January 17



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.
 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.
 1998 – Paula Jones says she was sexually harassed by President Bill Clinton.

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)
 1878 - Oscar Apfel, American actor, director, screenwriter, producer (d. 1938)
 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)
 1897 - Marcel Petiot, French physician and serial killer (d. 1946)
 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 (d. 2022)
 1922 – Betty White, American actress (d. 2021)
 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 (d. 2021)
 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
 1950 - Richard L. Anderson, American sound editor

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)
 1977 – Gary Gilmore, American murderer (executed by firing squad) (b. 1940)
 1991 – King Olav V of Norway (b. 1903)
 1993 – Albert Hourani, historian (b. 1915)
 1994 - Yevgeni Ivanov, Soviet spy (b. 1926)
 1996 – Amber Hagerman, American murder victim (b. 1986)
 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 writer (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 - Simon Shelton, English actor (b. 1966)
 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

Other websites
 BBC: On This Day

Days of the year