January 17
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
January 17 is the 17th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 348 days remaining until the end of the year (349 in leap years).
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Births [change]
- 1463 – Frederick III of Saxony, Elector of Saxony (d. 1525)
- 1504 – Pope Pius V (d. 1572)
- 1600 – Pedro Calderon de la Barca, Spanish playwright (d. 1681)
- 1640 - Jonathan Singletary Dunham, American settler and ancestor of Barack Obama (d. 1724)
- 1659 - Antonio Veracini, Italian composer and violinist (d. 1745)
- 1706 – Benjamin Franklin, American writer, inventor and statesman (d. 1790)
- 1712 - John Stanley, English composer (d. 1786)
- 1732 – Stanislaw II August Poniatowski of Poland (d. 1798)
- 1734 - Francois-Joseph Gossec, Belgian composer (d. 1829)
- 1749 – Vittorio Alfieri, Italian poet and dramatist (d. 1803)
- 1789 – August Neander, German theologian (d. 1850)
- 1798 – Auguste Comte, French philosopher (d. 1857)
- 1811 – Emperor Norton, self-declared Emperor of the United States (d. 1880)
- 1820 – Anne Brontë, English writer (d. 1849)
- 1828 - Lewis A. Grant, American Civil War general (d. 1918)
- 1829 - Catherine Booth, English wife of William Booth (d. 1890)
- 1831 – Archduchess Elisabeth Franziska of Austria (d. 1903)
- 1845 - Manuel Barillas, President of Guatemala (d. 1907)
- 1847 - Nikolay Yegorovich Zhukovsky, Russian mathematician and aviator (d. 1921)
- 1850 - Aleksandr Yaneyev, Russian composer (d. 1918)
- 1860 – Douglas Hyde, 1st President of Ireland (d. 1949)
- 1863 – David Lloyd George, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1945)
- 1863 - Constantin Stanislavski, Russian theatre practitioner (d. 1938)
- 1865 - Charles Fergusson, Governor-General of New Zealand (d. 1951)
- 1867 - Carl Laemmle, German-born American movie pioneer (d. 1939)
- 1881 - Antoni Lamnicki, Polish mathematician (d. 1941)
- 1883 – Compton Mackenzie, Scottish novelist (d. 1972)
- 1886 - Glenn L. Martin, American aviation pioneer (d. 1955)
- 1887 – Ola Raknes, Norwegian psychoanalyst and philologist (d. 1975)
- 1899 – Al Capone, American gangster (d. 1947)
- 1899 – Nevil Shute, English writer (d. 1960)
- 1901 - Aron Gurwitsch, Lithuanian-born American philosopher (d. 1973)
- 1902 - Nazim Hikmet, Turkish poet (d. 1963)
- 1905 – Guillermo Stabile, Argentine footballer (d. 1966)
- 1908 - Cus D'Amato, American boxing coach (d. 1985)
- 1911 – George Stigler, American economist (d. 1991)
- 1911 - John S. McCain, Jr., father of John McCain (d. 1981)
- 1917 – M. G. Ramachandran, Indian politician and actor (d. 1987)
- 1918 – George M. Leader, former Governor of Pennsylvania
- 1918 - Keith Joseph, British politician (d. 1994)
- 1921 – Antonio Prohias, Cuban-born cartoonist (d. 1998)
- 1922 – Luis Echeverria Alvarez, former President of Mexico
- 1922 – Betty White, American actress
- 1922 - Nicholas Katzenbach, 55th United States Attorney General (d. 2012)
- 1925 – Robert Cormier, American writer (d. 2000)
- 1925 - Edgar Ray Killen, American criminal
- 1926 – Moira Shearer, Scottish actress (d. 2006)
- 1927 – Eartha Kitt, American singer (d. 2008)
- 1928 – Vidal Sassoon, British hairdresser (d. 2012)
- 1929 – Jacques Plante, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 1986)
- 1931 – James Earl Jones, American actor
- 1931 – L. Douglas Wilder, American politician, former Governor of Virginia
- 1931 - Don Zimmer, American baseball coach
- 1933 – Dalida, French singer (d. 1987)
- 1935 – Ruth Ann Minner, American politician, former Governor of Delaware
- 1939 – Christodoulos, Archbishop of Athens (d. 2008)
