On this day: July 17
Air conditioning is born, the "happiest place on Earth" opens up and the Beatles get animated, all on this day.
2011: Casey Anthony is released from jail in Orange County, Fla., 17 days after being cleared of murdering her daughter Caylee.
2011: Casey Anthony is released from jail in Orange County, Fla., 17 days after being cleared of murdering her daughter Caylee.
1815: Napoleon Bonaparte surrenders to the British at Rochefort, France.
1856: The Great Train Wreck of 1856 in Fort Washington, Pa., kills more than 60 people and injures more than 100, making it the deadliest railroad catastrophe in the world up to that time.
1867: Harvard School of Dental Medicine is established in Boston, becoming the first dental school in the U.S.
1899: Actor James Cagney ("White Heat," "Yankee Doodle Dandy") is born in New York City.
1902: Willis Haviland Carrier completes drawings for what came to be recognized as the world's first scientific air conditioning system.
1917: Comedian/actress Phyllis Diller is born in Lima, Ohio.
1917: The British royal family adopts the Windsor name. The family name was changed from the German Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, due to the anti-German sentiment in the British Empire during World War I.
1918: The RMS Carpathia, the ship that rescued the 705 survivors from the RMS Titanic, is sunk off Ireland by the German SM U-55. Five lives are lost.
1935: Actor Donald Sutherland is born in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada.
1944: Near the San Francisco Bay, two ships laden with ammunition for the war explode in Port Chicago, Calif., killing 320.
1952: Actor David Hasselhoff ("Baywatch") is born in Baltimore, Md.
1955: Disneyland is dedicated and opened by Walt Disney in Anaheim, Calif.
1959: Jazz singer Billie Holiday dies in New York City.
1961: Baseball player Ty Cobb dies in Atlanta, Ga.
1967: Jazz saxophonist John Coltrane dies in New York City.
1968: The Beatles' feature-length cartoon, "Yellow Submarine," premieres at the London Pavilion.
1975: An American Apollo and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft dock with each other in orbit marking the first such link-up between spacecraft from the two nations.
1976: The opening of the Summer Olympics in Montreal is marred by 25 African teams boycotting the inclusion of New Zealand, whose rugby team had played in South Africa that year.
1981: A structural failure leads to the collapse of a walkway at the Hyatt Regency in Kansas City, Mo., killing 114 people and injuring more than 200. At the time, it was the deadliest structural collapse in U.S. history, not to be surpassed until the collapse of the World Trade Center in 2001.
1981: The Humber Bridge at Kingston-upon-Hull, England, is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II. Upon its opening, the bridge becomes the longest single-span bridge in the world (1,542 yards), a record it would hold for 16 years.
1981: After 23 years with the name Datsun, executives of Nissan change the name of their cars to Nissan.
1987: Lt. Col. Oliver North and Rear Adm. John Poindexter begin testifying to Congress at the "Iran-Contra" hearings.
1987: The Dow Jones industrial average closes above 2,500 (2,510.04) for first time.
1989: The B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber flies for the first time.
1995: The Nasdaq composite stock index rises above 1,000 for the first time.
1996: Off the coast of Long Island, N.Y., Paris-bound TWA Flight 800 explodes, killing all 230 on board. Here reconstruction crews reassemble the jet's fuselage.
1997: After 117 years, the Woolworth Corp. closes its last 400 stores.
1998: A tsunami triggered by an undersea earthquake destroys 10 villages in Papua New Guinea killing an estimated 3,183, leaving 2,000 more unaccounted for and thousands more homeless.
2009: Journalist Walter Cronkite dies.
