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- 0180 Twelve inhabitants of Scillium in North Africa executed for being Christians. This is the earliest record of Christianity in that part of the world.
- 0924 Edward the Elder of Wessex and Mercia dies and is succeeded by his son Athelstan, 29, who will reign until 940, continuing his father's conquest of the Danelaw north of the Thames-Lea line from the Vikings who have been in Britain since 787
- 1048 Damasus II appointed Pope.
- 1203 Fourth Crusade captures Constantinople by assault; the Byzantine emperor Alexius III Angelus flees from his capital into exile.
- 1453 Hundred Years' War: Battle of Castillon - The French under Jean Bureau utterly defeat the English under the Earl of Shrewsbury, who is killed in the battle in Gascony
- 1695 Establishment of the Bank of Scotland under an Act of the Scottish Parliament,The Three Estates.
- 1762 Catherine II becomes tzar of Russia upon the accidental murder of Peter III of Russia.
- 1771 Bloody Falls Massacre: Chipewyan chief Matonabbee traveling as the guide to Samuel Hearne on his Arctic overland journey, massacre a group of unsuspecting Inuit.
- 1775 The first military hospital approved
- 1791 Members of the French National guard under the command of General Lafayette open fire on a crowd of radical Jacobins at the Champ de Mars, Paris, during the French Revolution, killing as many as 50 people.
- 1794 African Church of St Thomas in Philadelphia, dedicated
- 1794 Richard Allen organizes Phila's Bethel African Meth Episcopal Church
- 1794 The sixteen Carmelite Martyrs of Compiegne are executed 10 days prior to the end of the French Revolution's Reign of Terror.
- 1815 Napoleonic Wars: In France, Napoleon surrenders at Rochefort, Charente-Maritime to British forces.
- 1816 The French passenger ship Medusa runs aground off the coast of Senegal.
- 1841 British humor magazine "Punch" first published in London - UK
- 1850 Harvard Observatory takes first photograph of a star (Vega)
- 1856 Sunday school excursion train collides killing 46 children (Phila)
- 1856 The Great Train Wreck of 1856, occurs in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania killing over 60 people.
- 1858 Salving of the Lutine bell. The bell is subsequently hung in Lloyd's of London.
- 1861 Congress authorizes paper money
- 1862 US army authorized to accept blacks as laborers
- 1863 Battle of Honey Springs, largest battle of war in Indian Territory
- 1864 CSA President Davis replaces Gen Joe Johnston with John Bell Hood
- 1867 The first permanent university dental school in US, Harvard
- 1879 The first railroad opens in Hawaii
- 1897 Klondike gold rush begins when first successful prospectors arrive in Seattle, Washington.
- 1897 The first ship arrives in Seattle carrying gold from the Yukon
- 1898 Spanish American War-Spaniads surrender to US at Santiago Cuba
- 1899 NEC Corporation is organized as the first Japanese joint venture with foreign capital.
- 1917 British Royal family changes its name from Hanover to Windsor
- 1917 King George V of the United Kingdom issues a Proclamation stating that the male line descendants of the British royal family will bear the surname Windsor.
- 1918 By order of the Bolshevik Party and carried out by Cheka, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, his immediate family, and retainers were murdered at the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg, Russia.
- 1918 SS Carpathia. One of the more well known names, more from assisting the Titanic than from her own sinking, she was of 13,603 tons and built for Cunard by Swan and Hunter on the Tyne in 1902. She was attacked by the German submarine U55, 170 miles west of Bishops Rock, while outward bound to Boston, USA, from Liverpool, a service which had been decided would continue to be maintained in wartime conditions. She was hit by three torpdeoes. Five engine room staff were killed directly by the impact and explosions but 215 crew and all 57 passengers were saved and rescued by the sloop HMS Snowdrop.
- 1933 After successfully crossing the Atlantic ocean, the Lithuanian research aircraft Lituanica crashes in Europe under mysterious circumstances.
