July 17

It’s Peach Ice Cream Day and Yellow Pig Day

ON THIS DAY…
709BC The earliest record of a confirmed total solar eclipse was written in China
1453 The Hundred Years’ War between England and France ends with the English defeat at the Battle of Castillon in France
1762 Catherine II becomes tzar of Russia upon the murder of Peter III of Russia
1790 Thomas Saint, a London cabinet maker, patented possibly the first sewing machine, fitted with an awl that makes a hole in leather and allows a needle to pass through it
1791 Massacre at the Champ de Mars, Paris, during the French Revolution. 1200-1500 people were killed, including women and children
1841 Punch, the British humor magazine, debuted
1867 The Harvard School of Dental Medicine was established in Boston, MA
1889 NEC Corporation is organized as the first Japanese joint venture with foreign capital
1897 Klondike gold rush begins when first successful prospectors arrive in Seattle, WA
1902 Willis Haviland Carrier completed drawings for what came to be recognized as the world’s first scientific air conditioning system
1917 King George V of the United Kingdom issues a Proclamation stating that the male line descendants of the British royal family will bear the surname Windsor
1918 RMS Carpathia, the ship that rescued the 705 survivors from the RMS Titanic, is sunk off Ireland by the Unterseeboot 55 with 5 lives lost
1936 An Armed Forces rebellion against the recently-elected leftist Popular Front government of Spain starts the Spanish civil war
1938 Douglas “Wrong Way” Corrigan leaves from Brooklyn for LA (according to his flight plan) in a tiny single-engine plane; 29 hours later, he winds up in Ireland, claiming his compasses had failed
1941 After hitting in a record 56 consecutive games, Joe DiMaggio is held hitless by the Cleveland Indians; the next day, he begins another hitting streak of 16 games
1944 The largest convoy of the Second World War embarks from Halifax, Nova Scotia under Royal Canadian Navy protection
1944 Near the San Francisco Bay, two ships laden with ammunition for the war explode in Port Chicago, CA killing 320
1945 Harry Truman, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin meet at the beginning of the Potsdam Conference, which will determine the details of the Allied occupation of Germany
1948 The States’ Rights Party, a group of southern Democrats who oppose the civil rights program of the Democratic Party, nominates South Carolina governor Strom Thurmond for president at their convention
1955 The town of Arco, ID became the first community in the world to have all its electrical needs provided by nuclear power
1955 Disneyland opens in Anaheim, CA
1959 Mary Leakey, the wife of Dr Louis Leakey, discovered an ancient hominid skull, a very significant find – the first specimen of this species
1962 The “Small Boy” test shot Little Feller I becomes the last atmospheric test detonation at the Nevada Test Site
1967 The Beatles single “All You Need is Love”/”Baby, You’re a Rich Man” is released in the US
1975 American and Soviet spacecraft link in space for the first time when the American Apollo spacecraft docks onto the Soviet Soyuz 19
1979 As Sandinista rebels prepare to take over Nicaragua, dictator Anastasio Somoza flees the country, ending his family’s 43-year reign in the country
1997 The F.W. Woolworth Company closes after 117 years in business

BORN:
1889 Erle Stanley Gardner, lawyer and author of detective stories best known as the creator of Perry Mason
1899 James Cagney, vaudeville performer, song and dance man, author, environmentalist, and Academy Award-winning actor (Yankee Doodle Dandy, Angels With Dirty Faces, Mister Roberts)
1912 Art Linkletter (Gordon Arthur Kelly), actor, television personality and the host of two of the longest-running shows in US broadcast history: House Party, which ran on CBS radio and television for 25 years, and People Are Funny, on NBC radio-TV for 19 years
1917 Phyllis Diller, comedienne, considered to be one of the pioneers of female stand-up comedy
1920 Nils Bohlin, engineer who invented the familiar three-point lap and shoulder seatbelt which is considered one of the most important innovations in automobile safety
1920 Gordon Gould, physicist who coined the word “laser” from the initial letters of “Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation”
1929 Helene Stanley, actress and the live-action model & singing voice for Disney’s Cinderella (1950) and the live-action model for Sleeping Beauty (1959)
1935 Donald Sutherland, Emmy Award-winning actor (Citizen X, The Dirty Dozen, MASH, Klute, Dirty Sexy Money, Don’t Look Now, National Lampoon’s Animal House, Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
1935 P.D.Q. Bach (Peter Schickele), composer, musical educator and parodist
1940 Tim Brooke-Taylor, comedian, actor, writer (The Goodies, The Frost Report, At Last the 1948 Show, Me and My Girl (TV), Marple: Murder Is Easy)
1944 Catherine Schell, actress (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, The Return of the Pink Panther, Doctor Who – “The City of Death”, Space: 1999)
1952 David Hasselhoff, singer and actor (The Young and the Restless, Knight Rider, Baywatch, Jekyll & Hyde: The Musical)
1954 J. Michael Straczynski, award-winning American writer/producer working in a variety of media, including television series, novels, short stories, comic books, and radio dramas; he is also a playwright, journalist and author of The Complete Book of Scriptwriting and the creator, executive producer and head writer for the science fiction TV series Babylon 5 and its spin-off Crusade
1971 Cory Doctorow, blogger, journalist and science fiction author who serves as co-editor of the blog Boing Boing

DIED:
1793 Charlotte Corday (Marie-Anne Charlotte Corday d’Armont), a figure of the French revolution best remembered for murdering Jean-Paul Marat whom she held responsible for the September Massacres, was guillotined at 25
1881 Jim Bridger, among the foremost mountain men, trappers, scouts and guides who explored and trapped the Western United States during the decades of 1820-1840, dies at 77
1887 Dorothea Dix, activist on behalf of the indigent insane who, through a vigorous program of lobbying state legislatures and the United States Congress, created the first generation of American mental asylums and during the Civil War, she served as Superintendent of Army Nurses, dies at 85
1959 Billie Holiday (Eleanora Fagan), songwriter and vocalist who had a seminal influence on jazz, and pop singing with her vocal style — strongly inspired by instrumentalists — pioneering a new way of manipulating wording and tempo, and also popularized a more personal and intimate approach to singing, dies of cirrhosis of the liver at 44
1971 Cliff Edwards, actor, singer and fondly remembered as the voice of Jiminy Cricket, dies at 76
2004 Pat Roach, actor and wrestler who made appearances in the first three Indiana Jones films though most famous role is that of West Country bricklayer Brian “Bomber” Busbridge in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, dies at 67
2005 Sir Edward Richard George Heath, KG, MBE, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1970-1974), Leader of the Opposition (1965-1970, 1974-1975), dies at 89
2006 Mickey Spillane, author of crime novels, many featuring his signature detective character, Mike Hammer, dies at 88