On July 17, 1821, Spain ceded Florida to the United States.
In 1903 artist James Whistler, best known for his portrait of his mother, died in London at 69.
In 1917, amid World War I, the British royal family changed its surname to Windsor from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
In 1938 aviator Douglas Corrigan took off from New York for California. (He ended up in Ireland, earning him the nickname “Wrong Way Corrigan.”)
In 1959 singer Billie Holiday, 44, died in New York.
In 1961 baseball Hall of Famer Ty Cobb died in Atlanta at 74.
In 1967 jazz great John Coltrane, 40, died in Huntington, N.Y.
In 1975 an Apollo spaceship docked with a Soyuz spacecraft in the first orbital linkup between the two superpowers.
In 1981 two walkways collapsed above the lobby of Kansas City’s Hyatt Regency Hotel, killing 114 people.
In 1998 the remains of Czar Nicholas II and his family, killed by the Bolsheviks in 1918, were buried in St. Petersburg.
