January 17

2024 Calendar

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).

Events

Up to 1900

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)
1738 - Jean-François Dandrieu, French organist and composer (b. 1682)
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 (b. 1811)
1884 - Hermann Schlegel, German ornithologist (b. 1804)
1886 – Amilcare Ponchielli, Italian composer (b. 1834)
1887 - William Giblin, Premier of Tasmania (b. 1840)
1893 – Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th President of the United States (b. 1822)

1901 – 1950

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 Poincaré becomes President of France.
1916 – The Professional Golfers Association of America (PGA) starts.
1917 – The United States pays Denmark $25 million for the Virgin Islands.
1918 - Finnish Civil War: The first serious battles take place between the Red Guards and White Guards.
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 the Soviets were in charge of him.
1946 – The United Nations Security Council has its first meeting.
1949 – The Goldbergs, the first sitcom on American television, is seen.
1950 – The Great Brinks Robbery – 11 people steal more than $2 million from an secure car in Boston, Massachusetts.

1951 – 2000

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 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 – 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 begins early in the morning. Iraq shoots 8 Scud bombs into Israel in a failed attempt 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.