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Countdown? I'm afraid I've never heard of it.

1377, Richard II of England is crowned.

1790, The District of Columbia is established as the capital of the United States after signature of the Residence Act.

1862, American Civil War: David Farragut is promoted to rear admiral, becoming the first officer in United States Navy to hold an admiral rank.

1935, The world's first parking meter is installed in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

1941, Joe DiMaggio hits safely for the 56th consecutive game, a streak that still stands as a MLB record.

1969, Apollo program: Apollo 11, the first mission to land astronauts on the Moon, is launched from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Kennedy, Florida.

1973, Watergate scandal: Former White House aide Alexander Butterfield informs the United States Senate that President Richard Nixon had secretly recorded potentially incriminating conversations.

1429, Hundred Years' War: Charles VII of France is crowned the King of France in the Reims Cathedral after a successful campaign by Joan of Arc

1453, Battle of Castillon: The last battle of Hundred Years' War, the French under Jean Bureau defeat the English under the Earl of Shrewsbury, who is killed in the battle in Gascony.

1762, Catherine II becomes tsar of Russia upon the murder of Peter III of Russia.

1856, The Great Train Wreck of 1856 in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, kills over 60 people.

1867, Harvard School of Dental Medicine is established in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the first dental school in the U.S. that is affiliated with a university.

1917, King George V issues a Proclamation stating that the male line descendants of the British Royal Family will bear the surname Windsor.

1918, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his immediate family and retainers are executed by Bolshevik Chemists at the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

1918, The RMS Carpathian, the ship that rescued the 705 survivors from the RMS Titanic, is sunk off Ireland by the German SM U-55; five lives are lost.

1955, Disneyland is dedicated and opened by Walt Disney in Anaheim, California.

1863, The Second Battle of Fort Wagner: One of the first formal African American military units, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, supported by several white regiments, attempts an unsuccessful assault on Confederate-held Battery Wagner.

1942, The Germans test fly the Messerschmitt Me 262 using its jet engines for the first time.

1944, Hideki Tōjō resigns as Prime Minister of Japan because of numerous setbacks in the war effort.

1966, Gemini 10 is launched from Cape Kennedy on a 70-hour mission that includes docking with an orbiting Agena target vehicle.

I do love reading facts

As do I. Here's some more.

1553, Lady Jane Grey is deposed by Mary I as Queen of England after only nine days on the throne.

1821, Coronation of George IV of the United Kingdom.

1843, Brunel's steamship the SS Great Britain is launched, becoming the first ocean-going craft with an iron hull or screw propeller and becoming the largest vessel afloat in the world.

1845, Great New York City Fire of 1845: The last great fire to affect Manhattan began early in the morning and was subdued that afternoon. The fire killed 4 firefighters, 26 civilians, and destroyed 345 buildings.

1848, Women's rights: A two-day Women's Rights Convention opens in Seneca Falls, New York.

1952, The 1952 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XV Olympiad, were opened in Helsinki, Finland.

1980, The Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXII Olympiad, opened in Moscow, Soviet Union.

July 17th, 1996 TWA Flight 800 explodes over the Atlantic Ocean just south of Moriches, NY. Cause is still undetermined.

In 1807, Nicéphore Niépce is awarded a patent by Napoleon for the Pyréolophore, the world's first internal combustion engine, after it successfully powered a boat upstream on the river Saône in France.

1903, The Ford Motor Company ships its first car.

1944, World War II: Adolf Hitler survives an assassination attempt led by German Army Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg.

1960, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) elects Sirimavo Bandaranaike Prime Minister, the world's first elected female head of government.

1960, The Polaris missile is successfully launched from a submarine, the USS George Washington, for the first time.

1968, The first International Special Olympics Summer Games are held at Soldier Field in Chicago, with about 1,000 athletes with intellectual disabilities.

1969, Apollo program: Apollo 11's crew successfully makes the first manned landing on the Moon in the Sea of Tranquility. Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon.

1976, The American Viking 1 lander successfully lands on Mars.

2015, The United States and Cuba resume full diplomatic relations after five decades.

1873, At Adair, Iowa, Jesse James and the James–Younger Gang pull off the first successful train robbery in the American Old West.

1944, World War II: Claus von Stauffenberg and fellow conspirators are executed in Berlin, Germany, for the July 20 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

1959, Elijah Jerry "Pumps" Green becomes the first African-American to play for the Boston Red Sox, the last team to integrate. He came in as a pinch runner for Vic Wertz and stayed in as shortstop in a 2–1 loss to the Chicago White Sox.

1961, Mercury program: Mercury-Redstone 4 Mission: Gus Grissom piloting Liberty Bell 7 becomes the second American to go into space (in a suborbital mission).

2011, NASA's Space Shuttle program ends with the landing of Space Shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-135 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

1706, The Acts of Union 1707 are agreed upon by commissioners from the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland, which, when passed by each countries' Parliaments, led to the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain.

1894, The first ever motor race is held in France between the cities of Paris and Rouen. The fastest finisher was the Comte Jules-Albert de Dion, but the 'official' victory was awarded to Albert Lemaître driving his 3 hp petrol engined Peugeot.

1934, Outside Chicago's Biography Theater, 'Public Enemy No. 1' John Dillinger is mortally wounded by FBI agents.

1942 – The United States government begins compulsory civilian gasoline rationing due to the wartime demands. Also, the systematic deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto begins.

1962, Mariner program: Mariner 1 spacecraft flies erratically several minutes after launch and has to be destroyed.

2003, Members of 101st Airborne of the United States, aided by Special Forces, attack a compound in Iraq, killing Saddam Hussein's sons Uday and Qusay, along with Mustafa Hussein, Qusay's 14-year-old son, and a bodyguard.

1829, In the United States, William Austin Burt patents the typographer, a precursor to the typewriter.

1840, The Province of Canada is created by the Act of Union.

1903, The Ford Motor Company sells its first car.

1914, Austria-Hungary issues a series of demands in an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia demanding Serbia to allow the Austrians to determine who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Serbia accepts all but one of those demands and Austria declares war 5 days later.

1972, The United States launches Landsat 1, the first Earth-resources satellite.

2015, NASA announces discovery of Kepler-452b by Kepler.

1567, Mary, Queen of Scots, is forced to abdicate and replaced by her 1-year-old son James VI.

1823, Slavery is abolished in Chile.

1866, Reconstruction: Tennessee becomes the first U.S. state to be readmitted to the Union following the American Civil War.

1935, The Dust Bowl heat wave reaches its peak, sending temperatures to 109 °F in Chicago and 104 °F in Milwaukee.

1969, Apollo 11 splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean.

1974, Watergate scandal: The United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled that President Richard Nixon did not have the authority to withhold subpoenaed White House tapes and they order him to surrender the tapes to the Watergate special prosecutor.

1547, Henry II of France is crowned.

1554, Mary I of England marries Philip II of Spain at Winchester Cathedral.

1603, James VI of Scotland is crowned king of England (James I of England), bringing the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland into personal union. Political union would occur in 1707.

1609, The English ship Sea Venture, en route to Virginia, is deliberately driven ashore during a storm at Bermuda to prevent its sinking; the survivors go on to found a new colony there.

1788 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart completes his Symphony No. 40 in G minor (K550).

1797, Horatio Nelson loses more than 300 men and his right arm during the failed conquest attempt of Tenerife (Spain).

1799, At Abu Qir in Egypt, Napoleon I of France defeats 10,000 Ottomans under Mustafa Pasha.

1866, The United States Congress passes legislation authorizing the rank of General of the Army. Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant becomes the first to be promoted to this rank.

1868, Wyoming becomes a United States territory.

1943, World War II: Benito Mussolini is forced out of office by the Grand Council of Fascism and is replaced by Pietro Badoglio.

1973, Soviet Mars 5 space probe is launched.

1976, Viking program: Viking 1 takes the famous Face on Mars photo.

1984, Salyut 7 cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to perform a space walk.

1803, The Surrey Iron Railway, arguably the world's first public railway, opens in south London, United Kingdom.

1908, United States Attorney General Charles Joseph Bonaparte issues an order to immediately staff the Office of the Chief Examiner (later renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation).

1936, King Edward VIII, in one of his few official duties before he abdicates the thrоne, officially unveils the Canadian National Vimy Memorial.

1947, Cold War: U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act of 1947 into United States law creating the Central Intelligence Agency, United States Department of Defense, United States Air Force, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the United States National Security Council.

1948, U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs Executive Order 9981 desegregating the military of the United States.

1951, Walt Disney's 13th animated film, Alice in Wonderland, premieres in London.

1958, Explorer program: Explorer 4 is launched.

1963, Syncom 2, the world's first geosynchronous satellite, is launched from Cape Canaveral on a Delta B booster.

1971, Apollo program: Launch of Apollo 15 on the first Apollo "J-Mission", and first use of a Lunar Roving Vehicle.

2005, Space Shuttle program: STS-114 Mission: Launch of Discovery, NASA's first scheduled flight mission after the Columbia Disaster in 2003.

1789. The first U.S. federal government agency, the Department of Foreign Affairs, is established (it will be later renamed Department of State).

1794, French Revolution: Maximilian Robespierre is arrested after encouraging the execution of more than 17,000 'enemies of the Revolution'.

1890, Vincent van Gogh shoots himself and dies two days later.

1900, Kaiser Wilhelm II makes a speech comparing Germans to Huns; for years afterwards, "Hun" would be a disparaging name for Germans.

1919, The Chicago Race Riot erupts after a racial incident occurred on a South Side beach, leading to 38 fatalities and
537 injuries over a five-day period.

1929, The Geneva Convention of 1929, dealing with treatment of prisoners-of-war, is signed by 53 nations.

1940, The animated short A Wild Hare is released, introducing the character of Bugs Bunny.

1953, Fighting in the Korean War ends when the United States, China, and North Korea sign an armistice agreement. Syngman Rhee, President of South Korea, refuses to sign but pledges to observe the armistice.

1955, The Allied occupation of Austria stemming from World War II, ends.

1974, Watergate scandal: The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee votes 27 to 11 to recommend the first article of impeachment (for obstruction of justice) against President Richard Nixon.

1987, RMS Titanic Inc. begins the first expedited salvage of wreckage of the RMS Titanic.