January 17......

January 17 is the 17th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 348 (349 in leap years) days remaining in the year on this date.

{Disclaimer: I have attempted to give credit to the many different sources that I get entries. Any failure to do so is unintentional. Any statement enclosed by brackets like these are the opinion of the blogger, A Proud Liberal.}

EVENTS

● 395 - With the death of Emperor Theodosius I (the Great), this became the last day the (Christian) Roman Empire was controlled by a single leader. In his wisdom, Theodosius had divided the empire into western and eastern portions.

● 1377 - The Papal See was moved back to Rome by Gregory XI. Located in France for 72 years, it had been moved to Avignon by French pope Clement V in 1305, originally to escape the political turmoil rampant within Italy at the time.

● 1501 - Cesare Borgia returns in triumph to Rome from Romagna

● 1536 - François Rabelais absolved of apostasy by Pope Paul III

● 1562 - France recognizes the Huguenots (French Protestants) under the Edict of Saint-Germain.

● 1584 - Bohemia adopts the Gregorian calendar

● 1595 - French king Henri IV declares war on Spain

● 1601 - France gains Bresse, Bugey, Valromey & Gex in treaty with Spain

● 1648 - England's Long Parliament passes the Vote of No Address, breaking off negotiations with King Charles I and thereby setting the scene for the second phase of the English Civil War.

● 1656 - Brandenburg & Sweden sign Treaty of Königsberg

● 1706 - Birth of early electrician Benjamin Franklin in Boston.

● 1718 - Avalanche destroys every building in Leukerbad, Switzerland; kills 53

● 1745 - Colonial missionary to the American Indians David Brainerd wrote in his journal: 'Oh, how comfortable and sweet it is, to feel the assistance of divine grace in the performance of the duties which God has enjoined on us!'

● 1746 - Charles Edward Stuart, "Bonnie Prince Charlie", defeats a Hanoverian army at Falkirk in his ultimately unsuccessful campaign to recover the throne for the Jacobite dynasty.

● 1757 - German Diet declares war on Prussia

● 1772 - Johann Friedrich Struensee and Queen Caroline Matilda are arrested, leading to his execution and her banishment from Denmark.

● 1773 - Captain James Cook's Resolution becomes the first ship to cross the Antarctic Circle.

● 1775 - 9 old women burnt as witches for causing bad harvests, Kalisk, Poland

● 1779 - Captain Cook's last notation in ship's log Discovery

● 1781 - American Revolutionary War: Battle of Cowpens - Continental troops under Brigadier General Daniel Morgan defeat British forces under Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton at the battle in South Carolina.

● 1806 - Thomas Jefferson's daughter, Martha, gave birth to James Madison Randolph, the first child born in the White House.

● 1819 - Simón Bolívar proclaims the Republic of Colombia.

● 1821 - México permits Moses Austin & 300 US families to settle in Texas

● 1827 - Duke of Wellington appointed British supreme commander

● 1832 - Johannes van den Bosch appointed Governor-General of Dutch-Indies

● 1852 - United Kingdom recognizes the independence of the Boer colonies of the Transvaal.

● 1861 - Flush toilet (with separate water tank and a pull chain) patented by Mr. Thomas Crapper (Honest!)

● 1863 - Mangas Colorado, Apache chief, agrees to peace talks, was then arrested, imprisoned, and tortured at Fort McLane, New Mexico, then a soldier takes his scalp, and another cuts off his head and boils the flesh away so he can sell it to a phrenologist. They dump the headless body in a ditch. The official military report will state that Mangas was killed while attempting to escape. After learning of Mangas' death, Apache chiefs Cochise and Victorio will lead their warriors in a guerrilla war against whites in the Southwest.

● 1863 - Civil War skirmish near Newtown VA

● 1864 - General Longstreet's command ends heavy fighting at Dandridge TN

● 1871 - 1st cable car patented, by Andrew S Hallidie (begins service in 1873)

● 1873 - First Battle of the Stronghold in the US Modoc War.

● 1874 - Armed Democrats seize Texas government ending Radical Reconstruction

● 1882 - 1st Dutch female physician Aletta Jacobs opens office

● 1885 - A British force defeats a large Dervish army at the Battle of Abu Klea in the Sudan.

● 1893 - Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th president of the United States, died in Fremont, Ohio, at age 70.

