Today in History - History - July 17th

1980Ronald Reagan formally accepts Republican nomination for US president

1994Hulk Hogan beats Ric Flair to win WCW wrestling championship

1995Forbes Mag announces Bill Gates is the richest man in world ($12.9B)

2005Tiger Woods wins his 10th major winning The British Open Championship by 5 strokes. Woods becomes only the second golfer, after Jack Nicklaus, to win each major more than once

1945Potsdam Conference (Truman, Stalin, Churchill) holds 1st meeting

1964ANC leader Nelson Mandela, recently sentenced to life imprisonment, is awarded the Joliot Curie Gold Medal for Peace

1974John Lennon is ordered to leave US in 60 days

1603Sir Walter Raleigh arrested by forces of King James

1998Russia buries Tsar Nicholas II & family, 80 years after they died

1717Handel's "Water Music" premieres on the river Thames in London

1947Camilla Parker Bowles (Duchess of Cornwall), London England, wife of Prince Charles

1899James Cagney, New York City, NY, American actor (Yankee Doodle Dandy)

1921Toni Stone [Marcenia Lyle Alberga], St. Paul Minnesota, American baseball player (first woman to play in a men's league)

1889Erle Stanley Gardner, Malden Mass., US detective writer (Perry Mason), (d. 1970)

1952David Hasselhoff, Balt Md, actor (Night Rider, Mitch-Baywatch)

1917Phyllis Diller, Lima Ohio, comedienne and actress (Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number), (d. 2012)

1999Actress Raquel Welch (58) weds Richard Palmer in Beverly Hills, California

1954Master of quick wit and widely considered one of the best comedians of the modern era Groucho Marx (63) weds actress Eden Hartford (24)

1990Record producer Berry Gordy (60) weds Grace Easton

1988NHL ice hockey star player Wayne Gretzky (27) weds actress Janet Jones (27) at St. Joseph's Basilica in Edmonton, Canada

1999Academy Award-winning actress Helen Hunt (36) weds "The Simpsons" voice actor Hank Azaria (35) in Los Angeles, California

1990Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (56) weds Suha Tawil (27)

1918Nicholas II Alexandrovich, last Tsar of Russia, executed at 50

2009Walter Cronkite, American broadcast journalist (b. 1916)

1918Anastasia Nikolaevna, daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, executed at 17

1967John Coltrane, US jazz sax/composer (Round Midnight), dies at 40

1790Adam Smith, Scottish economist and philosopher (b. 1723)

1961Ty Cobb, baseball great (Det Tigers), dies of cancer at 74