July 17 in History

Year 180 (CLXXX) was a leap year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Rusticus and Condianus. The denomination 180 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

Henry IV (German: Heinrich IV; 11 November 1050 – 7 August 1106) was Holy Roman Emperor (1084–1105), King of Germany (1054–1105), and King of Italy and Burgundy (1056–1105). A Salian ruler, he was the son of Henry III and Agnes of Poitou. After his father's death in 1056, his mother acted as regent, granting lands to secure aristocratic support. Unable to control papal elections, she witnessed the growing assertion of the "liberty of the Church", a principle central to the emerging Gregorian Reform. In 1062, Archbishop Anno II of Cologne kidnapped Henry and governed until he came of age in 1065. Seeking to recover royal estates lost during his minority, Henry relied on lower-ranking officials, provoking unrest in Saxony and Thuringia. He suppressed revolts there in 1069 and 1071, but his promotion of commoners alienated the nobility. Insisting on his royal prerogative to appoint bishops and abbots, he became embroiled in what would later be known as the Investiture Controversy, leading Pope Alexander II to excommunicate Henry's advisers in 1073. After crushing a renewed rebellion in Saxony in 1075, Henry adopted an active policy in Italy, alarming Alexander's successor, Gregory VII, who threatened him with excommunication for selling church offices. In 1076, German bishops, encouraged by Henry, declared Gregory's election invalid. Gregory responded by excommunicating Henry and releasing his subjects from allegiance. Facing opposition at home, Henry sought absolution through his penitential "Walk to Canossa" in 1077. Though restored to communion, he confronted a rival king, Rudolf of Rheinfelden. Renewed excommunication in 1080 led Henry's supporters to elect the antipope Clement III. Rudolf's death strengthened Henry's position, although his opponents chose a new antiking, Hermann of Salm; in 1084, Clement crowned Henry emperor in Rome. From 1089 to 1096, Henry campaigned in Italy against his son Conrad II, Matilda of Tuscany, and Welf I of Bavaria. After Clement's death, Henry refrained from supporting further antipopes and proclaimed the first Reichsfriede (imperial peace), extending across the whole of Germany, in 1103. In 1105, his younger son, Henry V, forced his abdication. Attempting to regain power, he fell ill and died in 1106 without absolution. His central role in the Investiture Controversy and the "Walk to Canossa" ensured a profoundly contested legacy.

The Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) was a Latin Christian armed expedition called by Pope Innocent III. The stated intent of the expedition was to recapture the Muslim-controlled city of Jerusalem, by first defeating the powerful Egyptian Ayyubid Sultanate. However, a sequence of economic and political events culminated in the Crusader army's 1202 siege of Zara and the 1204 sack of Constantinople, rather than the conquest of Egypt as originally planned. This led to the partition of the Byzantine Empire by the Crusaders and their Venetian allies, leading to a period known as the Frankokratia ("Rule of the Franks" in Greek). In 1201, the Republic of Venice contracted with the Crusader leaders to build a dedicated fleet to transport their invasion force. However, the leaders greatly overestimated the number of soldiers who would embark from Venice, since many sailed from other ports, and the army that appeared could not pay the contracted price. In lieu of payment, the Venetian Doge Enrico Dandolo proposed that the Crusaders back him in attacking the rebellious city of Zara (Zadar) on the eastern Adriatic coast. This led in November 1202 to the sack of Zara, the first attack against a Catholic city by a Catholic Crusader army, despite Pope Innocent III's calls for the Crusaders not to attack fellow Christians. The city was then brought under Venetian control. When the Pope heard of this, he temporarily excommunicated the Crusader army. In January 1203, en route to Jerusalem, the Crusader leadership entered into an agreement with the Byzantine prince Alexios Angelos to divert their main force to Constantinople and restore his deposed father Isaac II Angelos as emperor, who would then add his support to their invasion of Jerusalem. On 23 June 1203, the main Crusader army reached Constantinople, while other contingents (perhaps a majority of all crusaders) continued to Acre. In August 1203, following the siege of Constantinople, Alexios was crowned co-emperor. However, in January 1204 he was deposed by a popular uprising, depriving the Crusaders of their promised bounty payments. Following the murder of Alexios on 8 February, the Crusaders decided on the outright conquest of the city. In April 1204, they captured and plundered the city's enormous wealth. Only a handful of the Crusaders continued to the Holy Land thereafter. Several prominent Crusaders, including Enguerrand II of Boves, Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester and Guy of Vaux-de-Cernay, among others, disagreed with the attacks on Zara and Constantinople, refused to take part in them and left the crusade. The conquest of Constantinople was followed by the fragmentation of the Byzantine Empire into three states centered in Nicaea, Trebizond and Epirus. The Crusaders then founded several new Crusader states, known as Frankokratia, in former Roman territory, largely hinged upon the Latin Empire of Constantinople. The presence of the Latin Crusader states almost immediately led to war with the Byzantine successor states and with the Bulgarian Empire. The Nicaean Empire eventually brought about the Reconquest of Constantinople and restored the Byzantine Empire in July 1261. The Fourth Crusade is considered to have solidified the East–West Schism. The crusade dealt an irrevocable blow to the Byzantine Empire, contributing to its decline and fall as all the unstable governments in the region, the Sack of Constantinople and the thousands of deaths had left the region depleted of soldiers, resources, people and money, leaving it vulnerable to attack. The empire had shrunk as it lost control of most of the Balkans, Anatolia and the Aegean islands. This made the restored empire territorially diminished and vulnerable to invasions from the expanding Ottoman Sultanate in the following centuries, to which the Byzantines ultimately succumbed in 1453.