● 1893 - -17ºF (-27ºC), Millsboro DE (state record)

● 1893 - Hawai'i - Queen Lilluoka'ani's regime is overthrown by U.S. pineapple tycoon Sanford Dole and pro-annexation sugar interests. With an amazing sense of timing, U.S. troops land, "to protect U.S. interests." With U.S. support, Dole declares himself Hawai'i's president and lobbies for U.S. annexation. It's in the can. In 1898, President William McKinley will sign a joint resolution of Congress authorizing the annexation.

● 1895 - French President Casimir-Perier resigns

● 1895 - Félix Faure installed as President of France

● 1898 - Two-day general strike, and riots, against the increase of bread prices, Ancine, Italy. The army occupies the city.

● 1899 - Al Capone , the American gangster and prohibition era crime leader , was born in Brooklyn, N.Y.

● 1899 - The United States takes possession of Wake Island in the Pacific Ocean.

● 1900 - The U.S. took Wake Island where there was in important cable link between Hawaii and Manila.

● 1900 - Yaqui Indians in Texas proclaimed their independence from Mexico.

● 1900 - Mormon Brigham Roberts was denied a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives for his practicing of polygamy.

● 1902 - Washington State Federation of Labor formed.

● 1905 - Punchboards patented by Charles Brewer & C G Scannell, Chicago IL

● 1911 - Failed assassination attempt on premier Briand in French Assembly

● 1912 - English explorer Robert Falcon Scott reached the South Pole. Norwegian Roald Amundsen had beaten him there by one month. Scott and his party died during the return trip.

● 1913 - Raymond Poincaré elected President of France

● 1915 - Russia occupies Bukovina & Western Ukraine

● 1915 - Anarchist Lucy Parsons leads hunger march in Chicago.

● 1916 - The Professional Golfers Association (PGA) is formed.

● 1917 - The United States pays Denmark $25 million for the Virgin Islands.

● 1917 - Dr. Ben Reitman is convicted on charges resulting from his arrest the previous month in Cleveland for organizing volunteers to distribute birth control information at an Emma Goldman lecture on birth control. He is sentenced to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine, plus court costs, for the crime.

● 1920 - Finland - S.S. Buford, full of labor activists and radicals kicked out of the U.S. during the Palmer Raids, lands at Hange. Two days later the deportees are met at the Russo-Finnish border by Russian representatives and received warmly at a mass meeting of soldiers and peasants in Belo-Ostrov.

● 1920 - Paul Deschanel elected President of France

● 1923 - Belgian Working people Party protest against occupied Ruhrgebied

● 1928 - The first fully automatic, film-developing machine was patented by A.M. Josepho.

● 1929 - Popeye the Sailor Man, a cartoon character created by Elzie Crisler Segar, first appears in the Comic Strip Thimble Theatre.

● 1929 - Uprising in Afghanistan against British rule.

● 1934 - Ferdinand Porsche submitted a design for a people's car, a "Volkswagen," to the new German Reich government.

● 1934 - Electric Home & Farm Authority incorporated

● 1938 - Supreme Soviet elects Michail Kalinin as presidium chairman

● 1938 - Birth of Martha Cotera, Chicana feminist, librarian, and civil rights worker.

● 1941 - Kuomintang forces under the order of Chiang Kai-Shek opened fire at communist force, Chinese Civil War resumes after WWII.(This event is known as 皖南事变).

● 1943 - Tin Can Drive Day

● 1944 - Corvette Violet sinks U-641 in Atlantic Ocean

● 1945 - Soviet forces capture the almost completely destroyed Polish city of Warsaw.

● 1945 - The Nazis begin the evacuation of the Auschwitz concentration camp as Soviet forces close in.

● 1945 - Hungary - Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, age 32, credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews from the Nazis, arrested by Soviet secret police and is not heard from ever again. {This is of course no mere coincidence, since Stalin hated Jews almost as much as Hitler. Russian pogroms against Jews had been a favorite past time of both the Tsars and Communists.}

● 1946 - The UN Security Council holds its first session.

● 1947 - Muiden Netherlands ammunition factory explodes, 16 die

● 1948 - Netherlands & Indonesia agree to a cease fire

● 1949 - U.S. - Conspiracy trial against 11 Communist Party leaders opens.