- 1935 Variety's famous headline "Sticks Nix Hick Pix"
- 1936 North African detachments of the Spanish Army led by Generalissimo Franco, and supported by Italy and the Nazis, begin civil war agaist the five year old republic.
- 1936 Spanish Civil War: An Armed Forces rebellion against the recently-elected leftist Popular Front government of Spain starts the Spanish civil war.
- 1938 Douglas (Wrong Way) Corrigan leaves NY for LA, wound up in Ireland
- 1941 Joe DiMaggio's baseball hitting streak ends at 56 games, by Cleveland Indian pitchers, Al Smith & Jim Bagby.
- 1942 3' of rain falls on Pennsylvania, flooding kills 15
- 1942 Estimated 87.5 cm (34.5") of rainfall, Smethport, Pa. (state record)
- 1944 2 ammunition ships explodes at Port Chicago, California kills 322
- 1944 Napalm incendiary bombs were dropped for the first time by American P-38 pilots on a fuel depot at Coutances, near St. L, France
- 1944 Port Chicago disaster: Near the San Francisco Bay, two ships laden with ammunition for the war explode in Port Chicago, California, killing 320.
- 1944 World War II: The largest convoy of the war embarks from Halifax, Nova Scotia under Royal Canadian Navy protection.
- 1945 Potsdam Conference (FDR, Stalin, Churchill) holds first meeting
- 1946 Mikhailovich resistance leader, executed by Tito regime
- 1948 Proclamation of the constitution of the Republic of (South) Korea
- 1951 Western New England College in Springfield, Massachusetts is chartered.
- 1955 Arco, Idaho becomes first US city lit by nuclear power
- 1955 Disneyland opens its doors in rural Orange County
- 1955 Disneyland televises its grand opening in Anaheim, California
- 1959 2,000 ft long by 1,300 foot wide section of ridge falls into Madis River Canyon extending man-made Lake Hebgen by 5 miles. (Montana)
- 1959 Visitor posting - THE LOVE OF MY LIFE WAS BORN DONALD SHORT - USA
- 1959 Billie Holiday blues singer, dies of liver failure at 44 in NYC
- 1959 Dr Leakey discovers oldest human skull (600,000 years old)
- 1959 Tibet abolishes serfdom
- 1961 John Chancellor becomes news anchor of the Today Show
- 1961 Ty Cobb Detroit Tiger hall of fame baseball player, dies at 75
- 1962 Nuclear testing: The "Small Boy" test shot Little Feller I becomes the last atmospheric test detonation at the Nevada Test Site.
- 1962 Robert White in X-15 sets altitude record of 108 km (354,300 ft)
- 1962 Senate rejects medicare for the aged
- 1964 British speed pioneer Sir Donald Campbell sets a new land speed world record of 429mph in his car, Bluebird.
- 1964 Don Campbell sets record for turbine vehicle, 690.91 kph (429.31 mph)
- 1966 Jim Ryun sets mile record (3m51s3)
- 1966 Pioneer 7 launched
- 1967 Monkees perform at Forest Hills NY, Jimi Hendrix is opening act
- 1967 Race riots in Cairo Illinois
- 1968 Beatle's animated film "Yellow Submarine" premiers in London
- 1968 Revolt in Iraq
- 1968 The date of the July 17 Revolution in Iraq when Abdul Rahman Arif was overthrown and the Ba'ath Party installed as the governing power in Iraq with Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr as the new Iraqi President.
- 1970 30,000 attend Randall's Island Rock Festival, NYC
- 1970 Visitor posting - July 17, 1970 Britton Russell Swaine was born in Quincy, Florida.
- 1972 The first 2 women begin training as FBI agents at Quantico
- 1973 King Mohammed Zahir Shah of Afghanistan is deposed by his cousin Mohammed Daoud Khan while in Italy undergoing eye surgery.
