January 17

January 17 is the 17th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 348 days remaining (349 in leap years)

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Events

• 1562 – France recognized the Huguenots under the Edict of St. Germain.
• 1648 – England's Long Parliament passes the Vote of No Address, breaking off negotiations with King Charles I and thereby setting the scene for the second phase of the English Civil War.
• 1746 – Charles Edward Stuart, "Bonnie Prince Charlie", defeats a Hanoverian army at Falkirk in his ultimately unsuccessful campaign to recover the throne for the Jacobite dynasty.
• 1773 – Captain James Cook becomes the first explorer to cross the Antarctic Circle.
• 1781 – Continental troops under Brigadier General Daniel Morgan defeat British forces under Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton at the Battle of Cowpens in South Carolina.
• 1819 – Simón Bolívar proclaims the Republic of Colombia.
• 1852 – United Kingdom recognizes the independence of the Boer colonies of the Transvaal.
• 1873 – First Battle of the Stronghold in the US Modoc War.
• 1885 – A British force defeats a large Dervish army at the Battle of Abu Klea in the Sudan.
• 1893 – American sugar planters led by the Citizen's Committee of Public Safety overthrow the government of Queen Liliuokalani of the Kingdom of Hawaii.
• 1899 – The United States takes possession of Wake Island in the Pacific Ocean.
• 1912 – Robert Falcon Scott reaches the South Pole, one month after Roald Amundsen.
• 1916 – The Professional Golfers Association (PGA) is formed.
• 1917 – The United States pays Denmark $25 million for the Virgin Islands.
• 1929 – Popeye the Sailor Man, a cartoon character created by Elzie Crisler Segar, first appeared in a newspaper comic strip.
• 1945 – Soviet forces capture the almost completely destroyed Polish city of Warsaw.
• 1945 – The Nazis begin the evacuation of the Auschwitz concentration camp as Soviet forces close in.
• 1945 – Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg disappears in Hungary while in Soviet custody.
• 1946 – The UN Security Council holds its first session.
• 1949 – The Goldbergs, the first sitcom on American television, airs.
• 1950 – The Great Brinks Robbery – 11 thieves steal more than $2 million from an armored car in Boston, Massachusetts.
• 1966 – Simon and Garfunkel release their second album, Sounds of Silence, on Columbia Records.
• 1966 – A B-52 bomber collides with a KC-135 jet tanker over Spain, dropping three 70-kiloton hydrogen bombs near the town of Palomares and another one into the sea.
• 1966 – Carl Brashear, the first African American United States Navy diver, is involved in an accident on a routine mission which amputates his leg.
• 1973 – Ferdinand Marcos becomes "President for Life" of the Philippines.
• 1975 – Bob Dylan releases Blood on the Tracks, often considered one of his best albums.
• 1977 – Convicted murderer Gary Gilmore is executed by a firing squad in Utah, ending a ten-year moratorium on the death penalty in the United States.
• 1982 – "Cold Sunday" in the United States sees temperatures fall to their lowest levels in over 100 years in numerous cities.
• 1985 – British Telecom announces the retirement of Britain's famous red telephone boxes.
• 1991 – Gulf War: Operation Desert Storm begin early in the morning. Iraq fires 8 Scud missiles into Israel in an unsuccessful bid to provoke Israeli retaliation.
• 1991 – Harald V becomes King of Norway on the death of his father, Olav V.
• 1992 – Punk rock band Green Day releases their second full-length album, Kerplunk.
• 1994 – A magnitude 6.7 earthquake occurs in Northridge, California see 1994_Northridge_Earthquake
• 1995 – A magnitude 7.3 earthquake called "the Great Hanshin earthquake" occurrs near Kobe, Japan, causing extensive property damage and killing 6,433 people.
• 1996 – The Czech Republic applies for membership of the European Union.
• 1998 – Paula Jones accuses President Bill Clinton of sexual harassment.
• 2002 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, displacing an estimated 400,000 people.

