Today’s highlight

On July 17, 1955, Disneyland opened in Anaheim, California after its $17 million, year-long construction; the park drew a million visitors in its first 10 weeks.

Also on this date:

1862: During the Civil War, Congress approved the Second Confiscation Act, which declared that all slaves taking refuge behind Union lines were to be set free.

1902: Willis Carrier produced a set of designs for what would become the world’s first modern air-conditioning system.

1918: Russia’s Czar Nicholas II and his family were executed by the Bolsheviks.

1936: The Spanish Civil War began as right-wing army generals launched a coup attempt against the Second Spanish Republic.

1975: An Apollo spaceship docked with a Soyuz spacecraft in orbit in the first superpower link-up of its kind.

2020: Civil rights icon John Lewis, whose bloody beating by Alabama state troopers in 1965 helped galvanize opposition to racial segregation, and who went on to a long and celebrated career in Congress, died at age 80.

Today’s birthdays

Sportscaster Verne Lundquist is 84. Queen Camilla of the United Kingdom is 77. Rock musician Terry “Geezer” Butler is 75. Actor Lucie Arnaz is 73. Actor David Hasselhoff is 72. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel is 70. Film director Wong Kar-wai is 66. Television producer Mark Burnett is 64. Singer Regina Belle is 61. Country music artist Craig Morgan is 60. Rock musician Lou Barlow is 58. Actor Bitty Schram (TV: “Monk”) is 56. Actor Jason Clarke is 55.