Wednesday, January 17, 2018

TODAY IN HISTORY ― JANUARY 17

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). This date is slightly more likely to fall on a Tuesday, Thursday or Sunday (58 in 400 years each) than on Friday or Saturday (57), and slightly less likely to occur on a Monday or Wednesday (56).

NATIONAL BOOTLEGGER'S DAY  

1746 ― The Battle of Falkirk Muir, the Jacobites under Charles Stuart defeat Hanoverian forces.


1773 ― British explorer and navigator, Captain James Cook, becomes the first to cross the Antarctic Circle (66° 33' S).


1821 ― Mexico permits Moses Austin and 300 U.S. families to settle in Texas. After his death he leaves it all to his son Stephen.

1874 ― Armed Democrats seize Texas government ending Radical Reconstruction. -- lsjunction.com



1912 ― English Captain Robert Scott's expedition arrives at South Pole, one month after Amundsen.


1916 ― Winston Churchill, beginning his service as a battalion commander on the Western Front, attends a lecture on the Battle of Loos given by his friend, Colonel Tom Holland, in the Belgian town of Hazebrouck. Holland speaks of the "tragedy of war."



1923 ― Origin of the Brown lunation numbers. A lunation or synodic month is the mean (average) time from one new moon to the next. In the J2000.0epoch, the average length of a lunation is 29.530588 days (or 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, and 3 seconds). 

1938 ― Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. becomes the 44th United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Funny, since he was a Nazi sympathizer.

1941 ― Kuomintang forces under orders from Chiang Kai-shek open fire at communist forces, resuming the Chinese Civil War after World War II.

1945 ― Swedish diplomat, Raoul Wallenberg, credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews from the Nazis, is arrested by Soviet secret police in Hungary.

1949 ― Jury selection ends in the trial of 11 U.S. Communist party leaders begins in NYC.

1949 ― "The Goldbergs", the first sitcom on American television, first airs.

1950 ― The Great Brinks Robbery―11 men rob $1.2M cash & $1.5M securities from armored car company Brink's offices in Boston, Massachusetts.

1951 ― China refuses cease-fire in Korea.

1953 ― A prototype Chevrolet Corvette sports car makes its debut at General Motors’ (GM) Motorama auto show at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. The Corvette, named for a fast type of naval warship, would eventually become an iconic American muscle car and remains in production today.

1955 ― U.S. submarine Nautilus (SSN-571), begins the nuclear-powered test voyage.

1961 ― President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers a televised farewell address to the nation three days before leaving office, in which he warns against the accumulation of power by the "military-industrial complex".


1971 ― At a party conference in Dublin, Sinn Féin end their 65 year abstentionist policy and agree that any elected representative could take their seat at the Dáil.


1977 ― Convicted murder, Gary Gilmore, is executed by firing squad, at his request, in the Utah state prison.

1980 ― A Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb prematurely detonates on a passenger train near Belfast, killing three and injuring five (including the bombers).


1982 ― "Cold Sunday" in the United States would see temperatures fall to their lowest levels in over 100 years in numerous cities.

1984 ― Supreme Court rules (5-4) approves private use of home VCRs to tape TV programs for later viewing does not violate federal copyright laws.



1991 ― The Operation Desert Storm offensive begins against Iraqi troops in Kuqwait



1994 ― A magnitude 6.6 earthquake hits Los Angeles killing 60, $30B in damage.

2001 ― President Bill Clinton posthumously promotes Louisiana Purchase explorer Meriwether Lewis' rank from Lieutenant to Captain.

2007 ― The Doomsday Clock is set to five minutes to midnight in response to North Korea nuclear testing.

2013 ― Japan unveils plans to build the world’s largest wind farm near the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.



TODAY'S BIRTHS

1706 – Benjamin Franklin, American publisher, inventor, and politician, 6th President of Pennsylvania (d. 1790)

1820 – Anne Brontë, English author and poet (d. 1849)

1863 – David Lloyd George, English lawyer and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1945)

1863 – Konstantin Stanislavski, Russian actor and director (d. 1938)

1880 – Mack Sennett, Canadian-American actor, director, and producer (d. 1960)

1881 Harry Price, English psychologist and author (d. 1948)

1899 Al Capone, American mob boss (d. 1947)

1911 John S. McCain Jr., American admiral (d. 1981)

1942 Muhammad Ali (nee, Cassius Clay), American boxer and activist (d. 2016)

From Wikipedia and Google, ex as noted.

No comments: