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Events, deaths, births, of JAN 17
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On a January 17:
2001 Faced with an electricity crisis, California used rolling blackouts to cut off power to hundreds of thousands of people. Governor Gray Davis signs an emergency order authorizing the state to buy power.
2001 News services report the marriage of Hesam Khalili, 20, and Fatemeh Jamshidi Khakhi, 77, in the village of Gonabad, Khorasan province, Iran, near the border of Afghanistan. In Iran compulsory military service is 2 years for single men, 1 year for married.
1: Thai PM, Htoo twins2001 Thai Prime Minister meets twin boys guerilla leaders who surrendered the previous night.
Photo 1: Thailand's Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai, left, talks with Luther Htoo through an unidentified interpreter, right, as his twin bother Johnny looks on, middle, during their meeting at a border police base in Ratchaburi province, 95 kilometers south of Bangkok
      Thailand says that it may give temporary humanitarian asylum to Johnny and Luther Htoo, the twin boy leaders of a mystical rebel movement from Myanmar who have surrendered with some of their followers. Hunted and hungry, 14 members of the God's Army group — nine of them children, including the charismatic twins — turned themselves over to Thai border police the previous day, after a year on the run along the Thai-Myanmar border.
      For more than three years, the boys fought to overthrow Myanmar's military government, and their followers believe Johnny and Luther have magical powers that make them invincible in battle. The boys once claimed to have several hundred followers. Last year, the Htoo twins became icons for youthful rebellion around the world after the widespread circulation of an Associated Press photograph showed the angelic-looking, long-haired Johnny posing next to his tougher-looking, cigarette-puffing brother, Luther. The boys claimed to be 12 when the picture was taken on 6 December 1999.
2: Joseph and Luther Htoo      "We learned that the reason for their surrender is a lack of supplies and food, and also because they are under pressure from both Myanmar and Thai forces," said Komes Daengthongdee, the governor of Ratchaburi province, where the group surrendered. "If they ran away from fighting, they will be considered for temporary asylum in Thailand. But if they entered illegally, they will be charged with illegal entry and pushed back," Komes said at a news conference with the twins [photo 2: they are awaiting the news conference] and 10 other members of the group.
      Two other members of the group were held separately, suspected of taking part in a raid last month in which a Thai border village was looted and six villagers were killed. None of the God's Army members spoke to reporters. Today, one more follower of the twins also surrendered to the army. Komes didn't say how long asylum would last, and there was no immediate comment from Myanmar's military regime about their surrender or the possibility of asylum. But Komes said Myanmar had not asked for the extradition of the God's Army leaders and members.
3: Joseph and Luther Htoo stand barefoot       About 100'000 other refugees from Myanmar, mostly members of Myanmar's ethnic minorities, live in refugee camps along the border with Thailand after fleeing fighting between rebel groups and the Myanmar army. Most, if not all, of the God's Army followers are members of Myanmar's sizable ethnic Karen minority, which has long sought autonomy from the central government. Many Karens, like the twins, are fundamentalist Christians, and most of the rebel groups support the pro-democracy efforts of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. But God's Army's unsophisticated political beliefs are mostly driven by hatred for Myanmar's army.
      Thailand's military often has ignored rebel activities along the border, but the involvement of God's Army in terrorist attacks inside Thailand has drawn the ire of Bangkok. Today, true to form, Luther was smoking a cigarette [photo 3] when the child soldiers were presented to the media at the Border Patrol Police headquarters near where they surrendered. He grinned when a reporter shouted his name. Johnny, with tattoos visible on his arm under a yellow-and-white striped shirt, smiled when hearing his name, but he looked tense. Both boys looked unhealthy. Luther appeared to be very thin and Johnny seemed to have a bloated belly. Gov. Komes said Thai doctors had examined the boys and found they were not sick, but that some of their companions were. Seven other children, including two girls, were also at the news conference, along with two men who appeared to be in their 20s, and a middle-aged woman.
      The 14 God's Army members turned themselves at the border with Myanmar in Ratchaburi province, 100 km west of Bangkok. God's Army first gained notoriety after it gave refuge to another group of Myanmar dissidents who had taken hostages at the Myanmar Embassy in Bangkok in October 1999. The Thais had allowed them to go free in exchange for releasing the captives. Several months later, members of the same group, the Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors, took control of a Ratchaburi hospital, demanding that the Thai government send medicine and doctors to treat ethnic Karen people injured in fighting with Myanmar troops. Thai commandos killed all hostage-takers. Although it was never certain that God's Army members participated in the hospital raid, the incident made them most-wanted persons on both sides of the border. After the raid, the Myanmar army, aided by Thai forces, ousted God's Army from its stronghold, and they have been on the run ever since, reported to be hiding out in villages on either side of the Thai-Myanmar border.
