Today In History

Today is Tuesday, July 17, the 198th day of 2007. There are 167 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On July 17, 1996, TWA Flight 800, a Paris-bound Boeing 747, exploded and crashed off Long Island, N.Y., shortly after leaving John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 230 people aboard.

On this date:

In 1821, Spain ceded Florida to the United States.

In 1898, during the Spanish-American War, Spanish troops in Santiago, Cuba, surrendered to U.S. forces.

In 1918, Russia's Czar Nicholas II and his family were executed by the Bolsheviks.

In 1944, 322 people were killed when a pair of ammunition ships exploded in Port Chicago, Calif.

In 1945, President Harry Truman, Soviet leader Josef Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill began meeting at Potsdam, Germany, in the final Allied summit of World War II.

In 1955, Disneyland debuted in Anaheim, Calif.

In 1967, jazz composer-musician John Coltrane died in Huntington, N.Y., at age 40.

In 1975, an Apollo spaceship docked with a Soyuz spacecraft in orbit in the first superpower linkup of its kind.

In 1979, Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza resigned and fled into exile in Miami.

In 1981, 114 people were killed when a pair of walkways above the lobby of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel collapsed during a "tea dance."

Ten years ago: Woolworth Corp. announced it was closing its 400 remaining five-and-dime stores across the country, ending 117 years in business. President Bill Clinton nominated Army Gen. Henry Shelton to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The space shuttle Columbia and its crew of seven returned to Earth after a near-flawless 16-day science mission.

Five years ago: A double suicide bombing in Tel Aviv killed two foreign workers and one Israeli. In Britain, a one-day strike by 750,000 municipal employees closed schools, libraries and recreation centers in their first national walkout in more than two decades.

One year ago: The shuttle Discovery and its crew of six returned home safely. A powerful earthquake sent a tsunami crashing into a beach resort on Indonesia's Java island, killing at least 600 people. Mystery writer Mickey Spillane died in Murrells Inlet, S.C., at age 88.

Thought for Today: "Modo et modo non habebant modum." (By and by never comes.) — St. Augustine (A.D. 354-A.D. 430).