A regnal name, regnant name, or reign name is the name used by monarchs and popes during their reigns and subsequently, historically. Since ancient times, some monarchs have chosen to use a different name from their original name when they accede to the monarchy.

The Hundred Years' War (French: Guerre de Cent Ans; 1337–1453) was a series of conflicts between the kingdoms of England and France and a civil war in France during the late Middle Ages. It emerged from feudal disputes over the Duchy of Aquitaine and was triggered by a claim to the French throne made by Edward III of England. The war grew into a broader military, economic, and political struggle involving different factions from across Western Europe, fuelled by emerging nationalism on both sides. The periodisation of the war typically charts it as taking place over 116 years. However, it was an intermittent conflict which was frequently interrupted by external factors, such as the Black Death, and several years of truces. The Hundred Years' War was a significant conflict in the Middle Ages. During the war, five generations of kings from two rival dynasties fought for the throne of France, then the wealthiest and most populous kingdom in Western Europe. The war had a lasting effect on European history: both sides produced innovations in military technology and tactics, including professional standing armies and artillery, that permanently changed European warfare. Chivalry reached its height during the conflict and subsequently declined. Stronger national identities took root in both kingdoms, which became more centralized and gradually emerged as global powers. The term "Hundred Years' War" was adopted by later historians and included dynastically related conflicts in Spain and Belgium, resulting in the longest military conflict in European history. The war is commonly divided into three phases, separated by truces: the Edwardian War (1337–1360), the Caroline War (1369–1389), and the Lancastrian War (1415–1453). Each side drew many allies into the conflict, with English forces initially prevailing; however, the French forces under the House of Valois ultimately retained control over the Kingdom of France. The French and English monarchies thereafter remained separate, despite the monarchs of England and Great Britain styling themselves as sovereigns of France until 1802.

The Battle of Castillon was a battle between the forces of England and France which took place on 17 July 1453 in Gascony near the town of Castillon-sur-Dordogne (later Castillon-la-Bataille). On the day of the battle, the English commander, John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, mistakenly believing that the enemy was retreating, led a relatively small advance force of his army in an attack on a strongly fortified French encampment without waiting for reinforcements. Talbot then refused to withdraw even after realising the strength of the French position, allowing the French artillery to destroy his reinforcements piecemeal. Castillon was the first major European battle won through the extensive use of field artillery. The battle led to the English losing nearly all their holdings in France, especially Gascony, which had been a possession of the Plantagenet kings for the previous three centuries. Political instability ensued in England.

Sikandar Khan Lodi (Persian: سکندر لودی; 17 July 1458 – 21 November 1517), born Nizam Khan (Persian: نظام خان) also known as Sikandar II, was Sultan of the Delhi Sultanate between 1489 and 1517. He became ruler of the Lodi dynasty after the death of his father Bahlul Khan Lodi in July 1489. The second and most successful ruler of the Lodi dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate, he was also a poet of the Persian language and prepared a diwan of 9000 verses. He made an effort to recover the lost territories which once were a part of the Delhi Sultanate and was able to expand the territory controlled by the Lodi Dynasty.

George I (George Louis; German: Georg Ludwig; 28 May 1660 – 11 June 1727) was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1 August 1714 and ruler of the Electorate of Hanover within the Holy Roman Empire from 23 January 1698 until his death in 1727. He was the first British monarch of the House of Hanover. Born in Hanover to Ernest Augustus and Sophia of Hanover, George inherited the titles and lands of the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg from his father and uncles. In 1682, he married his cousin Sophia Dorothea of Celle, with whom he had two children; he also had three daughters with his mistress Melusine von der Schulenburg. George and Sophia Dorothea divorced in 1694. A succession of European wars expanded George's German domains during his lifetime; he was ratified as prince-elector of Hanover in 1708. As the senior Protestant descendant of his great-grandfather James VI and I, George inherited the British throne following the deaths in 1714 of his mother, Sophia, and his second cousin Anne, Queen of Great Britain. During his reign the powers of the monarchy diminished, and Britain began a transition to the modern system of cabinet government led by a prime minister. Jacobites attempted, but failed, to depose George and replace him with James Francis Edward Stuart, Anne's Catholic half-brother. Towards the end of his reign, actual political power was held by Robert Walpole, now recognised as Britain's first de facto prime minister. George died in 1727 on a journey to his native Hanover, where he was buried. He is the most recent British monarch to be buried outside Britain. He was succeeded by his son, George II.

