This Day in History: July 17

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This Day In History: July 17

Take a look at all of the important historical events that took place on July 17.

On this day, July 17 …

2014: Eric Garner, an unarmed Black man accused of selling loose, untaxed cigarettes, dies shortly after being wrestled to the ground by New York City police officers: A video of the takedown shows Garner repeatedly saying, "I can't breathe." (Garner's family would receive $5.9 million from the city in 2015 to settle a wrongful death claim.)

Also on this day:

• 1945: Following Nazi Germany's surrender, President Harry S. Truman, Soviet leader Josef Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill begin meeting at Potsdam in the final Allied summit of World War II.
• 1954: The two-day inaugural Newport Jazz Festival, billed as "The First American Jazz Festival," opens in Rhode Island.
• 1961: Baseball legend Ty Cobb dies in Atlanta at age 74.
• 1955: Disneyland has its opening day in Anaheim, Calif.
• 1975: An Apollo spaceship docks with a Soyuz spacecraft in orbit in the first superpower link-up of its kind.
• 1996: TWA Flight 800, a Europe-bound Boeing 747, explodes and crashes off Long Island, N.Y., shortly after departing John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 230 people on board.
• 1997: Woolworth Corp. announces it is closing its 400 remaining five-and-dime stores across the country, ending 117 years in business.

FILE - This undated file photo provided by CBS shows Walter Cronkite. A private funeral for Cronkite, who died Friday, July 17, 2009, will held Thursday afternoon, July 23 at St. Bartholomew's Church in midtown Manhattan, where the CBS newsman's family worshipped for decades. (AP Photo/CBS, file) NO SALES

• 2009: Former CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite dies in New York at 92.
• 2014: All 298 passengers and crew aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 are killed when the Boeing 777 is shot down over rebel-held eastern Ukraine.