TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – JAN 17
1377 The Papal See was transferred from Avignon in France back to Rome.
1562 French Protestants were recognized under the Edict of St. Germain.
1601 The Treaty of Lyons ends a short war between France and Savoy.
1773 Captain James Cook becomes the first person to cross the Antarctic Circle.
1819 Simon Bolivar the “liberator” proclaims Columbia a republic.
1871 Andrew S. Hallidie received a patent for a cable car system.
1873 A group of Modoc warriors defeats the United States Army in the First Battle of the Stronghold, a part of the Modoc War.
1893 Queen Liliuokalani, the Hawaiian monarch, is overthrown by a group of American sugar planters led by Sanford Ballard Dole.
1900 Mormon Brigham Roberts was denied a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives for his practicing of polygamy.
1913 All partner interests in 36 Golden Rule Stores were consolidated and incorporated in Utah into one company. The new corporation was the J.C. Penney Company.
1924 US surplus war material was being sold to the Mexican government, as approved by President Coolidge.
1934 Ferdinand Porsche submitted a design for a people’s car, a “Volkswagen,” to the new German Reich government.
1939 The Reich issues an order forbidding Jews to practice as dentists, veterinarians and chemists.
1941 Kuomintang forces under orders from Chiang Kai-shek open fire at communist forces, resuming the Chinese Civil War after World War II
1945 The Red army occupies Warsaw.
1945 Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg disappeared in Hungary while in Soviet custody. Wallenberg was credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews.
1949 The first Volkswagen Beetle ( The Peoples Car ) in the U.S. arrived from Germany, designed by Ferdinand Porsche at the request of Adolf Hitler.
1950 The Great Brinks Robbery ( Boston ) A team of 11 thieves, steal more than $2 million from the Brinks Armored Car depot in Boston
1961 Patrice Lumumba is murdered with support from western governments An independent commission concluded that Lumumba, the first democratically elected leader of the Congo, died at the hands of his domestic adversaries with the assistance of the Belgian government and the CIA.
1961 Eisenhower gives his last speech as president of the United States. He warns against what he called the “military-industrial complex” and strongly urged people to seek peace.
1963 Soviet leader Khrushchev visits the Berlin Wall.
1966 A B-52 carrying four H-bombs collided with a refuelling tanker. The bombs were released and eight crewmembers were killed.
1977 Gary Gilmore, convicted in the double murder of an elderly couple, is shot to death by a firing squad in Utah, becoming the first person to be executed in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated
1985 A jury in New Jersey rules that terminally ill patients have the right to starve themselves.
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 court in Ireland granted the first divorce in the Roman Catholic country’s history.
2014 A judge in Pennsylvania has overturned a 2012 voter identification law that had asked voters to show a photo ID in order to vote.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