- 1940 – Kipchoge Keino, Kenyan runner
- 1940 – Tabare Vazquez, former President of Uruguay
- 1942 – Muhammad Ali, American boxer
- 1943 – Rene Preval, former President of Haiti
- 1944 - Francoise Hardy, French singer
- 1948 – David Oddson, former Prime Minister of Iceland
- 1949 – Andy Kaufman, American comedian (d. 1984)
- 1949 – Mick Taylor, British musician
- 1949 - Gyude Bryant, Liberian politician
- 1954 – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., American lawyer and activist
- 1956 – Paul Young, English musician
- 1956 - Damian Green, British politician
- 1957 - Keith Chegwin, British television presenter
- 1959 - Susanna Hoffs, American musician
- 1959 - Momoe Yamaguchi, Japanese singer and actress
- 1960 - John Crawford, American musician
- 1961 - Maia Chiburdanidze, Georgian chess player
- 1961 - Brian Helgeland, American screenwriter, director and movie producer
- 1962 – Jim Carrey, Canadian actor and comedian
- 1963 - Kai Hansen, German singer and guitarist
- 1963 - Cyrus Chestnut, American jazz musician
- 1964 – Michelle Obama, First Lady of the United States
- 1964 – Andy Rourke, English guitarist
- 1965 - Sylvain Turgeon, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1967 – Filippo Raciti, Italian police officer (d. 2007)
- 1968 - Svetlana Masterkova, Russian athlete
- 1971 - Kid Rock, American singer
- 1971 – Richard Burns, British rally driver (d. 2005)
- 1971 - Sylvie Testud, French actress
- 1973 – Cuauhtemoc Blanco, Mexican footballer
- 1978 – Ricky Wilson, English singer
- 1979 – Ricardo Cabanas, Swiss footballer
- 1980 – Zooey Deschanel, American actress
- 1981 - Warren Feeney, Northern Irish footballer
- 1981 - Ray J, American singer and actor
- 1981 - Stefan Petzner, Austrian politician
- 1982 - Hwanhee, South Korean actor and singer
- 1983 - Alvaro Arbeloa, Spanish footballer
- 1983 – Yelle, French singer and songwriter
- 1984 – Calvin Harris, Scottish singer and musician
- 1985 - Riyu Kosaka, Japanese singer
- 1985 – Simone Simons, Dutch singer
- 1985 – Pablo Barrientos, Argentine footballer
- 1986 - Viktor Stalberg, Swedish ice hockey player
- 1986 - Max Adler, American actor
- 1988 - Hector Moreno, Mexican footballer
- 1989 - Bjoern Dreyer, German footballer
Deaths [change]
- 395 – Theodosius I, Roman Emperor (a kind of leader)
- 1229 – Albert of Buxhoeveden (b. 1165)
- 1369 – Peter I of Cyprus (b. 1328)
- 1468 – Skanderbeg, Albanian leader against the Ottoman Empire (b. 1405)
- 1598 – Fyodor I of Russia (b. 1557)
- 1617 – Faust Vrancic, Croatian inventor of the Parachute (b. 1551)
- 1705 - John Ray, English naturalist (b. 1627)
- 1751 – Tomaso Albinoni, Italian song maker (b. 1671)
- 1799 - Dun Mikiel Xerri, Maltese patriot (b. 1739)
- 1834 - Giovanni Aldini, Italian physicist (b. 1762)
- 1861 – Lola Montez, adventurer (b. 1821)
- 1863 - Horace Vernet, French painter (b. 1789)
- 1874 – Chang and Eng Bunker, Siamese twins, twins that shared a body (b. 1811)
- 1884 - Hermann Schlegel, German ornithologist (b. 1804)
- 1886 – Amilcare Ponchielli, Italian song maker (b. 1834)
- 1887 - William Giblin, Premier of Tasmania (b. 1840)
- 1893 – Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th President of the United States (b. 1822)
- 1908 – Ferdinand IV of Tuscany (b. 1835)
- 1909 - Francis Smith, Premier of Tasmania (b. 1819)
- 1911 – Francis Galton, English polymath, anthropologist (b. 1822)
- 1927 - Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts of the USA (b. 1860)
- 1931 - Grand Duke Peter Nikolaevich of Russia (b. 1864)
- 1933 – Louis Comfort Tiffany, American artist and designer (b. 1848)
