On This Day - What happened 17 July

In July, the Confiscation Act of 1862 was enacted, providing court procedures to free the slaves of those convicted of aiding the rebellion; Lincoln approved the bill despite his belief that it was unconstitutional.

In Buffalo, New York, on July 17, 1902, in response to an air quality problem experienced at the Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographing & Publishing Company of Brooklyn, Willis Carrier submitted drawings for what became recognized as the world's first modern air conditioning system.

On 17 July 1920, a British Colonel Gerald Smyth was assassinated by the IRA in the County Club in Cork city in response to a speech that was made to police officers of Listowel who had refused orders to move into the more urban areas, in which he stated "you may make mistakes occasionally, and innocent persons may be shot, but that cannot be helped.

The Spanish Civil War began in July 1936 and officially ended with Franco's victory in April 1939, leaving 190,000 to 500,000 dead.

Control over Spanish Morocco was all but certain. The plan was discovered in Morocco on 17 July, which prompted the conspirators to enact it immediately. Little resistance was encountered. The rebels shot 189 people. Goded and Franco immediately took control of the islands to which they were assigned.

The Banda Carità, a special unit constituted within the 92nd Legion Blackshirts, operated in Tuscany and Veneto. It became infamous for violent repressions, such as the 1944 Piazza Tasso massacre in Florence.

At the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, the Combined Chiefs of Staff decided that Indochina south of latitude 16° north was to be included in the Southeast Asia Command under British Admiral Mountbatten. Japanese forces located south of that line surrendered to him and those to the north surrendered to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek.

He was recommended for promotion to major on February 2, 1945, but this recommendation was disapproved on July 17 of that year.

Churchill was Great Britain's representative at the post-war Potsdam Conference when it opened on 17 July and was accompanied at its sessions not only by Anthony Eden as Foreign Secretary but also, pending the result of the July general election, by Attlee. Potsdam went badly for Churchill. Eden later described his performance as "appalling", saying that he was unprepared and verbose. Churchill upset the Chinese, exasperated the Americans, and was easily led by Stalin, whom he was supposed to be resisting.

Merkel was born Angela Dorothea Kasner in 1954, in Hamburg, West Germany.

For several years Disney had been considering building a theme park. When he visited Griffith Park in Los Angeles with his daughters, he wanted to be in a clean, unspoiled park, where both children and their parents could have fun. He visited the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, Denmark, and was heavily influenced by the cleanliness and layout of the park.= In March 1952 he received zoning permission to build a theme park in Burbank, near the Disney studios. This site proved too small, and a larger plot in Anaheim, 35 miles (56 km) south of the studio, was purchased. To distance the project from the studio‍—‌which might attract the criticism of shareholders‍—‌Disney formed WED Enterprises (now Walt Disney Imagineering) and used his own money to fund a group of designers and animators to work on the plans.Construction work started in July 1954, and Disneyland opened in July 1955; the opening ceremony was broadcast on ABC, which reached 70 million viewers. Although there were early minor problems with the park, it was a success, and after a month's operation, Disneyland was receiving over 20,000 visitors a day; by the end of its first year, it attracted 3.6 million guests.

Hepburn's son Sean Hepburn Ferrer was born on 17 July 1960.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called on Iraqis to overthrow the Ba'ath government, which was received with considerable anger in Baghdad. On 17 July 1979, despite Khomeini's call, Saddam gave a speech praising the Iranian Revolution and called for an Iraqi-Iranian friendship based on non-interference in each other's internal affairs. When Khomeini rejected Saddam's overture by calling for Islamic revolution in Iraq, Saddam was alarmed.

on 17 July President Somoza resigned and the FSLN entered Managua, giving full control of the government to the revolutionary movements.

On 17 July 1985, Soleimani opposed the IRGC leadership's plan to deploy forces to two islands in western Arvand Rud, on the Shatt al-Arab River.

On 16 or 17 July 1990 the League of Communists of Serbia (LCS) combined with the Socialist Alliance of Working People of Serbia to become the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), and Milošević became its first president.

ِِA Boeing 747-131, TWA Flight 800, carrying 212 passengers and 18 crew, exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near East Moriches, New York, shortly after departing from John F. Kennedy International Airport on a flight to Paris and Rome. A lengthy investigation concluded that the probable cause of the accident was a short circuit in a fuel tank that contained an explosive mixture of fuel vapor and air. As a result, new requirements were developed to prevent future fuel tank explosions in aircraft.

The tide turned in mid-July when the KLA captured Orahovac. On 17 July 1998, two nearby villages, Retimlije and Opteruša, were also captured, while less systematic events took place in the larger Serb-populated village of Velika Hoča.

In the aftermath of the quake, many local governments promised to formally investigate the school collapses, but as of July 17, 2008, across Sichuan, parents of children lost in collapsed schools complained they had yet to receive any reports.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, a Boeing 777-200ER, flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur with 298 people on board, was shot down in an area of Eastern Ukraine near the Ukraine/Russian border during the War in Donbass. There were 283 passengers, including 3 infants, and 15 crew members on board MH17, all of whom perished. The crew was all Malaysians, while the passengers were of various nationalities, most from the Netherlands.

UNCTAD XIV was held in Nairobi, Kenya, from 17 to 22 July 2016.

On 17 July 2017, Totti confirmed his retirement from professional football and announced that he had accepted an offer from his former team Roma to become a club director.

On 17 June 2019, he announced his resignations from his managerial role at AS Roma, in a hour-long press conference held at the Italian Olympic Committee headquarters where he publicly accused chairman James Pallotta and the management for not involving him enough into the club's decision making, up to the point of stating he would reconsider a comeback only under a different ownership. The events marked the end for his 30-year long formal association with the club.

It was released on 17 July 2020 through Polydor Records. Originally scheduled for 5 June 2020, the album's release was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The album is preceded by three singles: "Worry About Me", "Power" and "Slow Grenade", and features guest vocals from Blackbear, Diplo, Juice Wrld, Lauv, serpentwithfeet and Swae Lee. It is Goulding's first album since Delirium (2015).

The first multi-millionaire in the United States, John Jacob Astor, was born in Walldorf, Electoral Palatinate, Holy Roman Empire.

The Emperor of Russia, Peter III, died in captivity at the age of 34.

The Dutch theologist and Minister of Education, Johannes Hendricus van der Palm, was born in 1840.

Following the murder of Peter III, Catherine II became the new ruler of Russia.