Independence
Day
Slovakia : July 17 1992
Events
July
17
180
– Twelve inhabitants of Scillium in North
Africa are executed for being Christians.
This is the earliest record of Christianity
in that part of the world.
1203 – The Fourth Crusade captures Constantinople
by assault. The Byzantine emperor Alexius
III Angelus flees from his capital into
exile.
1402 – Zhu Di, better known by his era
name as the Yongle Emperor, assumes the
throne over the Ming Dynasty of China.
1453 – Battle of Castillon: The last battle
of Hundred Years' War, the The French
under Jean Bureau defeat the English under
the Earl of Shrewsbury, who is killed
in the battle in Gascony.
1586 – A meeting takes place at Lüneburg
between several Protestant powers in order
to discuss the formation of an 'evangelical'
league of defence, called the 'Confederatio
Militiae Evangelicae', against the Catholic
League.
1717 – 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.
1762 – Catherine II becomes tsar of Russia
upon the murder of Peter III of Russia.
1771 – Bloody Falls Massacre: Chipewyan
chief Matonabbee, travelling as the guide
to Samuel Hearne on his Arctic overland
journey, massacres a group of unsuspecting
Inuit.
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 – The sixteen Carmelite Martyrs of
Compiegne are executed 10 days prior to
the end of the French Revolution's Reign
of Terror.
1856 – The Great Train Wreck of 1856 in
Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, kills over
60 people.
1867 – Harvard School of Dental Medicine
was established in Boston. It was the
first dental school in the U.S.
1899 – NEC Corporation is organized as
the first Japanese joint venture with
foreign capital.
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 – On the orders of the Bolshevik
Party carried out by Cheka, Tsar Nicholas
II of Russia and his immediate family
and retainers are murdered at the Ipatiev
House in Ekaterinburg, Russia.
1918 – The RMS Carpathia, the ship that
rescued the 705 survivors from the RMS
Titanic, is sunk off Ireland by the German
SM U-55; 5 lives are lost.
1932 – Altona Bloody Sunday.
1933 – After successfully crossing the
Atlantic Ocean, the Lithuanian research
aircraft Lituanica crashes in Europe under
mysterious circumstances.
1936 – Spanish Civil War: An Armed Forces
rebellion against the recently-elected
leftist Popular Front government of Spain
starts the civil war.
1938 – Douglas Corrigan takes off from
Brooklyn to fly the "wrong way"
to Ireland and becomes known as "Wrong
Way" Corrigan.
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: Napalm incendiary
bombs are dropped for the first time by
American P-38 pilots on a fuel depot at
Coutances, near St. Lô, France.
1948 – The South Korean constitution is
proclaimed.
1955 – Disneyland is dedicated and opened
by Walt Disney in Anaheim, California.
1962 – Nuclear weapons testing: The "Small
Boy" test shot Little Feller I becomes
the last atmospheric test detonation at
the Nevada Test Site.
1968 – A revolution occurs in Iraq when
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.
1973 – King Mohammed Zahir Shah of Afghanistan
is deposed by his cousin Mohammed Daoud
Khan while in Italy undergoing eye surgery.
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.
1976 – History of East Timor: East Timor
is annexed, and becomes the 27th province
of Indonesia.
1976 – The opening of the Summer Olympics
in Montreal is marred by 25 African teams
boycotting the New Zealand team.
1979 – Nicaraguan president General Anastasio
Somoza Debayle resigns and flees to Miami,
Florida.
1981 – The opening of the Humber Bridge
by HM The Queen in England.
1981 – 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.
1989 – First flight of the B-2 Spirit
Stealth Bomber.
1996 – TWA Flight 800: Off the coast of
Long Island, New York, a Paris-bound TWA
Boeing 747 explodes, killing all 230 on
board.
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.
1998 – A diplomatic conference adopts
the Rome Statute of the International
Criminal Court, establishing a permanent
international court to prosecute individuals
for genocide, crime against humanity,
war crimes, and the crime of aggression.
2007 – TAM Airlines (TAM Linhas Aéreas)
Flight 3054 crashes upon landing during
rain in São Paulo. This is Brazil's deadliest
aviation accident to date with an estimated
199 deaths.
2009 – Jakarta double bombings at the
JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton Hotels killed
9 people including 4 foreigners.
Holidays
and observances
Christian
Feast Day:
Alexius of Rome (Western Church)
Cynehelm
Cynllo
Jadwiga of Poland
Martyrs of Compiègne
Magnus Felix Ennodius
Marcellina
Piatus of Tournai
Romanov sainthood (Russian Orthodox Church)
Speratus and companions
July 17 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Constitution Day (South Korea)
Independence Day (Slovakia)
King's Birthday (Lesotho)
World Day for International Justice (International)
Yellow Pig's Day
Yama-boko Junkō of the Gion Matsuri (Kyoto,
Japan)
For details, contact Datacentre
|