● 1950 - The Great Brinks Robbery - 11 thieves steal more than $2 million from an armored car Company's offices in Boston, Massachusetts.

● 1951 - China refuses cease-fire in Korea

● 1955 - Submarine USS Nautilus begins 1st nuclear-powered test voyage

● 1957 - 9-county commission recommends creation of BART {The "temporary" sales tax increase in the nine counties has never been lifted, with Marin and Santa Clara counties paying the tax but getting no BART service.}

● 1959 - Senegal and the French Sudan joined to form the Federal State of Mali.

● 1961 - U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers a televised farewell address to the nation three days before leaving office, in which he warns against "the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex."

● 1961 - Patrice Lumumba, former premier of the newly independent Republic of the Congo, is assassinated; CIA involvement is widely suspected. Some believe that Eisenhower directly ordered the assassination of Lumumba.

● 1962 - NASA civilian pilot Neil A Armstrong takes X-15 to 40,690 m

● 1963 - The Baptist World Mission was incorporated in Chicago. This independent organization of Baptist tradition is engaged primarily in evangelism, church planting and education in 17 overseas countries.

● 1963 - Joe Walker takes X-15 to altitude of 82 km

● 1966 - Martin Luther King Jr opens campaign in Chicago

● 1966 - B-52 collides with an Air Force jet tanker while refueling over the coast of Spain. Two hydrogen bombs ruptured, scattering radioactive particles; a third landed intact near the village of Palomares; a fourth was lost at sea. Fifteen hundred tons of radioactive soil and tomato plants were removed to the U.S. for burial. The U.S. tried first to cover it up, then downplay the incident. {While eight crewmen died as a direct result of the crash it will never be known how many more indirect deaths occurred because the released radioactivity.}

● 1967 - London's "Daily Mail" reports the Blackburn City Council's road hole survey. John Lennon mentioned the 4000 holes in the song "A Day in the Life."

● 1968 - Soyuz 4 & 5 completed 1st docking of 2 manned spacecraft

● 1970 - Chicano activists gather in Crystal City, TX to found Raza Unida Party.

● 1970 - Jerry Rubin addresses an overflow Seattle crowd of 4,000 at the University of Washington Student Union Building.

● 1970 - John M Burgess installed as bishop of Protestant Episcopals (Massachusetts)

● 1973 - City of Amsterdam decides to support Hanoi

● 1973 - Ferdinand Marcos becomes self proclaimed "President for Life" of the Philippines.

● 1976 - Hermes rocket launched by European Space Agency

● 1977 - Zaire President Mobutu visits Belgium

● 1977 - Convicted murderer Gary Gilmore executed by a Utah firing squad in the first exercise of capital punishment in the U.S. in 10 years. Gilmore opposed all attempts to delay the execution; his last words - "Let's do it!" Gilmore was the illegitimate grandson of magician Harry Houdini.

● 1979 - USSR performs underground nuclear test

● 1980 - NASA launches Fltsatcom-3

● 1981 - Philippino President Marcos ends state of siege

● 1981 - Pres. Reagan invokes special executive powers to send $10 million of military assistance to the fascist military junta governing El Salvador, which faces a fierce rebel offensive from the FMLN. The aid package will include three military advisor teams.

● 1982 - "Cold Sunday" in the United States sees temperatures fall to their lowest levels in over 100 years in numerous cities.

● 1983 - BBC wakes up to morning TV; People have been switching on their televisions a little earlier than usual to catch Britain's first breakfast news programme.

● 1983 - Nigeria expels 2 million illegal aliens, mostly Ghanaians

● 1983 - Alabama Governor George C Wallace, becomes governor for record 4th time

● 1984 - U.S. Supreme Court rules (5-4) private use of home VCRs to tape TV programs for later viewing does not violate federal copyright laws. One vote separates you from a felony every time you pressed "record." {It is a really good thing this ruling occurred in 1984 because if it was done today, the vote would most likely be 6-3 the other way.}

● 1985 - Hashimoto Yoshiharu, 55, dies in Tokyo. Japanese anarchist.

● 1985 - British Telecom announces the retirement of the United Kingdom's famous red telephone boxes.

