 17 June 1397 | Denmark, Norway, Sweden [political events] | Queen Margaret of Denmark and Norway holds an assembly of Scandinavian nobles at Kalmar, Sweden, for the coronation of her grand-nephew, Eric VII of Pomerania, as king of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden – the ‘Kalmar Union’. |
| 17 June 1579 | England, North America [exploration] | After successful privateering off the coast of Chile and Peru, the English buccaneer and explorer Francis Drake sails north as far as Vancouver Island, then turns back and lands north of the site of the future city of San Francisco, where he proclaims England's sovereignty over New Albion (modern California). |
| 17 June 1701 | Sweden, Russia, Courland, Poland [political events] | Having invaded Livonia (part of present-day Latvia and Estonia), King Charles XII of Sweden relieves the port of Riga from Russian occupation and subsequently invades Courland (or Kurland, in present-day Latvia) and Poland. The Great Northern War is to be largely centred in Poland until 1705–06. |
| 17 June 1703 | England [births and deaths] | John Wesley, Anglican clergyman and evangelist who, with his brother Charles Wesley, founded the Methodist movement in the Church of England, born in Epworth, Lincolnshire, England (–1791). |
| 17 June 1775 | America, UK [American Revolution] | British troops under General Sir William Howe defeat American colonial forces commanded by Colonel William Prescott at Bunker Hill, near Boston, Massachusetts, but sustain 1,150 casualties against 411 American casualties. |
| 17 June 1789 | France [administration] | The Third Estate (representing the common people) of the Estates General (parliament) in France declares itself a National Assembly. |
| 17 June 1801 | UK, Russian Empire, Prussia, Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, France [treaties] | The Armed Neutrality of the North (the confederation of Russia, Sweden, Denmark, and Prussia, formed to defend their right to export goods to Napoleonic France) breaks up with the signing of the Treaty of St Petersburg between Britain, Russia, and Prussia, which recognizes British right of search of merchant vessels. |
| 17 June 1930 | [legislation] | The US president Herbert Hoover signs the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act, raising duties on some 890 agricultural and manufactured items. |
| 17 June 1953 | East Germany [revolution] | A strike in East Berlin on 16 June turns into a rising against East Germany's communist government; in the afternoon the Soviet commandant of Berlin proclaims a state of emergency and Soviet military forces put down the rising. |
| 17 June 1958 | Hungary, USSR [political events] | Imre Nagy, independent communist and premier of Hungary 1953–55, who tried to gain Hungary's independence from the USSR, is executed in Budapest, Hungary (62). |
