History Events on July 17

World War II: At Sainte-Foy-de-Montgommery. in Normandy Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was strafed by allied aircraft while returning to his headquarters.

#World_War_II

Holy See-Poland relations are restored.

#Holy_See-Poland_relations

East Timor is annexed, and becomes the 27th province of Indonesia.

#East_Timor

Spanish Civil War: An Armed Forces rebellion against the recently elected leftist Popular Front government of Spain starts the civil war.

#Spanish_Civil_War

Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his immediate family and retainers are executed by Bolshevik Chekists at the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

#Nicholas_II_of_Russia

King Mohammed Zahir Shah of Afghanistan, while having surgery in Italy, is deposed by his cousin Mohammed Daoud Khan.

#Mohammed_Zahir_Shah

At least 120 people are killed and 130 injured by a suicide bombing in Diyala Governorate, Iraq.

#2015_Khan_Bani_Saad_bombing

Abdul Rahman Arif is overthrown and the Ba'ath Party is installed as the governing power in Iraq with Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr as the new Iraqi President.

#Abdul_Rahman_Arif

TAM Airlines Flight 3054, an Airbus A320, crashes into a warehouse after landing too fast and missing the end of the São Paulo-Congonhas Airport runway, killing 199 people.

#TAM_Airlines_Flight_3054

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 scores of people.

#National_Guard_(France)

Battle of Castillon: The last battle of Hundred Years' War, the French under Jean Bureau defeat the English under the Earl of Shrewsbury, who is killed in the battle in Gascony.

#Battle_of_Castillon

Willis Carrier creates the first air conditioner in Buffalo, New York.

#Willis_Carrier

A French regional train on the Pau-Bayonne line crashes into a high-speed train near the town of Denguin, resulting in at least 25 injuries.

#Transport_express_régional

The 16 Carmelite Martyrs of Compiègne are executed ten days prior to the end of the French Revolution's Reign of Terror.

#Carmelites

King George V issues a Proclamation stating that the male line descendants of the British Royal Family will bear the surname Windsor.

#George_V

TWA Flight 800: Off the coast of Long Island, New York, a Paris-bound TWA Boeing 747 explodes, killing all 230 on board.

#TWA_Flight_800

Port Chicago disaster: Near the San Francisco Bay, two ships laden with ammunition for the war explode in Port Chicago, California, killing 320.

#Port_Chicago_disaster

World War II: The main three leaders of the Allied nations, Winston Churchill, Harry S. Truman and Joseph Stalin, meet in the German city of Potsdam to decide the future of a defeated Germany.

#Allies_of_World_War_II

12 new moons are discovered orbiting Jupiter

#Jupiter

Catherine II becomes tsar of Russia upon the murder of Peter III of Russia.

#Catherine_the_Great

The 7.0 Mw? Papua New Guinea earthquake triggers a tsunami that destroys ten villages in Papua New Guinea, killing up to 2,700 people, and leaving several thousand injured.

#1998_Papua_New_Guinea_earthquake

The RMS Carpathia, the ship that rescued the 705 survivors from the RMS Titanic, is sunk off Ireland by the German SM U-55; five lives are lost.

#RMS_Carpathia

The national drinking age in the United States was changed from 18 to 21.

#National_Minimum_Drinking_Age_Act

King George I of Great Britain sails down the River Thames with a barge of 50 musicians, where George Frideric Handel's Water Music is premiered.

#George_I_of_Great_Britain

Concorde is brought back into service nearly a year after the July 2000 crash.

#Concorde

Hundred Years' War: Charles VII of France is crowned the King of France in the Reims Cathedral after a successful campaign by Joan of Arc.

#Hundred_Years'_War

Douglas Corrigan takes off from Brooklyn to fly the "wrong way" to Ireland and becomes known as "Wrong Way" Corrigan.

#Douglas_Corrigan

NEC Corporation is organized as the first Japanese joint venture with foreign capital.

#NEC

During approach to Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Airport, Alliance Air Flight 7412 suddenly crashes into a residential neighborhood in Patna, killing 60 people.

#Jay_Prakash_Narayan_Airport

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, a Boeing 777, crashes near the border of Ukraine and Russia after being shot down. All 298 people on board are killed.

#Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17

First flight of the B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber.

#Northrop_Grumman_B-2_Spirit

A structural failure leads to the collapse of a walkway at the Hyatt Regency in Kansas City, Missouri, killing 114 people and injuring more than 200.

#Hyatt_Regency_walkway_collapse

Nicaraguan dictator General Anastasio Somoza Debayle resigns and flees to Miami, Florida, United States.

#Nicaragua

A diplomatic conference adopts the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, establishing a permanent international court to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.

#Rome_Statute_of_the_International_Criminal_Court

Disneyland is dedicated and opened by Walt Disney in Anaheim, California.

#Disneyland

The 7.7 Mw? Pangandaran tsunami earthquake severely affects the Indonesian island of Java, killing 668 people, and leaving more than 9,000 injured.

#2006_Pangandaran_earthquake_and_tsunami

Nuclear weapons testing: The "Small Boy" test shot Little Feller I becomes the last atmospheric test detonation at the Nevada National Security Site.

#Nuclear_weapons_testing

The Fourth Crusade captures Constantinople by assault. The Byzantine emperor Alexios III Angelos flees from his capital into exile.

#Fourth_Crusade

Founding of the EUREKA Network by former head of states François Mitterrand (France) and Helmut Kohl (Germany).

The opening of the Summer Olympics in Montreal is marred by 25 African teams boycotting the games because of New Zealand's participation. Contrary to rulings by other international sports organizations, the IOC had declined to exclude New Zealand because of their participation in South African sporting events during apartheid.

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.

The largest number of United States midshipman casualties in a single event results from an aircraft crash in Florida, killing 44.

Altona Bloody Sunday: A riot between the Nazi Party paramilitary forces, the SS and SA, and the German Communist Party ensues.

Harvard School of Dental Medicine is established in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the first dental school in the U.S. that is affiliated with a university.

Bloody Falls massacre: Chipewyan chief Matonabbee, traveling as the guide to Samuel Hearne on his Arctic overland journey, massacres a group of unsuspecting Inuit.

Zhu Di, better known by his era name as the Yongle Emperor, assumes the throne over the Ming dynasty of China.

Damasus II is elected pope.

Twelve inhabitants of Scillium (near Kasserine, modern-day Tunisia) in North Africa are executed for being Christians. This is the earliest record of Christianity in that part of the world.