Births

• 1463 – Friedrich III, Saxon elector (d. 1525)
• 1504 – Pope Pius V (d. 1572)
• 1560 – Gaspard Bauhin, Swiss botanist (d. 1624)
• 1600 – Pedro Calderon de la Barca, Spanish playwright (d. 1681)
• 1706 – Benjamin Franklin American writer, inventor, publisher, and ambassador (d. 1790)
• 1761 – James Hall, Scottish geologist
• 1763 – John Jacob Astor, American entrepreneur (d. 1848)
• 1820 – Anne Brontë, British author (d. 1849)
• 1832 – Henry Martyn Baird, American historian and educationalist (d. 1906)
• 1860 – Douglas Hyde, President of Ireland
• 1863 – David Lloyd George, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1945)
• 1867 – Carl Laemmle, film executive (d. 1939)
• 1871 – David Earl Beatty British admiral (d. 1936)
• 1880 – Mack Sennett, director, producer (d. 1960)
• 1882 – Noah Beery, actor (d. 1946)
• 1899 – Al Capone, American gangster (d. 1947)
• 1899  – Nevil Shute, author (d. 1960)
• 1914 – William Stafford, poet and essayist (d. 1993)
• 1921 – Antonio Prohias, cartoonist (d. 1998)
• 1922 – Nicholas Katzenbach, American politician
• 1922  – Betty White, actress
• 1922  – Luis Echeverría Álvarez, President of Mexico
• 1925 – Robert Cormier, American author (d. 2000)
• 1926 – Moira Shearer, actress, dancer
• 1926  – Newton N. Minow, journalist
• 1927 – Eartha Kitt, actress, singer
• 1928 – Jean Barraqué, French composer (d. 1973)
• 1928  – Vidal Sassoon, cosmetologist
• 1929 – Jacques Plante, hockey player (d. 1986)
• 1931 – James Earl Jones, actor
• 1931  – Douglas Wilder, Governor of Virginia
• 1931  – Don Zimmer, baseball coach
• 1933 – Dalida, French singer (d. 1987)
• 1933  – Shari Lewis, puppeteer (d. 1998)
• 1933  – Sheree North, American actress
• 1933  – Ray Dolby, inventor
• 1937 – Troy Donahue, American actor
• 1939 – Maury Povich, talk show host
• 1940 – Kipchoge Keino, Kenyan runner
• 1942 – Muhammad Ali, American boxer
• 1942 – Ulf Hoelscher, violinist
• 1942 – Cus D'Amato, boxing manager (d. 1985)
• 1942 – Nancy Parsons, Amnerican actress (d. 2001)
• 1943 – René Préval, former President of Haiti
• 1944 – Françoise Hardy, French singer
• 1948 – Davíð Oddsson, Prime Minister of Iceland
• 1948 – Mick Taylor, British musician (The Rolling Stones)
• 1949 – Andy Kaufman, comedian (d. 1984)
• 1952 – Darrell Porter, basketball player (d. 2002)
• 1952 – Larry Fortensky, husband of Elizabeth Taylor
• 1955 – Steve Earle, musician
• 1956 – Paul Young, English musician
• 1959 – Susanna Hoffs, American musician (The Bangles)
• 1962 – Jim Carrey, American actor, comedian
• 1966 – Shabba Ranks, singer
• 1968 – Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, Dutch writer
• 1969 – Lukas Moodysson, film director
• 1970 – Jeremy Roenick, American hockey player
• 1970 – James Wattana, Thai snooker player
• 1971 – Kid Rock, singer
• 1972 – Ken Hirai, Japanese singer and songwriter
• 1974 – Ladan and Laleh Bijani, Iranian conjoined twin sisters (d. 2003)
• 1980 – Zooey Deschanel, American actress
• 1982 – Dwyane Wade, basketball player
• 1982 – Amanda Wilkinson, Canadian country singer

Deaths

• 395 – Theodosius I, Roman Emperor
• 1229 – Albert of Buxhoeveden (b. 1165)
• 1468 – Skanderbeg, Albanian leader against the Ottoman Empire
• 1617 – Faust Vrancic, Croatian inventor Parachute (b. 1551)
• 1751 – Tomaso Albinoni, Italian composer (b. 1671)
• 1826 – Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga, composer
• 1861 – Lola Montez, adventurer (b. 1821)
• 1874 – Chang and Eng Bunker, Siamese twins (b. 1811)
• 1886 – Amilcare Ponchielli, Italian composer (b. 1834)
• 1893 – Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th President of the United States (b. 1822)
• 1961 – Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (b. 1925)
• 1964 – T.H. White, author (b. 1906)
• 1967 – Evelyn Nesbit, actress, also known as "The Girl In The Red Velvet Swing" (b. 1884)
• 1970 – Billy Stewart, American singer
• 1972 – Betty Smith, American writer, singer
• 1977 – Gary Gilmore, murderer (executed by firing squad) (b. 1940)
• 1983 – Doodles Weaver, American actor
• 1991 – King Olav V of Norway (b. 1903)
• 1991  – Amber Hagerman, murder victim
• 1993 – Albert Hourani, historian (b. 1915)
• 1994 – Helen Stephens, American sprinter
• 1996 – Amber Hagerman, kidnapping, murder victim (b. 1986)
• 1996  – Barbara Jordan, politician (b. 1936)
• 1997 – Clyde Tombaugh, astronomer (b. 1906)
• 2001 – Laurent-Desire Kabila, president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (b. 1939)
• 2001  – Gregory Corso, American poet
• 2002 – Camilo Jose Cela, Spanish author, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 1989 (b. 1916)
• 2003 – Richard Crenna, American actor (b. 1926)
• 2004 – Czeslaw Niemen, Polish musician (b. 1939)
• 2004  – Rafael Churumba Cordero, mayor of Ponce, Puerto Rico (b. 1942)
• 2004  – Ray Stark, publicist, actor's agent, produced Funny Girl in 1968 (b. 1915)
• 2005 – Charlie Bell, former CEO of McDonald's (b. 1960)
• 2005  – Virginia Mayo, United States actress, notably in the 1940s and 1950s (b. 1920)
• 2005  – Albert Schatz, microbiologist, discoverer of streptomycin (b. 1920)
• 2005  – Zhao Ziyang, reformist Premier of the People's Republic of China and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (b. 1917)

Holidays and observances

• Ancient Latvia – Zirgu Diena observed
• Catholicism – Feast day of St. Anthony.
• 2005 – USA – Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

External links

• BBC: On This Day

January 16 – January 18 – December 17 – February 17 — listing of all days