Portal:History of science/Selected anniversaries/February 17
- 1680 - Death of Jan Swammerdam, Dutch biologist (b. 1637)
- 1723 - Birth of Tobias Mayer, German astronomer (d. 1762)
- 1753 - February 17 is followed by March 1 as Sweden moves from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar
- 1792 - Birth of Karl Ernst von Baer, German biologist (d. 1876)
- 1874 - Death of Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet, Belgian mathematician (b. 1796)
- 1888 - Birth of Otto Stern, German physicist, Nobel Prize Laureate (d. 1969)