- 1974 John Lennon is ordered to leave the US in 60 days
- 1974 The first quadrophinic studio in UK is open by the Moody Blues
- 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project: An American Apollo and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft dock with each other in orbit marking the first such link-up between spacecraft from the two nations.
- 1975 Ringo Starr & Maureen Cox divorce
- 1976 21st modern Olympic games opens in Montréal
- 1976 History of East Timor: East Timor was annexed, and became the 27th province of Indonesia.
- 1976 Number one hit on UK music charts - Demis Roussos - Forever And Ever
- 1976 The opening of the Summer Olympics is marred by 25 African teams boycotting the New Zealand team
- 1979 Nicaraguan president General Anastasio Somoza Debayle resigns and flees to Miami.
- 1979 Sebastian Coe runs world record 3:49 mile in Oslo
- 1980 Ronald Reagan formally accepts Republican nomination for president
- 1981 Fulton County (Atlanta) grand jury indicts Wayne B William 23 year old photographers, for murder of 2 of 28 blacks killed in Atlanta
- 1981 Humbar Estuary Bridge, UK, world's longest span (1.4 km), opens
- 1981 Hyatt Regency walkway collapse: Two skywalks filled with people at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri collapse into a crowded atrium lobby during a "tea dance," killing 114.
- 1981 Lobby Walkways at KC's Hyatt Regency collapse 114 die, 200 injured
- 1982 Number one hit on UK music charts - Irene Cara - Fame
- 1984 Soyuz T-12 carries 3 cosmonauts to space station Salyut 7
- 1987 10 teens die in Guadalupe River flood (Comfort, Tx)
- 1988 Florence Griffith Joyner of USA sets the 100m woman's record (10.49)
- 1988 Highest temperature ever recorded in San Francisco, 103ø F (39ø C)
- 1989 First flight of the B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber.
- 1990 Hussein's Revolutionary Day speech claims Kuwait stole oil from Iraq
- 1995 The Midwestern heat wave in the United States reaches its peak. Chicago and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, among other cities, set all-time high temperature records. The heat claims over 400 lives on this day alone.
- 1995 Visitor posting - Nicki Meilleur was born
- 1995 The Nasdaq stock index closes above the 1,000 mark for the first time.
- 1996 Off the coast of Long Island, New York, a Paris-bound Boeing 747 carrying TWA flight 800 explodes, killing all 230 on board.
- 1996 Visitor posting - The MAGNIFICENT Jasmine Webster fell out of a unicorn and was born!!!! - United Kingdom
- 1997 Daniel Komen breaks the 2 mile world record in a time of 7:58.61.
- 1997 The F.W. Woolworth Company closes after 117 years in business.
- 1998 Biologists report in the journal Science how they sequenced the genome of the bacterium that causes syphilis, Treponema pallidum.
- 1998 In Papua New Guinea a 7.1 earthquake killed at least 2,183 people, thousands injured, about 9,500 homeless and about 500 missing as a result of a tsunami generated in the Sissano area. Maximum wave heights estimated at 10 meters
- 1998 In St. Petersburg, Nicholas II of Russia and his family are buried in St. Catherine Chapel exactly 80 years after he and his family were killed by Bolsheviks.
- 1998 Papua New Guinea earthquake: A tsunami triggered by an undersea earthquake destroys 10 villages in Papua New Guinea killing an estimated 3,183, leaving 2,000 more unaccounted for and thousands more homeless.
- 2007 TAM Linhas Areas Flight 3054 crashed upon landing during rain in So Paulo. This is Brazil's worst aviation accident to date with an estimated 199 deaths.
- 2007 Bear Stearns tells clients that the assets of one of it's troubled funds are essentially worthless, while those in another are worth 9% of their value at the end of April. Weeks later, both funds file for bankruptcy protection
- 2010 Visitor posting - Sydney Bean, the famous Border Collie, dies at 19 years of age - USA
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