On June 17, 1972, James McCord, security director of President Richard Nixon's re-election committee, and four Cuban-Americans are arrested for breaking into the Democratic National Committee Headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, DC. Learn more about the Watergate scandal.

On June 17, 1991, South Africa repealed the Population Registration Act. Since its passage in 1950, the Act had required every South African to be racially classified at birth. These classifications, in turn, would determined the child's social and political rights for the rest of his or her life in South Africa. Learn more about the History of Apartheid in South Africa from Standford University.