● 1987 - President Reagan signs secret order permitting covert sale of arms to Iran

● 1988 - Leslie Manigay elected President of Haiti

● 1989 - Gunman opens fire in California schoolyard; 5 students slain, 30 wounded

● 1989 - Victoria Murden & Shirley Metz are 1st women to reach South Pole overland (on skis)

● 1989 - Phoenix Suns cancel game at Miami Heat, due to racial unrest in Miami

● 1991 - Gulf War: Operation Desert Storm began early in the morning. Iraq fires 8 Scud missiles into Israel in an unsuccessful bid to provoke Israeli retaliation.

● 1991 - Harald V becomes King of Norway on the death of his father, Olav V.

● 1992 - Sarah Ferguson attends dinner of Everglades club (club excludes Jews) {Just another example of the elitist attitudes among royalaty.}

● 1992 - Eight Protestant workers killed by IRA bomb, Teebane, Northern Ireland.

● 1993 - Native Hawai'ians demonstrate against U.S. control of their homeland, on the 100th anniversary of the U.S.-backed overthrow of the independent government of Hawai'ian Queen Lilluokalani by pineapple tycoon Sanford Dole.

● 1994 - A magnitude 6.7 earthquake hits Northridge, California, killing 61, $30B in damage.

● 1995 - A magnitude 7.3 earthquake (known as "the Great Hanshin earthquake") hits near Kobe, Japan, causing extensive property damage and killing 6,433 people.

● 1996 - The Czech Republic applies for membership of the European Union.

● 1997 - A court in Ireland granted the first divorce in the Roman Catholic country's history.

● 1997 - Israel gave over 80% of Hebron to Palestinian rule, but held the remainder where several hundred Jewish settlers lived among 20,000 Palestinians.

● 1997 - A Delta 2 carrying a GPS2R satellite explodes 13 seconds after launch, dropping 250 tons of burning rocket remains around the launch pad.

● 1997 - Twenty activists arrested for trespass at the Waihopai spy station in New Zealand.

● 1998 - Mexico - Over 2000 indigenous Tzeltals and Tojolbals from the state of Chiapas occupy the military barracks of the 39th Military Zone in protest over Army incursions into their communities.

● 1998 - President Bill Clinton became the first U.S. president to testify as a defendant in a criminal or civil suit when he answered questions from lawyers for Paula Jones, who had accused Clinton of sexual harassment.

● 2000 - British pharmaceutical companies Glaxo Wellcome PLC and SmithKline Beecham PLC agreed to a merger that created the world's largest drugmaker.

● 2001 - Congo's President Laurent Kabila was shot and killed during a coup attempt. Congolese officials temporarily placed Kabila's son in charge of the government.

● 2001 - Faced with an electricity crisis, California used rolling blackouts to cut off power to hundreds of thousands of people. {Those who weren't blackout, passed out when receiving their electric bills that tripled in many cases.}

● 2001 - The director of Palestinian TV, Hisham Miki, was killed at a restaurant when three masked gunmen walked up to his table and shot him more than 10 times.

● 2002 - Mount Nyiragongo erupts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, displacing an estimated 400,000 people.

● 2006 - The Supreme Court protected Oregon's assisted-suicide law, ruling that doctors there who helped terminally ill patients die could not be arrested under federal drug laws.

BIRTHS

● 1342 - Philip II of Burgandy, French Duke (d. 1404)

● 1463 - Friedrich III, Elector of Saxony (d. 1525)

● 1484 - George Spalatin, German reformer (d. 1545)

● 1501 - Leonhart Fuchs, German physician and botanist (d. 1566)

● 1504 - Pope Pius V (d. 1572)

● 1560 - Gaspard Bauhin, Swiss botanist (d. 1624)

● 1600 - Pedro Calderon de la Barca, Spanish playwright (d. 1681)

● 1612 - Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron, English Civil War general (d. 1671)

● 1624 - Guarino Guarini, Italian architect (d. 1683)

● 1686 - Archibald Bower, Scottish historian (d. 1766)

● 1705 - Jacques-Francois Blondel, French architect (d. 1774)

● 1706 - Benjamin Franklin American statesman (d. 1790)

● 1712 - John Stanley, English composer (d. 1786)

● 1719 - William Vernon, American merchant (d. 1806)

● 1761 - James Hall, Scottish geologist (d. 1832)

