January 17 facts for kids

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 - Roman Emperor Theodosius I dies in Milan. The Roman Empire is re-divided into West and East.
• 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 United States 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.

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.
• 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.

From 2001

• 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.
• 2018 - A car bomb attack in Bogota, Colombia, kills 21 people.

Births

Up to 1850

• 1463 – Frederick III of Saxony, Elector of Saxony (d. 1525)
• 1501 - Leonhart Fuchs, German scientist (d. 1566)
• 1504 – Pope Pius V (d. 1572)
• 1574 - Robert Fludd, English physician, astrologer and mathematician (d. 1637)
• 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 - François-Joseph Gossec, Belgian composer (d. 1829)
• 1738 - James Anderson, Scottish botanist (d. 1809)
• 1746 - Paul Brigham, Governor of Vermont (d. 1824)
• 1749 – Vittorio Alfieri, Italian poet and dramatist (d. 1803)
• 1761 - Sir James Hall, 4th Baronet, Scottish geologist and geophysicist (d. 1832)
• 1789 – August Neander, German theologian (d. 1850)
• 1798 – Auguste Comte, French philosopher (d. 1857)
• 1800 - Caleb Cushing, American diplomat (d. 1879)
• 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)

1851 – 1900

• 1856 - Jens Bratlie, Prime Minister of Norway (d. 1939)
• 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)
• 1870 - Princess Marie Louise of Bourbon-Parma (d. 1899)
• 1871 - Nicolae Iorga, 34th Prime Minister of Romania (d. 1940)
• 1879 - Burt McKinnie, American golfer (d. 1946)
• 1881 - Antoni Lamnicki, Polish mathematician (d. 1941)
• 1882 - Noah Beery, Jr., American actor (d. 1946)
• 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)
• 1889 - Ralph Howard Fowler, British astronomer and physicist (d. 1944)
• 1895 - John Duff, Canadian racing driver (d. 1958)
• 1899 – Al Capone, American gangster (d. 1947)
• 1899 – Nevil Shute, English writer (d. 1960)

1901 – 1925

• 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)
• 1914 - Taizo Kawamoto, Japanese footballer (d. 1985)
• 1914 - Fang Zhaoling, Chinese artist (d. 2006)
• 1917 – M. G. Ramachandran, Indian politician and actor (d. 1987)
• 1918 – George M. Leader, former Governor of Pennsylvania (d. 2013)
• 1918 - Keith Joseph, British politician (d. 1994)
• 1921 – Antonio Prohias, Cuban-born cartoonist (d. 1998)
• 1921 - Asghar Khan, Pakistani politician and military officer (d. 2018)
• 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 (d. 2018)

1926 – 1950

• 1926 – Moira Shearer, Scottish actress (d. 2006)
• 1926 - Nélida Romero, Argentine actress (d. 2015)
• 1927 – Eartha Kitt, American singer (d. 2008)
• 1927 - Harlan Mathews, United States Senator from Tennessee (d. 2014)
• 1928 – Vidal Sassoon, British hairdresser (d. 2012)
• 1928 - Chu Shijian, Chinese businessman (d. 2019)
• 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 (d. 2014)
• 1933 – Dalida, French singer (d. 1987)
• 1934 - Cedar Walton, American pianist and composer (d. 2013)
• 1935 – Ruth Ann Minner, American politician, former Governor of Delaware
• 1938 - Toini Gustafsson, Finnish-Swedish cross-country skier
• 1939 – Christodoulos, Archbishop of Athens (d. 2008)
• 1940 - Mircea Snegur, former President of Moldova
• 1940 - Nerses Bedros XIX Tarmouni, Egyptian church leader (d. 2015)
• 1940 – Kipchoge Keino, Kenyan runner
• 1940 – Tabaré Vazquez, President of Uruguay
• 1942 – Muhammad Ali, American boxer (d. 2016)
• 1942 - Forges, Spanish cartoonist (d. 2018)
• 1943 – René Préval, former President of Haiti (d. 2017)
• 1944 - Françoise Hardy, French singer
• 1944 - Jan Guillou, Swedish writer and journalist
• 1945 - Javed Akhtar, Indian composer, poet and scriptwriter
• 1948 - Eddie Gray, Scottish footballer
• 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 (d. 2014)
• 1949 - Dick Nanninga, Dutch footballer (d. 2015)
• 1949 - Anita Borg, American computer scientist and activist (d. 2003)
• 1949 - Heini Hemmi, Swiss skier

