Today in History....May 17

On this day in …

* 1792, the New York Stock Exchange had its origins as a group of brokers met under a tree located on what is now Wall Street

* 1875, the first Kentucky Derby was run; the winner was Aristides

* 1937, Teddy Hill and His Orchestra recorded "King Porter Stomp"
for RCA Records in New York; one of the featured musicians was a newcomer, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie

* 1938, Congress passed the Second Vinson Act, providing for a strengthened U.S. Navy

* 1939, Britain's King George VI and Queen Elizabeth arrived in Quebec on the first visit to Canada by reigning British sovereigns

* 1940, the Nazis, ym"sh, occupied Brussels, Belgium, during World War II. In 1946, President Truman seized control of the nation's railroads, delaying but not preventing a threatened strike by engineers and trainmen

* 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision, which found that racially segregated public schools were inherently unequal, and therefore unconstitutional

* 1973, the Senate began its televised hearings into the Watergate scandal

* 1980, rioting that claimed 18 lives erupted in Miami's Liberty City after an all-white jury in Tampa, Fla., acquitted four former Miami police officers of fatally beating black insurance executive Arthur McDuffie

* 1997, rebel leader Laurent Kabila declared himself president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire. ALSO: Russia's Mir space station got a new oxygen generator and a fresh American astronaut, courtesy of the space shuttle Atlantis. AND: Silver Charm won the Preakness, two weeks after winning the Kentucky Derby.
(However, Silver Charm failed to win the Belmont Stakes.)

* 2002, former President Jimmy Carter ended a historic visit to Cuba sharply at odds with the Bush administration over how to deal with Fidel Castro, saying limits on tourism and trade often hurt Americans more than Cubans

* 2006, the FBI once again searched for the remains of former Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa, this time at a Michigan horse farm; the two-week search yielded no evidence