Faked mummy2001 Mummified “ancient princess” died in 1999 or 2000.
      Iranian archaeologists are reported to have dismissed as a fake the mummified body of a young woman earlier said to be a member of ancient Iranian aristocracy 2500 years ago. A team of specialists from the Cultural Heritage Organization inspected the mummy in Pakistan where it had been seized from smugglers last year. Forensic tests on the mummy showed that it was the body of a woman of around 21 who had died not more than 15 months ago. The brain and internal organs had been extracted and the body sealed in wax, the daily quoted a member of the team as saying. The crowned and jewelry-laden mummy, which was in a sealed and engraved wooden box, was seized by Pakistani police last October near the border with Iran. Iran immediately asked Pakistan to return the mummy as it was first thought to be a princess from the Achamenid era some 2500 years ago. Islamabad had refused the archaeologists entry visas for months.
      The bizarre tale of a mummy adorned with a cuneiform-inscribed gold plaque identifying it as a 2600-year-old Persian princess, perhaps, according to one translation, a daughter of the king Xerxes, began trickling out of Pakistan in October 2000. Found during a murder investigation, the mummy, an amalgam of Egyptian and Persian elements, had been for sale on the black market for $11 million. While archaeologists in Karachi tried to make sense of the mummy, a dispute between Iran and Pakistan broke out over its ownership. Afghanistan's Taliban regime hinted that they, too, might claim it. Then, one November day, the magazine Archeology was shown documents identifying the Persian princess as a fraud.
      Pakistani authorities learned of the mummy in mid-October, when they received a tip that Karachi resident Ali Akbar had a video tape showing a mummy he was selling. After interrogation, Akbar led police to the remains, which were being kept in the house of tribal leader Wali Mohammad Reeki in Quetta, capital of Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan Province, which borders Iran and Afghanistan. Reeki told police he had received the mummy from Sharif Shah Bakhi, an Iranian who allegedly found it after an earthquake in a nearby town. Reeki and Bakhi had agreed to sell the mummy and split the profits; Akbar's role is less clear. Reeki said an unidentified representative of an anonymous foreign buyer had offered 60 million rupees ($1.1 million) for the mummy, well below the 600 million rupee ($11 million) asking price. Reeki and Akbar were charged with violating Pakistan's Antiquity Act, which carries a ten-year maximum sentence; Bakhi remains at large.
      The mummy was brought to the National Museum in Karachi as news of it spread quickly through the local and international press. In an 26 October 2000 press conference, archaeologist Ahmed Hasan Dani of Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad announced that the mummy, wrapped in Egyptian style and resting in a wooden coffin carved with cuneiform writing and images of the Zoroastrian deity Ahura Mazda, was that of a princess dated to ca. 600 B.C.
       Museum officials shared results of a preliminary examination of the mummy and its inscriptions with a hungry press: her remains lay atop a mat coated with a mixture of wax and honey and were covered by a stone slab with additional cuneiform inscriptions; her name was Khor-ul-Gayan or Tundal Gayan; and she may have been the daughter of Karoosh-ul-Kabir, first ruler of Persia's Khamam-ul-Nishiyan Dynasty. Alternatively, Dani said, the mummy could be of an Egyptian princess, married to a Persian prince during the reign of Cyrus I (640-590 B.C.), whose body had been preserved following the custom of her own country. Various theories circulated about how it came to Quetta. National Museum curator Asma Ibrahim suggested it may have been looted from a tomb in the Hamadan region of western Iran or the southwestern Pakistani area of Kharan.      Shortly after the press conference, the Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization, claiming the mummy was of a member of the Persian royal family, said it would take legal action through UNESCO for its return. Salim-ul-Haq, director of Pakistan's Archaeological Department's Headquarters, retorted that the mummy was found in Kharan in Balochistan Province, "which is one hundred percent Pakistani territory. The mummy is property of Pakistan." At that point, Iran said it was cooperating with Interpol for the mummy's return. Pakistan's foreign minister warned against politicizing the issue, while the Taliban, the rulers of most of Afghanistan, demanded that their archaeologists play a role in deciding its ownership.