● 1763 - John Jacob Astor, American entrepreneur (d. 1848)

● 1789 - August Neander, German theologian (d. 1850)

● 1820 - Anne Brontë, British author (d. 1849)

● 1828 - Lewis A. Grant, American Civil War General (d. 1918)

● 1832 - Henry Martyn Baird, American educationalist (d. 1906)

● 1851 - A. B. Frost, American illustrator (d. 1928)

● 1853 - Alva Belmont, American socialite (d. 1933)

● 1860 - Douglas Hyde, President of Ireland (d. 1949)

● 1863 - David Lloyd George, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1945)

● 1867 - Carl Laemmle, German-born film executive (d. 1939)

● 1871 - David Earl Beatty British admiral (d. 1936)

● 1871 - Nicolae Iorga, Romanian writer (d. 1940)

● 1880 - Mack Sennett, Canadian film director (d. 1960)

● 1881 - Antoni Łomnicki, Polish mathematician (d. 1941)

● 1882 - Noah Beery, American actor (d. 1946)

● 1886 - Glenn L. Martin, American aviation pioneer (d. 1955)

● 1899 - Al Capone, American gangster (d. 1947)

● 1899 - Robert M. Hutchins, American educator (d. 1977)

● 1899 - Nevil Shute, English author (d. 1960)

● 1903 - Jyoti Prasad Agarwala, Assamese poet, playwright, film maker (d. 1953)

● 1905 - Guillermo Stábile, Argentine footballer (d. 1966)

● 1905 - Ray Cunningham, baseball player (d. 2005)

● 1908 - Cus D'Amato, boxing manager (d. 1985)

● 1911 - George Joseph Stigler, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1991)

● 1914 - William Stafford, American poet and essayist (d. 1993)

● 1920 - Nora Kaye, American ballerina (d. 1987)

● 1921 - Antonio Prohias, Cuban cartoonist (d. 1998)

● 1922 - Luis Echeverría Álvarez, President of Mexico

● 1922 - Nicholas Katzenbach, American politician

● 1922 - Betty White, American actress ("The Golden Girls")

● 1925 - Robert Cormier, American author (d. 2000)

● 1925 - Abdul Kardar, Pakistani cricketer

● 1926 - Newton N. Minow, American lawyer and statesman

● 1926 - Moira Shearer, Scottish actress (d. 2006)

● 1927 - Thomas Dooley, American physician/author (d. 1961)

● 1927 - Eartha Kitt, American actress and singer

● 1928 - Jean Barraqué, French composer (d. 1973)

● 1928 - Vidal Sassoon, English cosmetologist

● 1929 - Jacques Plante, Canadian hockey player (d. 1986)

● 1930 - Eddie LeBaron, American football quarterback

● 1931 - James Earl Jones, American actor

● 1931 - L. Douglas Wilder, 66th Governor of Virginia

● 1931 - Don Zimmer, baseball coach

● 1932 - Sheree North, American actress (d. 2005)

● 1933 - Dalida, French singer (d. 1987)

● 1933 - Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, French UN High Commissioner for Refugees (d. 2003)

● 1933 - Shari Lewis, American ventriloquist (d. 1998)

● 1935 - Ruth Ann Minner, Governor of Delaware

● 1939 - Maury Povich, American talk show host

● 1940 - Kipchoge Keino, Kenyan runner

● 1942 - Muhammad Ali, American boxer

● 1942 - Ulf Hoelscher, German violinist

● 1942 - Nancy Parsons, American actress (d. 2001)

● 1943 - René Préval, President of Haiti

● 1943 - Chris Montez, American singer

● 1944 - Françoise Hardy, French singer

● 1945 - William Hart, R&B singer (The Delfonics)

● 1945 - Javed Akhtar, Indian lyricist, poet and scriptwriter

● 1948 - Davíð Oddsson, former Prime Minister of Iceland

● 1948 - Jim Ladd, American freeform (radio format) Disc Jockey (KLOS)

● 1949(48? NYT) - Mick Taylor, British musician (The Rolling Stones)

● 1949 - Andy Kaufman, American comedian (d. 1984)

● 1952 - Darrell Porter, American baseball player (d. 2002)

