In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby and Daisy first met in 1917. Jordan Baker reveals this detail when she tells Nick about their earlier romance, before Gatsby left for military service in Europe.
Their meeting occurred in Louisville, where Daisy was a young socialite and Gatsby was still an Army officer, not yet the wealthy Long Island figure he later became. They fell in love, but Gatsby’s deployment separated them. Daisy eventually married Tom Buchanan while Gatsby was overseas.
The year is easy to confuse with 1922, the main year of the novel’s action, when Nick moves to West Egg and Gatsby reunites with Daisy. It is also distinct from 1919, when Gatsby’s bootlegging fortune is said to have begun taking shape and when the novel’s larger postwar setting is developing. Fitzgerald uses the earlier date to show that Gatsby’s dream is rooted in a specific past he wants to recover.