July 17

July 17 is the 198th day (199th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 167 days remaining.

Events

180 - Twelve inhabitants of Scillium in North Africa, executed for being Christians. This is the earliest record of Christianity in that part of the world.

1762 - Catherine II becomes tzar of Russia upon the murder of Peter III of Russia.

1771 - Massacre at Bloody Falls: Chipewyan chief Matonabbee traveling as the guide to Samuel Hearne on his arctic overland journey, massacre a group of unsuspecting Inuit.

1791 - Massacre at the Champ de Mars, Paris, during the French Revolution. 1200-1500 people were killed, including women and children.

1815 - Napoleonic Wars: In France, Napoleon surrenders at Rochefort, Charente-Maritime to British forces.

1867 - In Boston, Massachusetts, USA, the Harvard School of Dental Medicine is established as the first dental school in the United States.

1897 - Klondike gold rush begins when first successful prospectors arrive in Seattle, Washington, USA.

1898 - Spanish-American War: Battle of Santiago Bay - Troops under United States General William R. Shafter take the city of Santiago de Cuba from the Spanish.

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.

1936 - Spanish Civil War: A conservative rebellion against the recently-elected leftist Popular Front government of Spain starts the Spanish civil war.

1944 - Port Chicago disaster: Near the San Francisco Bay, two ships laden with ammunition for the war explode in Port Chicago, California killing 232.

1944 - World War II: The largest convoy of the war embarks from Halifax, Nova Scotia under Royal Canadian Navy protection.

1945 - World War II: Potsdam Conference - At Potsdam, the three main Allied leaders begin their final summit of the war. The meeting will end on August 2.

1955 - Disneyland opens in Anaheim, California.

1962 - Nuclear testing: The "Small Boy" test shot Little Feller I becomes the last atmospheric test detonation at the Nevada Test Site.

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.

1979 - Nicaraguan president General Anastasio Somoza Debayle resigns and flees to Miami.

1981 - Hyatt Hotel disaster: Two skywalks filled with people at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri collapse into a crowded atrium lobby killing 114.

1984 - Laurent Fabius becomes Prime Minister of France

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 - 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.

1997 - The F.W. Woolworth Company closes after 117 years in business.

1998 - In St. Petersburg, Nicholas II of Russia and his family are buried in St. Catherine Chapel 80 years after he and his family were killed by Bolsheviks.

1998 - A tsunami triggered by an undersea earthquake destroys 10 villages in Papua New Guinea killing an estimated 1,500, leaving 2,000 more unaccounted for and thousands more homeless.

1998 - Biologists report in the journal Science how they sequenced the genome of the bacterium that causes syphilis, Treponema pallidum.