July 17
U.S. president Harry S Truman, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, and British prime minister Winston Churchill, meet in the Berlin suburb of Potsdam to discuss issues relating to postwar Europe and plans to deal with the ongoing conflict with Japan. The meeting was marked by growing suspicion and tension between the United States and the Soviet Union. – 1945.
Disneyland, Walt Disney’s metropolis of nostalgia, fantasy, and futurism, opens. The $17 Million theme park was built on 160 acres of former orange groves in Anaheim, Calif., and soon brought in staggering profits. Today, Disneyland is host to more than 14 Million visitors a year, who spend close to $3 Billion. – 1955.
July 18
A fire erupts in Rome and spreads rapidly throughout the market area in the center of the city. When the flames finally die out more than a week later, nearly two-thirds of Rome is destroyed. Emperor Nero used the fire as an opportunity to rebuild Rome in a more orderly Greek style. – 64 A.D..
The Spanish Civil War begins as a revolt by right-wing Spanish military officers in Spanish Morocco and spreads to mainland Spain. Within three days, the rebels capture Morocco, much of northern Spain, and several key cities in the south. – 1936.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who first took office in 1933 as America’s 32nd president, is nominated for an unprecedented third term. Roosevelt, of the Democratic Party, eventually would be elected to a record four terms in office, the only U.S. president to be elected to more than two terms. – 1940.
July 19
During Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egyptian campaign, a French soldier discovers a black basalt slab inscribed with ancient writing near the town of Rosetta, about 35 miles north of Alexandria. The irregularly-shaped stone contained fragments of passages written in three different scripts: Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphics, and Egyptian demotic. The ancient Greek on the Rosetta Stone told archaeologists that it was inscribed by priests honoring the king of Egypt, Ptolemy V, in the second century B.C.E.. More startlingly, the Greek passage announced that the three scripts all were of identical meaning. The artifact thus held the key to solving the riddle of hieroglyphics, a written language that had been “dead” for nearly 2,000 years. – 1799.
Women’s Rights Convention opens in Seneca Falls, N.Y.. Delegates adopt a Declaration of Women’s Rights and call for women’s suffrage. – 1848.
July 20
New York City newsboys, many so poor that they were sleeping in the streets, begin a two-week strike. Several rallies drew more than 5,000 newsboys, complete with charismatic speeches by strike leader Kid Blink, who was blind in one eye. The boys had to pay publishers up front for the newspapers; they were successful in forcing the publishers to buy back unsold papers. – 1899.
A bomb planted in Adolf Hitler’s briefcase goes off, but fails to kill him. In an effort to find all conspirators, more than 5,000 so-called “enemies of the Furher” are killed. – 1944.
At 10:56 p.m. EDT, American astronaut Neil Armstrong, 240,000 miles from Earth, speaks these words to more than one billion individuals listening at home: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Stepping off the lunar landing module Eagle, Armstrong became the first human to walk on the surface of the moon. – 1969.
A gunman goes on a rampage at a movie theater in the Denver, Colo. suburb of Aurora and kills 12 individuals and injures at least 70 others. – 2012.
July 21
In the first major land battle of the Civil War, a large Union force of 34,000 soldiers under General Irvin McDowell is routed by a Confederate army of approximately 29,000 men under General Pierre G.T. Beauregard. – 1861.
July 22
Outside Chicago’s Biograph Theatre, notorious criminal John Dillinger, America’s “Public Enemy No. 1,” is killed in a hail of bullets fired by federal agents. In a bank-robbing career that lasted just over one year, Dillinger and his associates robbed 11 banks for more than $300,000, which in today’s money would be approximately $5.2 Million. – 1934.
Milwaukee, Wis. police officers spot Tracy Edwards running down the street in handcuffs, and upon investigation find one of the grisliest scenes in modern history, Jeffrey Dahmer’s apartment. Dahmer confessed to 17 murders in all. – 1991.
July 23
In the early-morning hours of July 23, 1967, one of the worst riots in U.S. history breaks out on 12th Street in the heart of Detroit’s predominantly African-American inner city. By the time it was quelled four days later by 7,000 National Guard and U.S. Army troops, 43 persons were dead, 342 injured, and nearly 1,400 buildings had been burned. – 1967.