● 1952 - Ryuichi Sakamoto, Japanese musician

● 1955 - Steve Earle, American musician

● 1956 - Paul Young, English musician

● 1957 - Steve Harvey, Actor-comedian

● 1957 - Keith Chegwin, TV Presenter

● 1959 - Susanna Hoffs, American musician (The Bangles)

● 1959 - Momoe Yamaguchi, Japanese singer and actress

● 1960 - John Crawford, American musician

● 1961 - Brian Helgeland, American writer and film director

● 1962 - Jim Carrey, Canadian actor and comedian

● 1962 - Sebastian Junger, American journalist and author

● 1963 - Kai Hansen, German musician/singer

● 1964 - Andy Rourke, bass guitarist

● 1965 - Sylvain Turgeon, National Hockey League player

● 1966 - Joshua Malina, Actor (''The West Wing,'' ''Sports Night'')

● 1966 - Shabba Ranks, Jamaican singer

● 1967 - Song Kang-ho, South Korean actor

● 1968 - Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, Dutch writer

● 1968 - Svetlana Masterkova, Russian athlete

● 1969 - Lukas Moodysson, Swedish film director

● 1969 - Naveen Andrews, British actor (''Lost'')

● 1970 - Jeremy Roenick, American hockey player

● 1970 - Genndy Tartakovsky, Russian-born animator

● 1970 - James Wattana, Thai snooker player

● 1971 - Kid Rock, American singer

● 1971 - Richard Burns, English rally driver (d. 2005)

● 1971 - Youki Kudoh, Japanese actress

● 1971 - Ann Wolfe, female boxer

● 1972 - Ken Hirai, Japanese singer and songwriter

● 1973 - Cuauhtémoc Blanco, Mexican footballer

● 1974 - Yang Chen, Chinese footballer

● 1975 - Freddy Rodriguez, Actor (''Six Feet Under'')

● 1977 - Kevin Fertig, American professional wrestler

● 1977 - Leigh Whannell, Australian screenwriter/actor.

● 1979 - Brad Miller, American actor

● 1979 - Chase Stevens, American professional wrestler

● 1980 - Zooey Deschanel, American actress

● 1980 - Maksim Chmerkovskiy, Russian ballroom dancer

● 1980 - Kimberly Spicer, American model

● 1981 - Warren Feeney, Northern Irish footballer

● 1981 - Scott Mechlowicz, American actor

● 1981 - Ray J, American R&B singer

● 1982 - Alex Varkatzas, American singer

● 1982 - Amanda Wilkinson, Country singer (The Wilkinsons)

● 1982 - Dwyane Wade, American basketball player

● 1983 - Johannes Herber, German basketball player

● 1984 - Shin-yeong Jang, South Korean actress

● 1985 - Simone Simons, Dutch singer

● 1985 - Riyu Kosaka, J-POP Japanese singer, actual member of BeForU

● 1986 - Chloe Rose Lattanzi, Australian actress and singer

DEATHS

● 395 - Theodosius I, Roman Emperor

● 1229 - Albert of Buxhoeveden, German soldier

● 1369 - King Peter I of Cyprus (murdered) (b. 1328)

● 1468 - Skanderbeg, Albanian leader (b. 1405)

● 1617 - Faust Vrančić, Croatian inventor (b. 1551)

● 1654 - Paulus Potter, Dutch painter (b. 1625)

● 1705 - John Ray, English naturalist (b. 1627)

● 1718 - Captain Benjamin Church, Plymouth Colony settler

● 1737 - Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann, German architect (b. 1662)

● 1751 - Tomaso Albinoni, Italian composer (b. 1671)

● 1826 - Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga, Spanish composer (b. 1806)

● 1834 - Giovanni Aldini, Italian physicist (b. 1762)

● 1861 - Lola Montez, Irish-born adventurer (b. 1821)

● 1863 - Horace Vernet, French painter (b. 1789)

● 1884 - Hermann Schlegel, German ornithologist (b. 1804)

● 1886 - Amilcare Ponchielli, Italian composer (b. 1834)

● 1893 - Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th President of the United States (b. 1822)

● 1933 - Louis Comfort Tiffany, American artist and designer (b. 1848)

● 1942 - Walther von Reichenau, German field marshal (b. 1884)

● 1947 - Pyotr Krasnov, Russian counter-revolutionary (b. 1869)

