more events on July 17
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1987
Lt. Col. Oliver North and Rear Adm. John Poindexter begin testifying to Congress regarding the Iran-Contra scandal.
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1966
Ho Chi Minh orders a partial mobilization of North Vietnam to defend against American airstrikes.
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1960
American pilot Francis Gary Powers pleads guilty to spying charges in a Moscow court.
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1946
Chinese communists attack the Nationalist army on the Yangtze River.
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1944
Field Marshall Erwin Rommel is wounded when an Allied fighter strafes his staff car in France.
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1935
Peter Schickele, composer, creator of P.D.Q. Bach.
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1925
Laszlo Nagy, Hungarian poet.
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1923
James Purdy, writer (Cabot Wright Begins).
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1922
Donald Davie, English poet and literary critic.
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1912
Art Linkletter, radio and television personality.
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1902
Christina E. Stead, novelist and screenwriter.
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1899
James Cagney, American actor (Yankee Doodle Dandy, Mister Roberts).
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1898
Bernice Abbott, photographer.
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U.S. troops under General William R. Shafter take Santiago de Cuba during the Spanish-American War.
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1894
Georges Lemaitre, Belgian astronomer.
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1889
Erle Stanley Gardner, detective writer, creator of Perry Mason.
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1888
S.Y. Agnon, Israeli writer (The Day Before Yesterday).
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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.
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1821
Andrew Jackson becomes the governor of Florida.
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1815
Napoleon Bonaparte surrenders to the British at Rochefort, France.
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1801
The U.S. fleet arrives in Tripoli.
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1799
Ottoman forces, supported by the British, capture Aboukir, Egypt from the French.
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1791
National Guard troops open fire on a crowd of demonstrators in Paris.
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1785
France limits the importation of goods from Britain.
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1763
John Jacob Astor, American fur trader and entrepreneur.
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1762
Peter III of Russia is murdered and his wife, Catherine II, takes the throne.
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1674
Isaac Watts, English minister and hymn writer.
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1453
France defeats England at Castillon, France, ending the Hundred Years’ War.