- 1951 - Jyoti Prasad Agarwala, Assamese poet, playwright and movie maker (b. 1903)
- 1956 - Blind Alfred Reed, American musician (b. 1880)
- 1961 – Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (b. 1925)
- 1963 - Henri Masson, French fencer (b. 1872)
- 1964 – T.H. White, author (b. 1906)
- 1967 – Evelyn Nesbit, actress, also known as "The Girl In The Red Velvet Swing" (b. 1884)
- 1972 - Betty Smith, American writer and singer (b. 1896)
- 1977 - Dougal Haston, Scottish mountaineer (b. 1940)
- 1977 – Gary Gilmore, American murderer (executed by firing squad) (b. 1940)
- 1991 – King Olav V of Norway (b. 1903)
- 1993 – Albert Hourani, historian (b. 1915)
- 1994 - Yevgeni Ivanov, Soviet spy (b. 1926)
- 1996 – Amber Hagerman, Americam murder victim (b. 1986)
- 1996 – Barbara Jordan, American politician (b. 1936)
- 1997 – Clyde Tombaugh, American astronomer (b. 1906)
- 2001 – Laurent-Desire Kabila, president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (b. 1939)
- 2002 – Camilo Jose Cela, Spanish author, winner of the Nobel Prize in 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, American movie producer, produced Funny Girl in 1968 (b. 1915)
- 2005 – Charlie Bell, former CEO (person who runs a company) of McDonald's (b. 1960)
- 2005 – Virginia Mayo, United States actress, more in the 1940s and 1950s (b. 1920)
- 2005 – Albert Schatz, microbiologist, discoverer of streptomycin (b. 1920)
- 2005 – Zhao Ziyang, Premier of the People's Republic of China and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (b. 1917)
- 2008 – Bobby Fischer, American-born chess player (b. 1943)
- 2009 - Anders Isaksson, Swedish journalist, writer and historian (b. 1943)
- 2010 – Jyoti Basu, Indian politician (b. 1914)
- 2010 – Erich Segal, American writer and screenwriter (b. 1937)
- 2011 – Don Kirshner, American composer (b. 1934)
- 2012 - Johnny Otis, American singer and musician (b. 1921)
- 2013 - Jakob Arjouni, German writer (b. 1964)
Events [change]
- 1287 - King Alfonso III of Aragon invades the island of Menorca.
- 1377 - Pope Gregory XI moves the Pope's residence (place where he lives) back to Rome from Avignon.
- 1524 - Giovanni da Verrazzano sets sail westward from Madeira to find a sea route to the Pacific Ocean.
- 1562 – France accepted the Huguenots under the Edict of St. Germain.
- 1566 - On his 62nd birthday, Pope Pius V officially becomes Pope.
- 1595 - Henry IV of France invades Spain.
- 1648 – England's Long Parliament agrees with the Vote of No Address, stopping dealing with King Charles I which then started the second part of the English Civil War.
- 1746 – Charles Edward Stuart, "Bonnie Prince Charlie", makes a Hanoverian army lose at Falkirk in his failing campaign to get back the throne for the Jacobite dynasty.
- 1773 – Captain James Cook becomes the first person to cross the Antarctic Circle.
- 1781 – Continental troops of Brigadier General Daniel Morgan makes British forces under Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton lose at the Battle of Cowpens in South Carolina.
- 1799 - Maltese patriot Dun Mikiel Xerri, along with some other patriots, is executed.
- 1811 - Mexican War of Independence: Battle of Calderon Bridge - A heavily outnumbered Spanish force of 6,000 troops defeats 100,000 Mexican revolutionaries.
- 1813 - Humphrey Davy creates the electric arc.
- 1819 – Simón Bolívar creates the Republic of Colombia.
- 1852 – United Kingdom accepts the freedom of the Boer places of the Transvaal.
- 1873 – First Battle of the Stronghold in the US Modoc War.
- 1885 – A British force makes a large Dervish army lose at the Battle of Abu Klea in the Sudan.