Peter III Fyodorovich (Russian: Пётр III Фёдорович, romanized: Pyotr III Fyodorovich, born Charles Peter Ulrich of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp; 21 February 1728 – 17 July 1762) was Emperor of Russia from 5 January 1762 until 9 July of the same year, when his wife, Catherine II, overthrew him in a palace coup d'état. He implemented many notable reforms during his reign, though he is criticised for undoing Russian gains in the Seven Years' War by forming an alliance with Prussia. Peter was the son of Duke Charles Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp, and Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna of Russia, who died of puerperal fever after childbirth. After succeeding to the throne of Holstein-Gottorp following his father’s death, Peter was made heir presumptive to both the Russian and Swedish thrones in 1742. Due to his conversion to Russian Orthodoxy, he was disqualified from becoming King of Sweden. Peter married his paternal second cousin, Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst, who took the Orthodox name of Catherine Alexeievna, in 1745. They had one child who survived to adulthood, Paul Petrovich. Peter succeeded his maternal aunt as Emperor of Russia in 1762. After a 186-day reign, Peter III was overthrown by his wife, and soon died under unclear circumstances. The official cause proposed by Catherine's new government was that he died due to hemorrhoids. This explanation was met with skepticism, both in Russia and abroad, with notable critics such as Voltaire and d'Alembert expressing doubt about the plausibility of death from such a condition. After Peter III's death, many impostors thrived, pretending to be him, the most famous of whom were Yemelyan Pugachev and the "Montenegerin Tsar Peter III" (Stephan the Little).

The Bloody Falls massacre took place during Hudson's Bay Company employee Samuel Hearne's exploration of the Coppermine River for copper deposits near modern-day Kugluktuk, Nunavut, Canada on 17 July 1771. Hearne's original travelogue is now lost, and the narrative that became famous was published after Hearne's death with substantial editorializing. The narrative states that Chipewyan and "Copper Indian" Dene men led by Hearne's guide and companion Matonabbee attacked a group of Copper Inuit camped by rapids approximately 15 km (9.3 mi) upstream from the mouth of the Coppermine River.

The National Guard is a French military, gendarmerie, and police reserve force, active in its current form since 2016 but originally founded in 1789 during the French Revolution. In 2016, France announced the reestablishment of the National Guard for the second time, in response to a series of terrorist attacks in the country.

The Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, known as the Carmelites or sometimes by synecdoche known simply as Carmel, is a mendicant order in the Catholic Church for both men and women. Historical records about its origin remain uncertain; it was probably founded in the 12th century on Mount Carmel in the Holy Land.

Spain, officially the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Europe and the fourth-most populous European Union (EU) member state. Spanning the majority of the Iberian Peninsula, its territory also includes the Canary Islands, in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean; the Balearic Islands, in the Western Mediterranean Sea; and the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, in mainland Africa. Peninsular Spain is bordered to the north by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; to the east and south by the Mediterranean Sea, Gibraltar and Morocco (the latter being through its exclaves in North Africa); and to the west by Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean. Spain's capital and largest city is Madrid; other major urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Zaragoza, Seville, Bilbao, Málaga, Murcia, Palma de Mallorca and Las Palmas. In early antiquity, the Iberian Peninsula was inhabited by Iberians, Celts, and other pre-Roman peoples. The Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula created the province of Hispania, which became deeply Romanised and later Christianised. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the peninsula was conquered by tribes from Central Europe, among them the Visigoths, who established the Visigothic Kingdom centred on Toledo. In the early 8th century, most of the peninsula was conquered by the Umayyad Caliphate, with Al-Andalus centred on Córdoba. The northern Christian kingdoms of Iberia launched the so-called Reconquista, gradually repelling and ultimately expelling Islamic rule from the peninsula, culminating with the fall of the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada. The dynastic union of the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon in 1479 under the Catholic Monarchs is often seen as the de facto unification of Spain as a nation state. During the Age of Discovery, Spain led the exploration and conquest of the New World, completed the first circumnavigation of the globe, and established one of the largest empires in history, which fostered a global trade system driven by precious metals. The Spanish Empire was ruled by the Habsburg and Bourbon dynasties, both of foreign origin, from 1516 to 1700 and from 1700 onward, respectively. In the 18th century, the Nueva Planta decrees centralised Spain under the Bourbons, strengthening royal authority. The 19th century witnessed the victorious Peninsular War (1808–1814) against Napoleonic forces and the loss of most American colonies amid liberal–absolutist conflicts. These struggles culminated in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and the Francoist dictatorship (1939–1975). With the restoration of democracy and entry into the EU, Spain experienced a major economic boom and social transformation. Spain is a secular parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, with King Felipe VI as head of state. A developed country, it has a high nominal GDP per capita globally and an advanced economy that ranks among the largest in the world and the fourth-largest in the EU. The official language at the national level is Spanish, the world's second-most spoken native language, although other regional languages also have official status in their respective autonomous communities.

