TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Tuesday, Jan. 17, the 17th day of 2017. There are 348 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History
On Jan. 17, 1917, Denmark ceded the Virgin Islands to the United States for $25 million.
On this date
1893 —The 19th president of the United States, Rutherford B. Hayes, died in Fremont, Ohio, at age 70. 1929 —The cartoon character Popeye the Sailor made his debut in the “Thimble Theatre” comic strip. 1945 —Soviet and Polish forces liberated Warsaw during World War II; Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews, disappeared in Hungary while in Soviet custody. 1946 —The United Nations Security Council held its first meeting, in London. 1950 —The Great Brink’s Robbery took place as seven masked men held up a Brink’s garage in Boston, stealing $1.2 million in cash and $1.5 million in checks and money orders. (Although the entire gang was caught, only part of the loot was recovered.) 1961 —President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered his farewell address in which he warned against “the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” 1966 —A U.S. Air Force B-52 carrying four unarmed hydrogen bombs crashed on the Spanish coast. (Three of the bombs were quickly recovered, but the fourth wasn’t recovered until April.) 1977 —Convicted murderer Gary Gilmore, 36, was shot by a firing squad at Utah State Prison in the first U.S. execution in a decade. 1984 —The U.S. Supreme Court, in Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., ruled 5-4 that the use of home video cassette recorders to tape television programs for private viewing did not violate federal copyright laws. 1987 —Hundreds of Ku Klux Klan members and supporters disrupted a “brotherhood anti-intimidation march” through all-white Forsyth County, Georgia. 1995 —More than 6,000 people were killed when an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 devastated the city of Kobe, Japan. 1997 —A court in Ireland granted the first divorce in the Roman Catholic country’s history. 2012 —Neaton Rome executives unveiled plans for a $26 million, 72,000-square-foot expansion that would create an addition 113 new jobs over the next three years.
Five years ago
Italian officials released a recording of a furious Coast Guard officer, Capt. Gregorio De Falco, demanding that Capt. Francesco Schettino, commander of the grounded Costa Concordia, re-board the ship to direct its evacuation after the vessel rammed into a reef on Jan. 13. (Schettino can be heard resisting the order, making excuses that it was dark and that the ship was listing.)
One year ago
Ahead of the Iowa caucuses, Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders engaged in their most contentious debate to date, tangling repeatedly in Charleston, South Carolina, over who was tougher on gun control and Wall Street and how to shape the future of health care in America.
Today’s Birthdays
Actress Betty White is 95. Rhythm-and-blues singer William Hart (The Delfonics) is 72. Actress Joanna David is 70. Actress Jane Elliot is 70. Rock musician Mick Taylor is 69. Rhythm-and-blues singer Sheila Hutchinson (The Emotions) is 64. First lady Michelle Obama is 53. Actor Freddy Rodriguez is 42. Actor-writer Leigh Whannel is 40. Actresssinger Zooey Deschanel is 37. Singer Ray J is 36. Actor Diogo Morgado is 36. DJ/singer Calvin Harris is 33. Folk-rock musician Jeremiah Fraites is 31. Actor Jonathan Keltz is 29. Actress Kathrine Herzer is 20.