      There were divisions even within Pakistan. A petition filed with the Balochistan High Court asked for the return of the princess to Quetta, claiming the police raid in which it was seized had been illegal and that the action had "spread panic among the people of Balochistan, who felt deprived of their cultural, historic, and valuable heritage." The Awan tribe of Balochistan, saying the inscriptions proved the princess belonged to the Awan royal family of Hika Munshi, asked that the mummy be moved immediately to the local Kallar Kahar Fossils Museum.
       While the conflict continued, there were subtle signs the Pakistanis were not sure exactly what they were keeping under guard in their National Museum. Insurance companies were reluctant to cover the mummy until its legitimacy was proven. Dani insisted it was of Egyptian origin, pointing out that mummification was not practiced in Iran or Iraq, and conceded that the cuneiform inscriptions may have been added by smugglers after the body was taken out of Egypt.
       Possibly in response to Dani's assertions, Iran fired back, claiming that an Italian archaeologist had translated the inscription, presumably through examining photographs, and confirmed that the mummy was of a member of the ancient Persian royal family. 
      Two weeks after the discovery first hit the press, Oscar White Muscarella of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and author of The Lie Became Great: The Forgery of Ancient Near Eastern Cultures (see "Scourge of the Forgery Culture," ), said to Archeoloy that the mummy's description sounded remarkably similar to photographs of a gold-adorned mummy sent to him last March by a New Jersey resident on behalf of an unidentified dealer in Pakistan—in fact, they were the same.
       Muscarella had received four photographs of a mummy in a wooden coffin, replete with golden crown, mask, and inscribed breastplate. An accompanying letter stated that the mummy was owned by a Pakistani acquaintance and was brought by Zoroastrian families many years ago from Iran to Pakistan. The author claimed that the mummy was the daughter of the Persian king Xerxes, referring to an attached one-page translation of the cuneiform inscription on the breastplate.
       Muscarella, who suspected immediately that the mummy was a fraud, contacted the translator of the inscription, a cuneiform expert at a major American university, and found out that the dealer's New Jersey representative had not given him the complete analysis of it. The inscription does indeed contain the line "I am the daughter of the great king Xerxes," as well as a sizeable chunk lifted straight from a famous inscription of the king Darius (522-486 B.C.) at Behistun in western Iran. The Behistun inscription, which records the king's accomplishments, dates to 520-519 B.C., substantially later than the 600 B.C. date proposed for the mummy. The second page of analysis listed several problems with the mummy's inscription that led the scholar to believe that its author wrote in a manner inconsistent with Old Persian. The inscription, he concluded, was likely a modern falsification, probably dating "from no earlier than the 1930s."
       Convinced that the scholar's twentieth-century date was incorrect, the dealer's representative apparently sent a small piece of the wooden coffin to a carbon-dating lab. The results indicated it was approximately 250 years old "which cannot be called modern," complained the representative in a follow-up letter to the cuneiform expert.   
     Muscarella politely broke off communications with the man. Seven months later, police raided the house in Quetta and the Persian princess surfaced again—this time under the glare of the international press.
     On 26 November 2000, Taliban's Information and Culture minister Qudratullah Jamal announced that smugglers have confessed to finding the mummy in the southwestern Afghan province of Nimroz, on the Iranian border, before taking it to Pakistan. Citing the "good evidence" provided by the unidentified smugglers, Jamal insisted that "this property of Afghanistan should be returned to its people."
         Italian archaeobotanist Lorenzo Costantini angrily denied telling Iran's official news agency IRNA that he believed the mummy belonged to an ancient Persian royal family.
         Preliminary results from a CT scan performed on the mummy at Karachi's Aga Khan Hospital indicated that the mummy is of a 20- to 21-year-old woman. Her death may have resulted from a broken spine.
2000 British pharmaceutical firms Glaxo Wellcome PLC and SmithKline Beecham PLC announce a merger to form the world's largest drug maker.
1999 Clinton impeachment developments.

Sunday 17 January 1999 (1) Democratic supporters of President Bill Clinton take to the talk shows to warn that calling witnesses in his impeachment trial could drag out the proceedings for months and create a spectacle featuring players such as Linda Tripp and Ken Starr. But some Republican senators and House impeachment managers dispute that assessment, saying that witnesses are necessary and that the process of calling and examining them can be limited and controlled. Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Connecticut) says assertions by Democrats that calling witnesses will drag out the trial are "not an exaggeration." "If you go that route ... we may be talking May or June before we finish this trial," Dodd says on NBC's "Meet The Press." "If we go to witnesses, it will be a spectacle," says Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minnesota) on "Meet The Press." "It will go on and on, and the House members have nothing to lose. But the Senate has a lot to lose, and even more so, the country will have a lot to lose."