Vega is the brightest star in the northern constellation of Lyra. It has the Bayer designation α Lyrae, which is Latinised to Alpha Lyrae and abbreviated Alpha Lyr or α Lyr. This star is relatively close to the Solar System, at only 25 light-years (7.7 parsecs) from the Sun, and one of the most luminous stars in the Sun's neighborhood, being intrinsically brighter than any star nearer to the Sun. It is the fifth-brightest star in the night sky, and the second-brightest star in the northern celestial hemisphere, after Arcturus. Vega has been extensively studied by astronomers, leading it to be termed "arguably the next most important star in the sky after the Sun". Vega was the northern pole star around 12000 BCE and will be so again around the year 13724, when its declination will be +84° 14′, less than six degrees from the Pole. Vega was the first star other than the Sun to have its image and spectrum photographed. It was one of the first stars whose distance was estimated through parallax measurements. Vega has functioned as the baseline for calibrating the photometric brightness scale and was one of the stars used to define the zero point for the UBV photometric system. Vega is only about a tenth of the age of the Sun, but since it is 2.1 times as massive, its expected lifetime is also one tenth of that of the Sun; both stars are at present approaching the midpoint of their main sequence lifetimes. Compared with the Sun, Vega has a lower abundance of elements heavier than helium. Vega is also a variable star—that is, a star whose brightness fluctuates. It is rotating rapidly with a speed of 236 km/s at the equator. This causes the equator to bulge outward due to centrifugal effects, and, as a result, there is a variation of temperature across the star's photosphere that reaches a maximum at the poles. From Earth, Vega is observed from the direction of one of these poles. Based on observations of more infrared radiation than expected, Vega appears to have a circumstellar disk of dust. This dust is likely to be the result of collisions between objects in an orbiting debris disk, which is analogous to the Kuiper belt in the Solar System. Stars that display an infrared excess due to dust emission are termed Vega-like stars. Observations by the James Webb Space Telescope show that the disk is exceptionally smooth, with no evidence of shaping by massive planets, though there is some evidence that there may be one or more Neptune-mass planets closer to the star.

The Harvard School of Dental Medicine (HSDM) is the dental school of Harvard University. It is located in the Longwood Medical Area in Boston, Massachusetts. In addition to the DMD degree, HSDM offers specialty training programs, advanced training programs, and a PhD program through the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. The program considers dentistry a specialty of medicine. Therefore, all students at HSDM experience dual citizenship between Harvard School of Dental Medicine and Harvard Medical School. Today, HSDM is the smallest school at Harvard University with a total student body of 280.

NEC Corporation is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered at the NEC Supertower in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. It sells IT and network services, including cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) platform, and telecommunications equipment and software to business enterprises, communications services providers and to government agencies. It is one of the five largest defense contractors in Japan.

Nicholas II (Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov; 18 May [O.S. 6 May] 1868 – 17 July 1918) was Emperor of Russia from 1 November 1894 until his abdication in 1917. He was the last Russian monarch before the Russian Revolution and oversaw the Russian Empire's participation in World War I. In 1918, the Romanovs were murdered, putting an end to the Romanov dynasty. Born in Tsarskoye Selo, Nicholas was the eldest son of Emperor Alexander III and Empress Maria Feodorovna. He was educated privately and trained for military service, but was widely considered ill-prepared for the demands of ruling a vast empire. Despite ostensibly presiding over a constitutional monarchy, Nicholas resisted political reform and retained autocratic control over the nation's governance even after the establishment of the Duma. While his reign witnessed significant industrial growth and diplomatic engagement, it was also marked by domestic unrest, military defeats, and widespread criticism of his leadership. Nicholas faced mounting disapproval following Russia's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War as well as the turmoil of the 1905 Revolution. During World War I, his popularity declined even further as military losses and economic hardship eroded public confidence in his rule. In March 1917, the February Revolution forced his abdication, ending the Romanov dynasty's 304-year rule. He and his family were imprisoned by the Provisional Government and later transferred to Bolshevik custody. On 17 July 1918, they were executed in Yekaterinburg. In the years following his death, Nicholas was reviled by Soviet historians and state propaganda as a "callous tyrant" who "persecuted his own people while sending countless soldiers to their deaths in pointless conflicts". Despite being viewed more positively in recent years, the majority view among historians is that Nicholas was a well-intentioned yet poor ruler who proved incapable of handling the challenges facing his nation. He and his family were canonised as passion bearers by the Russian Orthodox Church in 2000, following the discovery and reburial of their remains in 1998.