1951 – 1975

• 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 (d. 2017)
• 1957 - Steve Harvey, American comedian and actor
• 1959 - Susanna Hoffs, American musician
• 1959 - Momoe Yamaguchi, Japanese singer and actress
• 1960 - John Crawford, American musician
• 1960 - Chili Davis, Jamaican baseball player
• 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, former First Lady of the United States
• 1964 – Andy Rourke, English guitarist
• 1965 - Sylvain Turgeon, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1966 - Nobuyuki Kojima, Japanese footballer
• 1966 - Joshua Malina, American actor
• 1967 – Filippo Raciti, Italian police officer (d. 2007)
• 1968 - Svetlana Masterkova, Russian athlete
• 1969 - Lukas Moodysson, Swedish writer and director
• 1971 - Leslie Benzies, Scottish video game producer
• 1971 - Leonardo Ciampi, Italian-American singer and musician
• 1971 - Kid Rock, American singer
• 1971 – Richard Burns, English rally driver (d. 2005)
• 1971 - Sylvie Testud, French actress
• 1972 - Ken Hirai, Japanese singer-songwriter, producer and actor
• 1973 - Chris Bowen, Australian politician
• 1973 – Cuauhtémoc Blanco, Mexican footballer
• 1974 - Danny Bhoy, Scottish comedian
• 1974 - Ladan and Laleh Bijani, Iranian conjoined twins (d. 2003)
• 1975 - Freddy Rodriguez, American actor

From 1976

• 1976 - Tonique Williams-Darling, Bahamian athlete
• 1978 – Ricky Wilson, English singer (Kaiser Chiefs)
• 1979 – Ricardo Cabanas, Swiss footballer
• 1980 – Zooey Deschanel, American actress
• 1981 - Daniel Diges, Spanish singer
• 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
• 1982 - Dwyane Wade, American basketball player
• 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 - Earl Clark, American basketball player
• 1988 - Héctor Moreno, Mexican footballer
• 1989 - Björn Dreyer, German footballer
• 1989 - Taylor Jordan, American baseball player
• 1991 - Lee Kiseop, South Korean actor and singer
• 1992 - Nate Hartley, American actor
• 1992 - Frankie Cocozza, English singer

Deaths

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 – 2000

• 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)
• 1947 - Pyotr Krasnov, Russian general (b. 1869)
• 1947 - Jean-Marie-Rodrigue Villeneuve, Canadian cardinal (b. 1883)
• 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, writer (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)
• 1975 - Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, President of Colombia (b. 1900)
• 1977 - Dougal Haston, Scottish mountaineer (b. 1940)
• 1991 – King Olav V of Norway (b. 1903)
• 1993 – Albert Hourani, historian (b. 1915)
• 1994 - Yevgeni Ivanov, Soviet spy (b. 1926)
• 1996 – Barbara Jordan, American politician (b. 1936)
• 1997 – Clyde Tombaugh, American astronomer (b. 1906)

From 2001

• 2001 – Laurent-Désiré Kabila, President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (b. 1939)
• 2002 – Camilo José Cela, Spanish writer, 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 chief executive officer of McDonald's (b. 1960)
• 2005 – Virginia Mayo, American actress of 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 Icelandic 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)
• 2013 - Sophiya Haque, British actress (b. 1971)
• 2013 - John Nkomo, Vice President of Zimbabwe (b. 1934)
• 2014 - Suchitra Sen, Indian actress (b. 1931)
• 2014 - Mohammed Burhanuddin, Indian Islamic leader (b. 1915)
• 2014 - Alistair McAlpine, Baron McAlpine of West Green, English politician (b. 1941)
• 2015 - Faten Hamama, Egyptian actress (b. 1931)
• 2015 - Bill Sykes, English chaplain and writer (b. 1939)
• 2015 - Don Harron, Canadian comedian, actor and author (b. 1924)
• 2015 - Origa, Russian singer (b. 1970)
• 2016 - Blowfly, American musician and producer (b. 1939)
• 2016 - Bob Harkey, American racing driver (b. 1930)
• 2016 - Gottfried Honegger, Swiss artist and graphic designer (b. 1917)
• 2016 - V. Rama Rao, Indian politician, former Governor of Sikkim (b. 1935)
• 2017 - M. M. Ruhul Amin, Bangladeshi judge (b. 1942)
• 2017 - Brenda C. Barnes, American businesswoman (b. 1953)
• 2017 - Philip Bond, British actor (b. 1934)
• 2017 - Colo, American-bred Western gorilla (b. 1956)
• 2017 - Mario Fasino, Italian politician, President of Sicily (b. 1920)
• 2017 - Heng Freylinger, Luxembourgish wrestler (b. 1926)
• 2017 - Steven Plaut, American-Israeli economist and academic (b. 1951)
• 2017 - Robert Timlin, American judge (b. 1932)
• 2017 - Daniel Vischer, Swiss politician (b. 1950)
• 2018 - Jessica Falkholt, Australian actress (b. 1988)
• 2018 - Augusto Polo Campos, Peruvian composer (b. 1932)
• 2019 - Babiker Awadalla, Prime minister of Sudan (b. 1917)
• 2019 - Windsor Davies, British actor (b. 1930)
• 2019 - Mary Oliver, American poet (b. 1935)
• 2019 - Reggie Young, American guitarist (b. 1936)
• 2019 - Horst Stern, German science journalist, filmmaker and writer (b. 1922)

Observances

• 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.
• National Day of Menorca