Siege of Constantinople / House of Romanov / Disneyland

-180

Twelve residents of Carthage, North Africa, are executed for being Christians, the first recorded instance of Christianity in the region.

-1203

The Siege of Constantinople began during the Fourth Crusade, when Roman Catholic Crusaders aboard a Venetian fleet attacked the city.

-1762

Empress Catherine II becomes Tsarina of Russia following the murder of Tsar Peter III.

-1918

The Romanov royal family and several of their retainers are executed by a Bolshevik firing squad in the basement of Ipatiev House, in Yekaterinburg, Siberia.

-1936

Spanish generals Francisco Franco and Emilio Mola led a right-wing uprising, marking the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.

-1945

Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, and Joseph Stalin met at the Potsdam Conference for the first time since the end of World War II.

-1955

Disneyland opened in Anaheim, California, a metropolis filled with nostalgia, fantasy, and futurism conceived by Walt Disney.

-1959

Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest" premieres in Los Angeles.

-2014

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 is shot down over Eastern Ukraine by a Buk missile fired from pro-Russian separatist territory, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board.