- 1893 – American sugar planters led by the Citizen's Committee of Public Safety remove the government of Queen Liliuokalani of the Kingdom of Hawaii.
- 1899 – The United States gets Wake Island in the Pacific Ocean.
- 1904 - Anton Chekhov's play The Cherry Orchard is performed for the first time, at Moscow Art Theatre.
- 1912 – Robert Falcon Scott reaches the South Pole, one month after Roald Amundsen. The return journey will lead to the deaths of all members of Scott's expedition, including Scott himself.
- 1913 - Raymond Poincare becomes President of France.
- 1916 – The Professional Golfers Association (PGA) starts.
- 1917 – The United States pays Denmark $25 million for the Virgin Islands.
- 1929 - Inayatullah Khan, King of Afghanistan, abdicates (resigns) the throne after only three days.
- 1929 – Popeye the Sailor Man, a cartoon character made by Elzie Crisler Segar, first seen in a newspaper comic strip.
- 1944 - World War II: Allied forces launch the first of four assaults on Monte Cassino, Italy, in an effort to reach Rome. It would take four months and would cost 105,000 Allied lives.
- 1945 – Soviet forces get the almost completely destroyed Polish city of Warsaw.
- 1945 – The Nazis begin the process of people leaving the Auschwitz concentration camp as Soviet forces surround it.
- 1945 – Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg disappears in Hungary while Soviet were in charge of him.
- 1946 – The UN Security Council has its first meeting.
- 1949 – The Goldbergs, the first sitcom on American television, is seen.
- 1950 – The Great Brinks Robbery – 11 stealers steal more than $2 million from an secure car in Boston, Massachusetts.
- 1955 - Nuclear submarine Nautilus starts its first mission.
- 1961 - Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba is murdered, with the governments of both Belgium and the United States suspected of being involved.
- 1966 – Simon and Garfunkel release their second album, Sounds of Silence, on Columbia Records.
- 1966 – A B-52 bomber slams into a KC-135 jet tanker over Spain, dropping three 70-kiloton hydrogen bombs (a very powerful bomb) near the town of Palomares and another one into the sea.
- 1966 – Carl Brashear, the first African American United States Navy diver, gets hurt in a way so his leg has to be chopped off.
- 1972 - Bangladesh receives its current Flag.
- 1973 – Ferdinand Marcos is declared "President for Life" of the Philippines.
- 1975 – Bob Dylan puts out Blood on the Tracks, often said to be one of his best albums.
- 1977 – A person who killed other people, Gary Gilmore, is put to death by a firing squad in Utah, ending a ten-year delay on being put to death as punishment in the United States.
- 1982 – "Cold Sunday" in the United States sees temperatures fall to their lowest levels in over 100 years in many cities.
- 1985 – British Telecom says that Britain's famous red telephone boxes will no longer exist.
- 1989 - Cleveland school massacre in Stockton, California: Patrick Purdy kills 5 Elementary School children with an assault rifle, as well as one teacher, before killing himself.
- 1991 – Gulf War: Operation Desert Storm begin early in the morning. Iraq shoots 8 Scud bombs into Israel in an failing try to provoke Israel to fight back.
- 1991 – Harald V becomes King of Norway because his father, Olav V, died.
- 1992 – Punk rock band Green Day sends out their second full-length album, Kerplunk.
- 1994 – A magnitude 6.7 earthquake happens in Northridge, California.
- 1995 – A magnitude 7.3 earthquake called "the Great Hanshin earthquake" happens near Kobe, Japan, causing property to be damaged and killing 6,433 people.
- 1996 – The Czech Republic asks the European Union if they can be a member.
- 1998 – Paula Jones says she was sexually harassed by President Bill Clinton.
- 2002 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, making about 400,000 people homeless.
- 2007 - The Doomsday Clock is set to five minutes before midnight in response to North Korea's nuclear testing.
- 2008 - British Airways Flight 38 crash-lands at London Heathrow Airport. All people on board survive.
- 2010 - Religious riots between Muslims and Christians erupt in Jos, Nigeria, killing more than 200 people.
Special days [change]
- Ancient Latvia – Zirgu Diena observed
- Catholicism – Feast day of St. Anthony.
- Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the United States when this day falls on a Monday.
