Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 is shot down over Eastern Ukraine by a Buk surface-to-air missile launched from pro-Russian separatist-controlled territory, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board.
2009
Former CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite died at age 92.
2000
Bashar Assad succeeded his late father, Hafez Assad, becoming Syria's 16th head of state.
1998
The last Russian Czar Nicholas II was buried 80 years after he and his family were executed by the Bolsheviks.
1996
TWA Flight 800, a Boeing747 bound for Paris, exploded and crashed off Long Island, N.Y., shortly after leaving John F. Kennedy International Airport. All 230 people aboard were killed.
1989
The Stealth Bomber makes its debut. The Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit made its first public flight from Palmdale, California.
Indonesia annexes East Timor and declares it its 27th province. This was the culmination of a 8-month long Indonesian invasion and occupation of the Southeast Asian country that began just after East Timor declared its independence from Portugal in November, 1975.
Disneyland opens its doors for the first time. The popular theme park (“The Happiest Place on Earth”) was opened by Walt Disney in Anaheim, California.
Southern Democrats opposed to the party's position on civil rights met in Birmingham, Ala., to endorse South Carolina Gov. Strom Thurmond for president.
President Harry S. Truman, Soviet leader Josef Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill began meeting at Potsdam in the final Allied summit of World War II.