July 17
1821
Spain ceded Florida to the United States.
1898
Spain surrendered to the United States at Santiago, Cuba, ending the Spanish-American War.
1917
The British royal family changed its name from the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor amid anti-German senitment during World War I.
1938
“Wrong Way Corrigan” took off from New York, purportedly aiming for California and landing in Ireland.
1945
President Harry Truman, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill meet at the opening of the Potsdam Conference.
1955
Disneyland opened in Anaheim, Calif.
1975
The American Apollo and Soviet Soyuz spacecraft linked up for the first time.
1998
The last Russian Czar Nicholas II was buried 80 years after he and his family were executed by the Bolsheviks.
Birthdays
Elbridge Gerry
Pronunciation: [ger´E]
1744–1814, American statesman, Vice President of the United States, born in Marblehead, Mass.
John Jacob Astor
merchant (1763)
Erle Stanley Gardner
detective-story writer (1889)
Berenice Abbott
photographer (1898)
Donald Sutherland
actor (1934)