Today is Friday, July 17, the 198th day of 2009. There are 167 days left in the year.
1841 _ British humor magazine ``Punch" first published
1850 _ Harvard Observatory takes first photograph of a star (Vega)
1861 _ Congress authorizes paper money
1898 _ Spanish American War ― Spaniards surrender to U.S. at Santiago Cuba
1948 _ Proclamation of the constitution of the Republic of Korea
1954 _ First major league game where majority of team is black (Dodgers)
1955 _ Disneyland opens its doors in rural Orange County, Calif.
1967 _ Monkees perform at Forest Hills, N.Y., Jimi Hendrix is opening act
1975 _ Apollo 18 and Soyuz 19 make first U.S.-USSR linkup in space
1990 _ Hussein's Revolutionary Day speech claims Kuwait stole oil from Iraq