1900, 17 May - Boer War: Relief of Mafeking
After 216 days Boer forces abandon the siege and Colonel Mahon's relief column enters the town.
1941, 17 May - World War II: North Africa
Rommel is instructed by Berlin to leave Torbruk to the Italians and concentrate his Deutsches Afrika Korps on the fight along the Egypt-Libya border.
1956, 17 May
Nationalist China breaks off relation with Egypt after President Gamal Abdel Nasser grants diplomatic recognition to Communist China.
1960, 17 May
Belgian authority in the Congo has almost completely disintegrated. Patrice Lumumba in now in control of much of the country.
1960, 17 May
British Queen Mother starts the hydro-electric turbines of the Kariba Dam on the Zambezi. She applauds the "young and enterprising" Central African Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
1964, 17 May
President Ahmed Ben Bella, of the republic of Algeria, returns home after a 25-day diplomatic tour to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
1970, 17 May
Thor Heyerdahl sets sail from Morocco for Latin America on a papyrus boat, Ra II, to prove his theories that ancient Egyptians made similar voyages 4,000 years ago.
1978, 17 May
South African police close the investigation into the death of Steve Biko.
1989, 17 May
A military coup fails to remove Mengistu Haile Mariam as president of Ethiopia.
1991, 17 May
The UN's High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has predicted that 1,200,000 people in Ethiopia are about to starve to death.
1993, 17 May
Egyptian president Muhammad Hosni Mubarak orders direct-dial communications to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and the Sudan cut as part of the fight against Islamic extremists.