● 1947 - Jean-Marie-Rodrigue Villeneuve, French catholic priest, cardinal and Archbishop of Quebec (b. 1883)

● 1961 - Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (b. 1925)

● 1964 - T.H. White, English author (b. 1906)

● 1967 - Evelyn Nesbit, American actress (b. 1884)

● 1970 - Simon Kovar, Russian-American bassoonist (b. 1890)

● 1970 - Billy Stewart, American singer (b. 1937)

● 1972 - Betty Smith, American writer and singer (b. 1896)

● 1977 - Gary Gilmore, American murderer (executed) (b. 1940)

● 1983 - Doodles Weaver, American actor (b. 1911)

● 1987 - Hugo Fregonese, Argentine film director (b. 1908)

● 1991 - Olav V of Norway (b. 1903)*1991 - Me (b. 1903)

● 1993 - Albert Hourani, English historian (b. 1915)

● 1994 - Helen Stephens, American runner (b. 1918)

● 1996 - Amber Hagerman, American kidnapping and murder victim, basis of the Amber Alert system (b. 1986)

● 1996 - Barbara Jordan, American politician (b. 1936)

● 1996 - Mostafa Sid Ahmed,Sudanese Singer ,(b.1953)

● 1997 - Clyde Tombaugh, American astronomer (b. 1906)

● 1998 - Junior Kimbrough, American bluesman (b. 1930)

● 1999 - Robert Eads, American transexual (b. 1945)

● 2001 - Gregory Corso, American poet (b. 1930)

● 2002 - Bishop Karas, First Coptic Bishop of St. Antony Monastery (b. 1955)

● 2002 - Camilo Jose Cela, Spanish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1916)

● 2003 - Richard Crenna, American actor (b. 1926)

● 2004 - Czeslaw Niemen, Polish musician (b. 1939)

● 2004 - Ray Stark, American stage and film producer (b. 1915)

● 2004 - Noble Willingham, American actor (b. 1931)

● 2004 - Harry Brecheen, Baseball player (b. 1914)

● 2005 - Charlie Bell, American fast food executive (b. 1960)

● 2005 - Virginia Mayo, American actress (b. 1920)

● 2005 - Albert Schatz, American microbiologist (b. 1920)

● 2005 - Zhao Ziyang, Premier of the People's Republic of China (b. 1919)

● 2006 - Clarence Ray Allen, American murderer (b. 1930)

● 2006 - Pierre Grondin, French Canadian cardiac surgeon (b. 1925)

● 2007 - Art Buchwald, American humorist (b. 1925)

HOLIDAYS AND OBSERVANCES

● Roman Catholic:
● St. Amelbert
● St. Anthony the Abbot, patron of domestic animals
● St. Sulpicius
● St. Achillas
● St. Julian Sabas the Elder
● St. Nennius
● St. Mildgytha
● St. Pior
● Bl. Gonzalo de Amarante

● Eastern (Byzantine) Catholic:
● Ven. Anthony the Great

● Russian Orthodox Christian Menaion Calendar for January 5 (Civil Date: January 17)
● Fast day; wine and oil allowed.
● Eve of the Theophany.
● Martyrs Theopemptus, Bishop of Nicomedia, and Theonas.
● St. Syncletica of Alexandria.
● Prophet Micah.
● Virgin Apollinaris of Egypt.
● St. Gregory of Crete, monk.
● St. Phosterius the hermit.
● St. Menas of Sinai.
● Martyr Theoidus.
● Martyr Sais.
● New-Martyr Romanus of Mt. Athos.
● St. Tatiana.

● Anglican:
● St. Anthony, abbot, patron of domestic animals

● Ancient Latvia - Zirgu Diena observed

● Poland : Liberation Day

● These Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"
● US : Martin Luther King Jr Day (1929) - ( Monday )
● Virginia : Lee-Jackson Day - ( Monday )
● Florida : Arbor Day - ( Friday )


Click on this LINK to see original Wikipedia list with many having links with details.

Additional facts taken from:

On this day in the New York Times

The BBC’s Take on the day

On This Day Website

Geov Parrish's this Day in Radical History, things that happened on this day that you never had to memorize in school.

Scope Systems Any Day Website

Roman Catholic Saint of the Day

Russian Orthodox Christian Menaion Calendar

Permanent Backlink to Post