Today In History. What Happened This Day In History
A Timeline Of Events That Occurred On This Day In History
A chronological timetable of historical events that occurred on this day in history. Historical facts of the day in the areas of military, politics, science, music, sports, arts, entertainment and more. Discover what happened today in history.
Today in History
July 17
| 1453 | France defeats England at Castillon, France, ending the Hundred Years' War. | |
| 1762 | Peter III of Russia is murdered and his wife, Catherine II, takes the throne. | |
| 1785 | France limits the importation of goods from Britain. | |
| 1791 | National Guard troops open fire on a crowd of demonstrators in Paris. | |
| 1799 | Ottoman forces, supported by the British, capture Aboukir, Egypt from the French. | |
| 1801 | The U.S. fleet arrives in Tripoli. | |
| 1815 | Napoleon Bonaparte surrenders to the British at Rochefort, France. | |
| 1821 | Andrew Jackson becomes the governor of Florida. | |
| 1864 | Confederate President Jefferson Davis replaces General Joseph E. Johnston with General John Bell Hood in hopes of defeating Union General William T. Sherman outside Atlanta. | |
| 1898 | U.S. troops under General William R. Shafter take Santiago de Cuba during the Spanish-American War. | |
| 1944 | Field Marshall Erwin Rommel is wounded when an Allied fighter strafes his staff car in France. | |
| 1946 | Chinese communists attack the Nationalist army on the Yangtze River. | |
| 1960 | American pilot Francis Gary Powers pleads guilty to spying charges in a Moscow court. | |
| 1966 | Ho Chi Minh orders a partial mobilization of North Vietnam to defend against American airstrikes. | |
| 1987 | Lt. Col. Oliver North and Rear Adm. John Poindexter begin testifying to Congress regarding the Iran-Contra scandal. | |
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Born on July 17 |
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| 1674 | Isaac Watts, English minister and hymn writer. | |
| 1763 | John Jacob Astor, American fur trader and entrepreneur. | |
| 1888 | S.Y. Agnon, Israeli writer (The Day Before Yesterday). | |
| 1889 | Erle Stanley Gardner, detective writer, creator of Perry Mason. | |
| 1894 | Georges Lemaitre, Belgian astronomer. | |
| 1898 | Bernice Abbott, photographer. | |
| 1899 | James Cagney, American actor (Yankee Doodle Dandy, Mister Roberts). | |
| 1902 | Christina E. Stead, novelist and screenwriter. | |
| 1912 | Art Linkletter, radio and television personality. | |
| 1922 | Donald Davie, English poet and literary critic. | |
| 1923 | James Purdy, writer (Cabot Wright Begins). | |
| 1925 | Laszlo Nagy, Hungarian poet. | |
| 1935 | Peter Schickele, composer, creator of P.D.Q. Bach. | |
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