Happy Birthday, Michelle Obama!
Today is Friday, January 17, 2020. Only 291 days until the 2020 Presidential Election.
- Sunrise: 7:23am
- Sunset: 5:16pm ...giving us 9 hours and 52 minutes of daylight. 58% of the waning gibbous moon will be visible, rising at 12:16am.
Tides at the Golden Gate
- High: 5:06am/5:29am
- Low: 11:24am/10:56pm
Special celebrations & commemorations today…
- International Mentoring Day
- International Fetish Day
- National Cut Your Energy Costs Day
- National Oysters Rockefeller Day
- National Hot Buttered Rum Day
- National Bootleggers Day
- Arbor Day - Florida
- Celebration of St. Anthony the Abbot, patron saint of pigs & butchers
- Cable Car Day
- Kid Inventors' Day
- Popeye Day
On this day in…
1377 - The Papal See was transferred from Avignon in France back to Rome.
1562 - French Protestants were recognized under the Edict of St. Germain.
1773 - Captain Cook's Resolution became the first ship to cross the Antarctic Circle.
1795 - The Dudingston Curling Society was organized in Edinburgh, Scotland.
1806 - James Madison Randolph, grandson ofU.S. President Thomas Jefferson, was the first child born in the White House.
1852 - The independence of the Transvaal Boers was recognized by Britain.
1871 - Andrew S. Hallidie received a patent for a cable car system.
1882 - Thomas Edison's exhibit opened the Crystal Palace Exhibition in London.
1893 -The Kingdom of Hawaii's monarchy was overthrown when a group of businessmen and sugar planters forced Queen Liliuokalani to abdicate.
1900 - TheU.S. took Wake Island where there was in important cable link betweenHawaii and Manila.
1900 - Yaqui Indians inTexas proclaimed their independence from Mexico.
1900 - Mormon Brigham Roberts was denied a seat in theU.S. House of Representatives for his practicing of polygamy.
1905 - Punchboards were patented by a manufacturing firm in Chicago,IL.
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 - All partner interests in 36 Golden Rule Stores were consolidated and incorporated inUtah into one company. The new corporation was the J.C. Penney Company.
1916 - The Professional Golfers Association was formed in New York City.
1928 - The fully automatic, film-developing machine was patented by A.M. Josepho.
1934 - Ferdinand Porsche submitted a design for a people's car, a "Volkswagen," to the new German Reich government.
1938 - "Stepmother" debuted on CBS radio.
1945 - Soviet and Polish forces liberated Warsaw during World War II.
1945 - Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg disappeared in Hungary while in Soviet custody. Wallenberg was credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews.
1946 - The United Nations Security Council held its first meeting.
1949 - "The Goldbergs" debuted on CBS-TV. The program had been on radio since 1931. The TV version lasted for four years.
1959 - Senegal and the French Sudan joined to form the Federal State of Mali.
1961 - In his farewell address,U.S. President Eisenhower warned against the rise of "the military-industrial complex."
1966 - A B-52 carrying four H-bombs collided with a refuelling tanker. The bombs were released and eight crewmembers were killed.
1977 - Double murderer Gary Gilmore became the first to be executed in theU.S. in a decade. The firing squad took place at Utah State Prison.
1991 - Coalition airstrikes began against Iraq after negotiations failed to get Iraq to retreat from the country of Kuwait.
1992 - An IRA bomb, placed next to a remote country road in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, killed seven building workers and injured seven others.
1994 - The Northridge earthquake rocked Los Angeles,CA, registering a 6.7 on theRichter Scale. At least 61 people were killed and about $20 billion in damage was caused.
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.
1997 - Israel gave over 80% of Hebron to Palestinian rule, but held the remainder where several hundred Jewish settlers lived among 20,000 Palestinians.
1998 -U.S. President Clinton gave his deposition in the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit against him. He was the first U.S. President to testify as a defendant in a criminal or civil lawsuit.
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.
If today’s your birthday, you share it with…
- Benjamin Franklin 1706
- David Lloyd George (Britain) 1863
- Carl Laemmle 1867
- Noah Beery 1883
- Mack Sennett 1884
- Marjorie Gateson 1891
- Al Capone 1899 - Gangster
- Nevil Shute 1899
- Vido Musso 1913
- George Handy 1920
- Betty White 1922 - Actress
- Moira Shearer 1926 - Ballerina, actress
- Eartha Kitt 1927 - Actress, singer
- Vidal Sassoon 1928
- Jacques Plante 1929
- James Earl Jones 1931 - Actor, "Star Wars" movies as the voice of Darth Vader
- Sheree North 1933 - Actress
- Shari Lewis (Hurwitz) 1934
- Maury Povich 1939 - Talk show host
- Muhammad Ali 1942 - Boxer
- Chris Montez 1944
- William Hart (Delfonics) 1945 - Singer
- Mick Taylor 1948 - Musician (Rolling Stones)
- Andy Kaufman 1949 - Comedian
- Steve Earle 1955 - Singer
- Paul Young 1956 - Singer
- Steve Harvey 1957 - Actor, comedian
- Susanna Hoffs (Bangles) 1957 - Singer
- John Crawford (Berlin) 1960
- Jim Carrey 1962 - Actor, comedian ("Batman Forever," "Liar Liar," "The Mask")
- Michelle Obama 1964
- Shabba Ranks 1966 - Singer
- Naveen Andrews 1969 - Actor ("Lost")
- Kid Rock 1971 - Rapper
