1917

1917 (MCMXVII) was a common year starting on Monday in the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Sunday in the Julian calendar.

• Last year of Tsar Nicolas II of Russia's reign.
• Russian Revolutions (Russia goes communist)
• The United States declares war on Germany (for World War I)
• Influenza pandemic

• January 5 – Jane Wyman, American actress (d. 2007)
• January 24 – Ernest Borgnine, American actor (d. 2012)
• January 25 – Ilya Prigogine, Belgian chemist (d. 2003)
• January 25 – Jânio Quadros, 22nd President of Brazil (d. 1992)

• February 4 – Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan, Last President of United Pakistan (d. 1980)
• February 6 – Zsa Zsa Gabor, Hungarian American actress (d. 2016)
• February 14 – Herbert Hauptman, American mathematician and Nobel laureate in Chemistry (d. 2011)

• March 2 – Desi Arnaz, Cuban-born American actor, bandleader, musician and television producer (d. 1986)
• March 20 – Vera Lynn, British singer (d. 2020)
• March 27 – Cyrus Vance, United States Secretary of State (d. 2002)

• April 6 – Leonora Carrington, British-Mexican painter (d. 2011)
• April 17 – Bill Clements, Governor of Texas (d. 2011)
• April 22 – Sidney Nolan, Australian painter (d. 1992)
• April 25 – Ella Fitzgerald, American singer (d. 1996)
• April 26 – I. M. Pei, Chinese-American architect (d. 2019)
• April 26 – Virgil Trucks, American baseball player
• April 29 – Celeste Holm, American actress (d. 2012)

• May 29 – John F. Kennedy, thirty-fifth President of the United States (d. 1963)

• June 3 – Leo Gorcey, American actor (d. 1969)
• June 6 - Kirk Kerkorian, American businessman (d. 2013)
• June 7 – Dean Martin, American singer, actor, comedian and film producer (d. 1995)
• June 9 - Eric Hobsbawm, British historian (d. 2012)
• June 30 - Lena Horne, American singer (d. 2010)
• June 30 – Susan Hayward, American actress (d. 1975)

• July 14 - Arthur Laurents, American playwright (d. 2011)
• July 17 - Phyllis Diller, American actress and comedienne (d. 2012)

• August 6 - Robert Mitchum, American actor (d. 1997)
• August 30 - Denis Healey, British politician (d. 2015)

• September 11 - Herbert Lom, Czech-born British actor (d. 2012)
• September 11 - Ferdinand Marcos, President of the Philippines (d. 1989)
• September 14 - Ettore Sottsass, Italian architect and designer (d. 2007)

• October 2 - Christian de Duve, Belgian biochemist (d. 2013)
• October 20 - Stephane Hessel, French politician (d. 2013)
• October 21 - Dizzy Gillespie, American musician (d. 1993)
• October 22 - Joan Fontaine, American actress (d. 2013)

• November 2 - Ann Rutherford, American actress (d. 2012)
• November 7 - Helen Suzman, South African political activist (d. 2009)
• November 14 – Park Chung-hee, 3rd President of South Korea (d. 1979)
• November 19 - Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India (d. 1984)
• November 20 - Robert Byrd, American politician (d. 2010)
• November 22 - Andrew Huxley, British scientist (d. 2012)

• December 16 - Arthur C. Clarke, British writer (d. 2008)
• December 21 – Heinrich Böll, German author, novelist, and short story writer (d. 1985)
• December 28 - Ellis Clarke, 1st President of Trinidad and Tobago (d. 2010)

• January 2 – Edward Burnett Tylor, English anthropologist (b. 1832)
• January 10 – William F. Cody (Buffalo Bill), American frontiersman (b. 1846)
• January 16 – George Dewey, U.S. admiral (b. 1837)
• February 5 – Jaber II Al-Sabah, Emir of Kuwait (b. 1860)
• February 10 – John William Waterhouse, Italian-born artist (b. 1849)
• March 8 – Ferdinand von Zeppelin, German inventor (b. 1838)
• March 17 – Franz Brentano, German philosopher and psychologist (b. 1838)
• March 31 – Emil von Behring, German winner of the 1901 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1854)
• April 1 – Scott Joplin, American musician and composer (b. 1868)
• April 14 – L. L. Zamenhof, Polish creator of Esperanto (b. 1859)
• May 17 – Charles Anthoni Johnson Brooke, ruler of Sarawak (b. 1829)
• May 20 – Philipp von Ferrary, Italian stamp collector (b. 1850)
• June 30 – Antonio de La Gandara, French painter (b. 1861)
• July 27 – Emil Kocher, Swiss medical researcher, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1841)
• August 13 – Eduard Buchner, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1860)
• August 20 – Adolf von Baeyer, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1835)
• August 30 – Alan Leo, British astrologer (b. 1860)
• September 27 – Edgar Degas, French painter (b. 1834)
• October 13 – Florence La Badie, Canadian actress (b. 1888)
• October 15 – Mata Hari, Dutch dancer and spy (executed) (b. 1876)
• October 23 – Eugène Grasset, Swiss artist (b. 1845)
• October 28 – Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein (b. 1831)
• November 8 – Colin Blythe, English cricketer (b. 1879)
• November 11 – Queen Liliuokalani of Hawai'i (b. 1838)
• November 17 – Auguste Rodin, French sculptor (b. 1840)
• December 8 – Mendele Moykher Sforim, Russian Yiddish and Hebrew writer (b. 1836)
• December 10 – Mackenzie Bowell, Prime Minister of Canada (b. 1824)