What happened onMay 17, 1957Friday Week 20

Today is September11, 2026 Friday.

May 17 is a Friday again in 1963.

About May 17

May 17 Events On this day through the years

Born ?

May 17FamousBirthdays

In loving memoryFamous DeathsMay 17

The World in 1957 the year a beeping ball crossed the sky

Sputnik was a polished metal ball about two feet across, and it weighed roughly as much as a grown man. It circled the entire planet every 96 minutes, so it went all the way around about 15 times while you slept and went to school.

Life back then

News of Sputnik 1 in October sent whole families into back yards after dark, squinting for a moving dot among the stars. Ham radio operators tuned in its steady beep and taped it off the air. Wham-O started selling a plastic flying disc it called the Pluto Platter, later renamed the Frisbee. A flu that began in Asia went around the world and left a lot of classrooms half empty through the fall. In Italy, Fiat put a tiny two cylinder car on sale, and at a church fete near Liverpool in July a teenage John Lennon met a younger boy named Paul McCartney.

The year in 8 events

• 🌍Mar 6 Ghana becomes independent, the first colony in sub-Saharan Africa to break from British rule.
• 🏛️Mar 25 Six countries sign the Treaty of Rome in Italy and agree to trade freely with each other.
• 🎾Jul 6 Althea Gibson wins Wimbledon, the first Black player to take a title there.
• 🌏Aug 31 Malaya becomes independent from Britain. It later joins with its neighbours to form Malaysia.
• 🏫Sep 25 Nine Black students enter Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, escorted by army paratroopers.
• 🎭Sep 26 West Side Story opens on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre.
• 🛰️Oct 4 The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1, the first satellite to orbit the Earth.
• 🐕Nov 3 The Soviet Union sends a dog named Laika into orbit on Sputnik 2. She does not survive the flight.

Who Was in Charge?

Share & Embed Take this date with you