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.

 Events 
 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

 Births 

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

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

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

 September 
 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 
 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 
 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 
 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)

 Deaths 
 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)