RMS Carpathia was a Cunard Line transatlantic passenger steamship built by C. S. Swan & Hunter in their shipyard in Wallsend, England.

Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, opposite Estonia. Its capital and largest city is Helsinki. Finland has a population of 5.7 million. The official languages are Finnish and Swedish, the mother tongues of 83.5 percent and 5.0 percent of the population, respectively. Finland's climate varies from humid continental in the south to boreal in the north. Its land is predominantly covered by boreal forest, with over 180,000 recorded lakes. Finland was first settled around 9000 BC after the last Ice Age. During the Stone Age, various cultures emerged, distinguished by different styles of ceramics. The Bronze Age and Iron Ages were marked by contacts with other cultures in Fennoscandia and the Baltic region. From the middle of the 13th century, Finland became part of Sweden during the Northern Crusades. In 1809, as a result of the Finnish War, Finland was captured from Sweden and became an autonomous grand duchy within the Russian Empire. During this period, Finnish art flourished and an independence movement gradually developed. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Finland declared its independence. A civil war ensued the following year, with the anticommunist Whites emerging victorious. Finland's status as a republic was confirmed in 1919. During World War II, Finland fought against the Soviet Union in the Winter War and the Continuation War, and later against Nazi Germany in the Lapland War. As a result, it lost parts of its territory to the Soviet Union but retained its independence and democracy. During the Cold War, Finland embraced an official policy of neutrality. After the Cold War, Finland became a member of the European Union in 1995 and the Eurozone in 1999. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Finland joined NATO in 2023. Finland became the first country in Europe to grant universal suffrage in 1906, and the first in the world to give all adult citizens the right to run for public office. Finland remained a largely rural and agrarian country until the 1950s, when it pursued rapid industrialisation and a Nordic-style welfare state, resulting in an advanced economy and high per capita income. The country consistently ranks highly in international rankings across various categories, such as education, economic competitiveness, happiness, and prosperity. Finnish foreign policy based on its middle power status emphasizes international cooperation and partnership, which has recently shifted towards closer ties with NATO. Finnish cultural values, including egalitarianism, secularism, human rights, and environmentalism, are actively promoted through membership in multiple international forums.

The Spanish Civil War (Spanish: guerra civil española) was fought in Spain from 1936 to 1939 between the Republicans and the Nationalist rebels. Republicans loyal to the left-leaning Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic included socialists, anarchists, communists, and separatists, supported by the Soviet Union. The opposing Nationalists were an alliance of Falangists, monarchists, conservatives, and traditionalists, who established the military-led Spanish State and were directly aided by an intervention from Fascist Italy and participation of Nazi Germany. Due to the international political climate at the time, the war was variously viewed as class struggle, religious struggle, or struggle between republican democracy and dictatorship, revolution and counterrevolution, or communism and fascism. The Nationalists won the war in early 1939, and ruled Spain until Franco's death in November 1975. The war began after the partial failure of the coup d'état of July 1936 against the Popular Front government by a group of generals of the Spanish Republican Armed Forces. They were supported by right-wing groups including the Christian traditionalist party CEDA; monarchists, including both the opposing Alfonsists and the religious conservative Carlists; and the Falange Española de las JONS, a fascist political party. However, rebelling units in almost all important cities did not gain control, leaving Spain militarily and politically divided. The Nationalists were initially led by a military junta, until General Francisco Franco was appointed supreme leader on 1 October 1936 of what he called the Spanish State. The rebellion was countered by the arming of left-wing social movements and parties, and the formation of militias. This led to rapid socioeconomic and political transformation in the Republican zone, referred to as the Spanish Revolution. The Nationalist forces received munitions, soldiers, and air support from Fascist Italy which conducted a large-scale intervention and Nazi Germany which sent its Condor Legion, while the Republican government received support from the Soviet Union and Mexico. Other countries, such as the United Kingdom, France, and the United States, continued to recognise the Republican government, but followed official policies of non-intervention. Despite this, tens of thousands of citizens from non-interventionist countries directly participated in the conflict, mostly in the pro-Republican International Brigades. Franco gradually emerged as the primary leader of the Nationalists, becoming the dictator of the Spanish State by 1937 and co-opting Falangism, gaining recognition as a fascist leader. The Nationalists advanced from their strongholds in the south and west, capturing most of Spain's northern coastline in 1937 and besieging Madrid. After much of Catalonia was captured in 1938 and 1939 and Madrid was cut off from Barcelona, the Republican military position became hopeless. On 5 March 1939, in response to allegedly increasing communist dominance of the Republican government and the deteriorating military situation, Colonel Segismundo Casado led a military coup against the Republican government, intending to seek peace with the Nationalists. These peace overtures, however, were rejected by Franco. Following internal conflict between Republican factions in Madrid in the same month, Franco entered the capital and declared victory on 1 April 1939. Hundreds of thousands of those associated with the Republicans fled Spain, mostly to refugee camps in southern France; many of those who stayed were persecuted by the victorious Nationalists. The war became notable for the passion and political division it inspired worldwide, and for the many atrocities that occurred. Organised purges occurred in territory captured by Franco's forces to consolidate power. Mass executions took place in areas controlled by the Republicans, with the participation of local authorities varying by location.

