WEDNESDAY IN HISTORY

Today is Wednesday, Jan. 11, the 11th day of 2017. There are 354 days left in the year.

Highlight in History:

On Jan. 11, 1927, the creation of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was proposed during a dinner of Hollywood luminaries.

On this date:

In 1861, Alabama became the fourth state to withdraw from the Union.

In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed the Grand Canyon National Monument.

In 1935, aviator Amelia Earhart began an 18-hour trip from Honolulu to Oakland, Calif., that made her the first person to fly solo across any part of the Pacific Ocean.

In 1942, Japan declared war against the Netherlands, the same day that Imperial Japanese forces invaded the Dutch East Indies.

In 1964, U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry issued “Smoking and Health,” a report which concluded that “cigarette smoking contributes substantially to mortality from certain specific diseases and to the overall death rate.”

In 1977, France set off an international uproar by releasing Abu Daoud, a PLO official behind the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

In 1995, 51 people were killed when a Colombian DC-9 jetliner crashed as it was preparing to land near the Caribbean resort of Cartagena — however, 9-year-old Erika Delgado survived.

In 2003, calling the death penalty process “arbitrary and capricious, and therefore immoral,” Illinois Gov. George Ryan commuted the sentences of 167 condemned inmates, clearing his state’s death row two days before leaving office.

Ten years ago: President George W. Bush’s plan to send more troops to Iraq ran into a wall of criticism on Capitol Hill from both Democrats and Republicans.

Five years ago: Joran van der Sloot, the longtime suspect in the still unsolved disappearance of American Natalee Holloway in Aruba, pleaded guilty in Lima to the 2010 murder of a Peruvian woman, Stephany Flores.

One year ago: Gunmen stormed into a Baghdad mall, killing 18 people.

Today’s Birthdays: Actor Mitchell Ryan is 83. Movie director Joel Zwick is 75. Country singer Naomi Judd is 71. World Golf Hall of Famer Ben Crenshaw is 65. Actress Phyllis Logan is 61. Singer Mary J. Blige is 46.

Thought for Today: “Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could.”— Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, poet and philosopher (1803-1882).