On July 17

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.

TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overran the runway at Congonhas Airport in São Paulo, Brazil, killing 199 people.

TWA Flight 800 exploded in mid-air and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near East Moriches, New York.

Brazil won the FIFA World Cup final against Italy 3–2 on penalties following a 0–0 draw after extra time.

The Manchester Metrolink, the first modern street-running light-rail system in the United Kingdom, was officially opened.

Led by Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr (pictured), the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party overthrew Iraqi president Abdul Rahman Arif in a bloodless coup.

In Olympia, Greece, the Summer Olympics torch relay, nicknamed the "relay of peace", began.

Laden with munitions for World War II, two ships exploded at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in California, killing 320 people and injuring more than 400 others.

Russian Revolution: Tsar Nicholas II and his family (pictured) were murdered by Bolsheviks at Yekaterinburg.

RMS Carpathia, which had rescued survivors of the 1912 Titanic sinking, was sunk by a German U-boat with the loss of five crew.

The New Zealand Wars resumed as British forces led by General Duncan Cameron began the invasion of the Waikato.

The garrotting and robbery of James Pilkington, a British member of Parliament, led to a moral panic in London.

William Cranch Bond and John Adams Whipple took a daguerreotype of Vega, the first astrophotograph of a star other than the Sun.

Dene men, acting as guides to Samuel Hearne on his exploration of the Coppermine River in present-day Nunavut, Canada, massacred a group of about twenty Copper Inuit.

The Battle of Castillon, the last engagement of the Hundred Years' War, ended with the English losing all holdings in France except the Pale of Calais.