19 January – Silvertown explosion: a blast at a munitions factory in London kills 73 and injures over 400. The resulting fire causes over £2M-worth of damage.[3]
March – establishment of the Imperial War Cabinet, a body composed of the chief British ministers and the prime ministers of the Dominions (Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa) to set policy.
7 June – World War I: Battle of Messines in Flanders opens with the British Army detonating 19 ammonalmines under the German lines, killing 10,000 in the deadliest deliberate non-nuclear man-made explosion in history, which can be heard in London.
13 June
World War I: daylight bombing raid on London by fixed-wing aircraft: 162 killed.[7]
1–7 July – first National Baby Week, a campaign for improved infant health.
9 July – HMS Vanguard is blown apart by an internal explosion at her moorings in Scapa Flow, Orkney, killing an estimated 843 crew with no survivors.[10]
21 August – most provisions of Corn Production Act 1917 come into force. This guarantees minimum prices for wheat and oats and specifies a minimum wage for agricultural workers.
5 October – Sir Arthur Lee donates the country house Chequers (in Buckinghamshire) to the nation;[4] it is to be used as an official country residence for the Prime Minister, the first recognition in law that such an office exists.
19 October – World War I: Last major German Zeppelin raids: 11 airships spread across the country, killing 36 people, but 5 of the craft are lost on their return.
November – World War I: Some British troops are moved to the Italian Front.
6 December – U.S. NavydestroyerUSSJacob Jones is torpedoed and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean south west of the British Isles by German submarine U-53, killing 66 crew in the first significant American naval loss of the war and first ever U.S. destroyer loss to an enemy. Survivors are rescued by British craft.[15]
Announced 12 November 1918; presented 1 June 1920 – Charles Glover Barkla wins the 1917 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his discovery of the characteristic Röntgen radiation of the elements."[18]
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