Douglas Corrigan (born Clyde Groce Corrigan; January 22, 1907 – December 9, 1995) was an American aviator, nicknamed "Wrong Way" in 1938. After a transcontinental flight in July from Long Beach, California, to New York City, he then flew from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn to Ireland, although his flight plan was filed to return to Long Beach. Corrigan claimed his unauthorized transatlantic flight was due to a navigational error, caused by heavy cloud cover that obscured landmarks and by misreading his compass in low-light conditions. However, he was a skilled aircraft mechanic (he had helped construct Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis) and had made several modifications to his own plane, preparing it for his transatlantic flight. He had been denied permission to make a nonstop flight from New York to Ireland, and his "navigational error" was seen as deliberate. Nevertheless, he never publicly admitted to having flown to Ireland intentionally.

The Port Chicago disaster was a deadly munitions explosion of the ship SS E. A. Bryan on July 17, 1944, at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in Port Chicago, California, United States. Munitions being loaded onto a cargo vessel bound for the Pacific Theater of Operations detonated, killing 320 sailors and civilians and injuring at least 390 others. Most of the dead were African-American sailors. A month later, the unsafe conditions prompted hundreds of African American servicemen to refuse to load munitions, an act known as the Port Chicago Mutiny. More than 200 were convicted of various charges. Fifty of these men‍—‌, called the "Port Chicago 50"‍—‌, were convicted of mutiny and sentenced to 15 years of prison and hard labor, as well as a dishonorable discharge. Forty-seven of the 50 were released in January 1946; the remaining three served additional months in prison. During and after the mutiny court-martial, questions were raised about the fairness and legality of the proceedings. Owing to public pressure, the United States Navy reconvened the courts-martial board in 1945—that board re-affirmed convictions. Those convictions stood until 2024, when the Navy posthumously exonerated all 256 men convicted during the courts-martial, including the Port Chicago 50. Widespread publicity surrounding the case turned it into a cause célèbre among Americans opposing discrimination targeting African Americans; it and other race-related Navy protests of 1944–45 led the Navy to change its practices and initiate the desegregation of its forces beginning in February 1946. In 1994, the Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial was dedicated to the lives lost in the disaster.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many engaging in total war on an unprecedented scale. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the deaths of 60 to 75 million people, a majority of whom were civilians. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

