TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – JULY 17
0180 6 inhabitants of Carthage, North Africa executed for being Christians. Earliest record of Christianity in this part of the world.
1203 Siege of Constantinople begins during the fourth Crusade, Crusaders aboad a Venetian fleet attack the city
1762 Peter III of Russia is murdered and his wife, Catherine II, takes the throne.
1775 1st military hospital approved
1785 France limits the importation of goods from Britain.
1815 Napoleon Bonaparte surrenders to the British at Rochefort, France.
1898 Spain surrendered to the United States at Santiago, Cuba, ending the Spanish-American War.
1917 The King of England King George announced the new name of the royal house and family is to be the House of Windsor after he decided to drop his German family name “Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.”
1936 Spanish generals Francisco Franco and Emilio Mola lead a right-wing uprising, starting the Spanish Civil War
1938 “Wrong Way Corrigan” took off from New York, purportedly aiming for California and landing in Ireland.
1945 Potsdam Conference: Harry Truman, Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill hold 1st meeting
1954 Operation Wetback” is launched by the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to remove about four million illegal immigrants from the southwestern United States, with a focus on Mexican nationals.
1955 Disneyland opened in Anaheim, Calif.
1960 American pilot Francis Gary Powers pleads guilty to spying charges in a Moscow court.
1962 Senate rejects medicare for the aged
1974 A terrorist bomb planted in the Tower of London has left one person dead and 41 injured. No organization has claimed responsibility but the IRA is suspected.
1987 Lt. Col. Oliver North and Rear Adm. John Poindexter begin testifying to Congress regarding the Iran-Contra scandal.
1989 The Stealth Bomber makes its debut The Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit made its first public flight from Palmdale, California.
1998 The Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC) is adopted
1998 The last Russian Czar Nicholas II was buried 80 years after he and his family were executed by the Bolsheviks.
2014 Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 is shot down over Eastern Ukraine by a Buk surface-to-air missile launched from pro-Russian separatist-controlled territory, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
