July 17

• July 17, 1453
  Actively used artillery France defeat England at the Battle at Castillon in France, marking end of the Hundred Years War
• July 17, 1695
  The Bank of Scotland is founded, and is granted a 21-year banking monopoly with note-issuing privileges
• July 17, 1762
  Peter III, Emperor of Russia, is murdered by conspiracy led by his wife, German Princess Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg, who becomes Empress of Russia Catherine II
• July 17, 1789
  The Great Fear caused by peasant rebellions swept through France as the Revolution continued
• July 17, 1830
  French tailor Barthélemy Thimonnier patents the first practical and widely used sewing machine
• July 17, 1850
  Astronomer William Cranch Bond and photographer John Adams Whipple focus on Vega and produce the first photograph of a star
• July 17, 1876
  At Warbonnet Creek, Nebraska, Buffalo Bill Cody, an American soldier, takes the scalp of Cheyenne Chief Yellow Hair following a duel
• July 17, 1898
  United States troops under General William Rufus Shafter take Santiago de Cuba during the Spanish-American War
• July 17, 1902
  Willis Carrier, an American engineer, publishes drawings for the world's first modern air conditioning system to depress relative humidity due to quality problems in the Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographing
• July 17, 1945
  American President Harry Truman, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill meet at Schloss Cecilienhof in Potsdam near Berlin, Germany and divide Europe into Western and Soviet blocs
• July 17, 1955
  Disneyland theme park opens in Anaheim, California, with eighteen attractions which attract 28,000-33,000 guests for the day
• July 17, 1979
  Nicaraguan dictator General Anastasio Somoza Debayle resigns due to Nicaraguan revolution and flees to Miami, Florida
• July 17, 1981
  Israeli aircraft bomb Beirut, destroying multi-storey apartment blocks containing the offices of PLO associated groups, killing approximately 300 civilians and resulting in worldwide condemnation and a U.S. embargo on the export of aircraft to Israel
• July 17, 2014
  Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, a Boeing 777 with 298 people on board, crashes in eastern Ukraine after being shot down by a missile

March 24

• March 24, 1241
  Mongol army enters almost abandoned Krakaw in Poland, sacking and burning the city
• March 24, 1550
  France and England sign the Peace of Boulogne which ends the war of England with Scotland and France. France bought back Boulogne for 400,000 crowns
• March 24, 1603
  Tudor Queen Elizabeth I of England dies and is succeeded by her cousin, son of Mary, King James VI of Scotland, thus uniting the crowns of Scotland and England
• March 24, 1661
  William Leddra becomes the last Quaker to be hanged in Boston when Charles II orders the executions stopped
• March 24, 1720
  Financial crisis for banks of Paris, France, as the Mississippi Bubble bursts
• March 24, 1721
  Johann Sebastian Bach opens his Brandenburg concertos, a collection of six instrumental works presented by Bach to Christian Ludwig, margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt
• March 24, 1765
  Britain enacts Quartering Act, required colonists to provide temporary housing to British soldiers in public and private buildings
• March 24, 1794
  Tadeusz Kostiuszko, a veteran of the American Revolutionary War, announces the general uprising and assumed the powers of the Commander in Chief of all of the Polish forces
• March 24, 1802
  Richard Trevithick is granted a patent in London for his steam locomotive
• March 24, 1882
  German scientist Robert Koch announces in Berlin that he has discovered the bacillus responsible for tuberculosis
• March 24, 1933
  Following the Reichstag Fire Decree abolished most civil liberties, German Reichstag passes the Enabling Act giving Hitler dictatorial powers until April 1, 1937
• March 24, 1942
  United States moves native-born of Japanese ancestry into detention centers starting internment of Japanese-American citizens in the United States
• March 24, 1972
  Great Britain imposes direct rule over Northern Ireland
• March 24, 1986
  United States and Libya clash in Gulf of Sidra during United States bombing of Libya
• March 24, 1989
  Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker, strikes Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef and spils 260,000 to 750,000 barrels of crude oil, which becomes one of the most devastating human-caused environmental disasters
• March 24, 1997
  Australian parliament overturns world's first and only euthanasia law
• March 24, 2014
  During an emergency meeting, the United Kingdom, the United States, Italy, Germany, France, Japan, and Canada temporarily suspend Russia from the G8

March 21

• March 21, 1421
  A Franco-Scots army beat British at the Battle of Bauge
• March 21, 1556
  Thomas Cranmer, an archbishop of Canterbury, is burned at stake at age 66
• March 21, 1617
  Pocahontas dies of either small pox or pneumonia during preparation to sail back to Virginia
• March 21, 1668
  Jean de La Fontaine, one of the most widely read French poets, publishes his Fables Choisies, a collection of 124 fables dividing into six books
• March 21, 1697
  Tsar Peter the Great begins a tour through West Europe
• March 21, 1801
  British expeditionary corps under Sir Ralph Abercrombie defeat the French army under General Menou in the Battle of Alexandria during Anglo-Ottoman land offensive
• March 21, 1804
  The French civil code, later called the Napoleonic Code, is adopted and which forbids privileges based on birth and allows freedom of religion
• March 21, 1858
  British forces in India lift the siege of Lucknow during the Indian Rebellion
• March 21, 1865
  The Battle of Bentonville, North Carolina, ends, marking the last Confederate attempt to stop Union General William Sherman
• March 21, 1871
  Journalist Henry M. Stanley began his famous expedition to Africa to locate the missing Scottish missionary David Livingstone
• March 21, 1871
  Otto von Bismarck becomes the 1st Chancellor of the German Empire
• March 21, 1918
  German Army begins the Great March Offensive and drives the Allied army back 40 kilometers before losing momentum
• March 21, 1921
  James "Big Jim" Colosimo, United States gangster and boss of an Italian American crime syndicate, is murdered by Al Capone
• March 21, 1935
  Persia is officially renamed Iran
• March 21, 1960
  Police kill 72 in South Africa and outlaws African National Congress during Sharpeville massacre
• March 21, 1980
  U.S. President Jimmy Carter announces that the United States will boycott the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow because of the Soviet war in Afghanistan
• March 21, 1990
  After 75 years of South African rule, Namibia becomes independent, with Sam Nujoma as the first president
• March 21, 1991
  United Nations Security Council panel decides to lift the food embargo on Iraq
• March 21, 1999
  Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones become the first to circumnavigate the Earth in a hot air balloon
• March 21, 2014
  Russia formally annexes Crimea after President Vladimir Putin signed a bill finalizing the annexation process