The First Indochina War, known alternatively as the French Indochina War, was fought in French Indochina between the French Union and the Viet Minh and their respective allies, from 19 December 1946 until 11 August 1954. Most of the engagements of this conflict occurred in Vietnam. At the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, the Allied Combined Chiefs of Staff decided that Indochina south of latitude 16° north was to be included in the South East Asia Command under British Admiral Mountbatten. On 25 August 1945, Vietnamese Emperor Bảo Đại abdicated, handing power over to the Viet Minh. On 2 September, Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV). Also in September 1945, Chinese forces entered Hanoi, and Japanese forces north of the 16th parallel surrendered to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. At the same time, British forces landed in Saigon, and Japanese forces in the south surrendered to the British. The Chinese Nationalists acknowledged the DRV and the communist-led Viet Minh, then in power in Hanoi. The British refused to do that in Saigon, in deference to the French. On 23 September 1945, French forces overthrew the Viet Minh administration in Saigon and declared French authority restored south of the 16th parallel. Guerrilla warfare began around Saigon immediately. After one year of low-level conflicts and failed negotiations, all-out war broke out in December 1946 between French and Viet Minh forces. As part of decolonization, France established the French Union in 1946 and reorganized Indochina in 1949 as a confederation of associated states within it. In June 1949, they united French Cochinchina with the protectorates of Annam and Tonkin to form the State of Vietnam within the French Union, and installed former Emperor Bảo Đại as head of state. The Chinese Communist victory of 1949 changed the nature of the Indochina War. In 1950, the newly established People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union recognized the DRV while the United States recognized the State of Vietnam. The conflict largely resembled a conventional war between two armies equipped with modern weapons, although guerrilla warfare continued to occur in many areas. The United States provided assistance to France, while China assisted the Viet Minh. French Union forces included colonial troops from the empire – North Africans, Sub-Saharan Africans, Laotian, Cambodian and Vietnamese ethnic minorities – and professional French troops, European volunteers, and units of the Foreign Legion. The use of French metropolitan recruits was forbidden by the government to prevent the war from becoming more unpopular at home. It was called the "dirty war" (la sale guerre) by French leftists. In December 1950, France officially established an army for the State of Vietnam. In September 1951, the US began providing direct economic aid to the State of Vietnam. Segments of the population supported neither the communist Viet Minh nor the French colonialists, and were labeled attentistes. After the internationalization of the war, several among them stepped off the fence and entered the political contest. The French strategy of inducing the Viet Minh to attack well-defended bases in remote areas at the end of their logistical trails succeeded at the Battle of Nà Sản. French efforts were hampered by the limited usefulness of tanks in forest terrain, the lack of a strong air force, and reliance on soldiers from French colonies. The Viet Minh used novel and efficient tactics, including direct artillery fire, convoy ambushes, and anti-aircraft weaponry to impede land and air resupplies, while recruiting a sizable regular army facilitated by large popular support. They used guerrilla warfare doctrine and instruction from China, and used war materiel provided by the Soviet Union. This combination proved fatal for the French bases, culminating in a decisive French defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. An estimated 400,000 to 842,707 soldiers died during the war as well as between 125,000 and 400,000 civilians. Both sides committed war crimes, including killings of civilians (such as the Mỹ Trạch massacre by French troops), rape and torture. The State of Vietnam gained full independence legally in June 1954, although the transfer of power was not yet complete. Despite gaining a great military advantage and controlling most of the country's territory, the Viet Minh had to accept a separation at the 17th parallel due to diplomatic pressure from the Chinese. At the Geneva Conference in July 1954, the new French cabinet of Pierre Mendès France agreed to give the Viet Minh control of North Vietnam, but this was rejected by the State of Vietnam and the US. The Indochinese Federation was dissolved in December 1954. In October 1955, the Republic of Vietnam was formed as a successor state of the State of Vietnam. The Republic of Vietnam withdrew from the French Union in December 1955. The last French troops left the Republic of Vietnam on 28 April 1956. An insurgency, de facto controlled by the communist North, developed against the South Vietnamese government. This conflict, known as the Vietnam War, ended in 1975 with the fall of South Vietnam to the North Vietnamese army.

Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the performance of nuclear weapons and the effects of their explosion. Over 2,000 nuclear weapons tests have been carried out since 1945. Nuclear testing is a sensitive political issue. Governments have often performed tests to signal strength. Because of their destruction and fallout, testing has seen opposition by civilians as well as governments, with international bans having been agreed on. Thousands of tests have been performed, with most in the second half of the 20th century.

Abdul Rahman Mohammed ʿArif al-Jumayli (Arabic: عبد الرحمن محمد عارف الجميلي, romanized: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ʿĀrif; 14 April 1916 – 24 August 2007), better known as Abdul Rahman Arif, was an Iraqi military officer and politician who served as the third president of Iraq from 16 April 1966 to 17 July 1968. He was the older brother of the second president of Iraq, Abdul Salam Arif, whom he succeeded after his brother died in an airplane crash in 1966.

Mohammad Zahir Shah was the last king of Afghanistan, reigning from 8 November 1933 until he was deposed on 17 July 1973. Ruling for almost 40 years, Zahir Shah was the longest-serving ruler of Afghanistan since the foundation of the Durrani Empire in the 18th century.

Timor-Leste, also known as East Timor, officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is a country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the coastal exclave of Oecusse in the island's northwest, and the islands of Atauro and Jaco, for a total land area of 15,007 square kilometres (5,794 sq mi). Timor-Leste shares a land border with Indonesia to the west; Australia is the country's southern neighbour, across the Timor Sea. Dili, on the north coast of Timor, is its capital and largest city.

The 1976 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXI Olympiad and officially branded as Montreal 1976, were an international multi-sport event held from July 17 to August 1, 1976, in Montreal, Canada. Montreal was awarded the rights to the 1976 Games at the 69th IOC Session in Amsterdam on May 12, 1970, over the bids of Moscow and Los Angeles. It is the only Summer Olympic Games to be held in Canada. Toronto hosted the 1976 Summer Paralympics the same year as the Montreal Olympics, also the only Summer Paralympics to be held in Canada. Calgary and Vancouver later hosted the Winter Olympic Games in 1988 and 2010, respectively. This was the first of two consecutive Olympic games held in North America, followed by the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid.

On July 17, 1981, two overhead walkways in the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, collapsed, killing 114 people and injuring 216. Loaded with partygoers, the concrete and glass platforms crashed onto a tea dance in the lobby. The collapse resulted in billions of dollars of insurance claims, legal investigations, and city government reforms.

The Brazil national football team, nicknamed Canarinho, represents Brazil in men's international football and is administered by the Brazilian Football Confederation, the governing body of football in Brazil. It has been a member of FIFA since 1923 and was a founding member of CONMEBOL in 1916. It was also a member of PFC, the unified confederation of the Americas, from 1946 to 1961.

TWA Flight 800 was a regularly scheduled Trans World Airlines international passenger flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, United States, to Fiumicino Airport in Rome, Italy, with a stopover at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, France. On July 17, 1996, at approximately 8:31 p.m. EDT, or 20:31, twelve minutes after takeoff, the Boeing 747-100 performing this flight exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near East Moriches, New York.

Husein Sastranegara Airport is an international airport serving Bandung, the capital of West Java, Indonesia. It is located within the city, approximately 3.5 km from Bandung's city center. The airport is named after Husein Sastranegara, an Indonesian Air Force officer who died during the Indonesian National Revolution when his aircraft crashed in Yogyakarta. Prior to the opening of Kertajati International Airport, the airport served as an international gateway and the primary air entry point to Bandung and its surrounding regions. It handled domestic flights to major Indonesian cities such as Denpasar, Surabaya, and Yogyakarta, as well as international routes to Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. However, following the inauguration of Kertajati Airport, most flights were relocated, leading to the suspension of international services and the revocation of its international status. As of July 2026, Husein Sastranegara Airport functions as a secondary airport for Bandung, handling only very limited commercial operations, with Susi Air serving as its sole airline operator. In 2026, the Indonesian government decided to reactivate the airport for scheduled commercial jet services, targeting limited jet operations from 17 August 2026 and full operations from 17 September 2026.

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). It was adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rome, Italy on 17 July 1998 and entered into force on 1 July 2002. As of January 2025, 125 states are party to the statute. Among other things, it establishes court function, jurisdiction and structure.

Jay Prakash Narayan Airport is a customs airport serving Patna, the capital of Bihar, India. Named after the independence activist and political leader Jayprakash Narayan, it is the 20th-busiest airport in India. To cater to burgeoning demand, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) initiated a project to expand and modernise the airport infrastructure, including the construction of a new two-level passenger terminal, which was inaugurated on 29 May 2025.

An earthquake occurred on July 17, 2006, at 15:19:27 local time along a subduction zone off the coast of west and central Java, a large and densely populated island in the Indonesian archipelago. The shock had a moment magnitude of 7.7 and a maximum perceived intensity of IV (Light) in Jakarta, the capital and largest city of Indonesia. There were no direct effects of the earthquake's shaking due to its low intensity, and the large loss of life from the event was due to the resulting tsunami, which inundated a 300 km (190 mi) portion of the Java coast that had been unaffected by the earlier 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami that was off the coast of Sumatra. The July 2006 earthquake was also centered in the Indian Ocean, 180 kilometers (110 mi) from the coast of Java, and had a duration of more than three minutes.

TAM Airlines Flight 3054 was a regularly scheduled domestic passenger flight operated by TAM Airlines from Porto Alegre to São Paulo, Brazil. On the evening of 17 July 2007, the Airbus A320 serving the flight from Porto Alegre overran runway 35L at São Paulo's Congonhas Airport after touching down during moderate rain and crashed into a nearby TAM Express warehouse adjacent to a gas station. The aircraft exploded on impact, killing all 187 passengers and crew on board, as well as 12 people on the ground. An additional 27 people in the warehouse were injured. The accident remains the deadliest aviation disaster in Brazilian and South American history, and was the deadliest involving the Airbus A320 series until the bombing of Metrojet Flight 9268 in 2015 killing 224 people. It was the last major fatal aviation accident in Brazil until 2024, when Voepass Linhas Aéreas Flight 2283 crashed near São Paulo killing 62 people.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that was shot down by Russian-backed forces with a Buk 9M38 surface-to-air missile on 17 July 2014, while flying over eastern Ukraine. All 283 passengers and 15 crew were killed. Contact with the aircraft, a Boeing 777-200ER, was lost when it was about 50 kilometres from the Ukraine–Russia border, and wreckage from the aircraft landed near Hrabove in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, 40 km from the border. The shoot-down occurred during the war in Donbas over territory controlled by Russian separatist forces in Ukraine.

Transport express régional is the brand name used by the SNCF, the French national railway company, to denote rail service run by the regional councils of France, specifically their organised transport authorities. The network serves French regions; Île-de-France (Transilien) and Corsica (CFC) have their own specific transport systems. Every day, over 800,000 passengers are carried on 5,700 TER-branded trains.

On July 17, 2014, Eric Garner, a 43-year-old African American man, was killed in the New York City borough of Staten Island by Daniel Pantaleo, a New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer, after putting him in a prohibited chokehold while arresting him. Video footage of the incident generated widespread national attention and raised questions about the use of force by law enforcement.