The idea that Republicans would let the trial go on interminably when the nation wants a quick resolution "assumes that we Republicans are singularly stupid," says Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) on CNN's "Late Edition." "If it gets dragged on, it will be dragged on by the White House lawyers, because it can be handled in an expeditious way if they'll let us do it," Bennett says. Though managers say no final decisions have been made on who to call as witnesses, the three people mentioned most often are former White House intern Monica Lewinsky; Clinton's personal secretary, Betty Currie; and presidential confidant Vernon Jordan. But some Democratic senators indicate that if the process is opened to witnesses, they may want to call some other well-known faces in the impeachment drama. "I'd be very interested in maybe having Linda Tripp, maybe having a whole host of people ... and (Independent Counsel) Ken Starr, all of whom might shed enormous light as to how it is we got here," says Sen. John Kerry (D-Massachusetts). It will take an affirmative vote by 51 senators to call any of them.

(2) President Clinton rehearses his State of the Union speech for a second day before aides trying to listen with the ears of lawmakers who voted to impeach him and average citizens. After church and a few hours of relaxing, the president walks to the White House theater to rehearse in front of roughly 20 people. He practices in his sport jacket and tie, standing at a podium with his TelePrompTers in place. Nearby stand two computer terminals for making changes. Much of the work is focused on trimming a draft that aides admit is far too long.

1998 US President Clinton gives his deposition in the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit against him. He was the first US President to testify as a defendant in a criminal or civil lawsuit.
1997 Israel handed over its military headquarters in Hebron to the Palestinians, ending 30 years of Israeli occupation of the West Bank city.
1997 A court in Ireland grants the first divorce in the country's history.
1996 Russian forces fire a massive rocket barrage at Chechen patriots in Pervomayskaya.
1996 Islamic terrorist boss sentenced to life in prison.
      In a federal court in New York City, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, a blind Islamic cleric and Egyptian, is sentenced to life imprisonment after being convicted of plotting bombings and assassinations meant to end US support for Israel and Egypt. Nine codefendants are also sentenced to terms ranging from twenty-five years to life, including El Sayyid Nosair, who is condemned to life imprisonment for the 1991 murder of Jewish extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York City. Nosair was previously acquitted of Kahane's murder in a state court, but federal prosecutors claimed the right to hold a second trial as the federal indictment included the killing as part of the alleged terrorist conspiracy. Abdel-Rahman was convicted on forty-eight of fifty charges, including seditious conspiracy, solicitation to murder, conspiracy to murder, solicitation to attack a US military installation, and a conspiracy to bomb New York City landmarks. Born in Egypt, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, who had worked briefly for the CIA during the Soviet-Afghan War, was allowed entrance to the US under the status of political refugee. A charismatic Islamic cleric, he soon became the spiritual leader of the radical Islamic element in New York City and publicly supported terrorism as a means of fighting the supposed enemies of Islam. After the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Abdel-Rahman was arrested for conspiring to bomb New York City landmarks, conspiring to attack a US military installation, and plotting to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. During the subsequent federal trial, the heart of the prosecution's case rests in the testimony of a single FBI informant, and the defense criticizes the heavily circumstantial nature of the government's case, which lacks hard evidence to back many of its charges against Abdel-Rahman and the nine others. Nevertheless, on October 1, 1995, the jury decides to convict the ten defendants, and on January 17, 1996, they are sentenced to prison terms ranging from twenty-five years to life.
1992 US and China avert trade war.
      China agreed to help curb computer software piracy by adhering to international copyright conventions. Previously, China had refused to recognize software as a "literary work" worthy of the standard fifty-year copyright protections accorded to other copyrighted material. China's refusal to crack down on software pirates enraged US technology companies, and the federal government threatened a trade war with China unless it agreed to abide by international standards.
1992 “This president is going to lead us out of this recovery. It will happen.” says Vice President Dan Quayle at a campaign stop at CA State University, Fresno.
1991 On the first day of Operation Desert Storm, US-led forces hammered Iraqi targets in an effort to drive Iraq out of Kuwait. A defiant Iraqi President Saddam Hussein declared that the "mother of all battles" had begun. Iraq attacked Israel with 10 Scud missiles. The US Patriot defense missile was used in battle for the first time to shoot down a Scud fired at Saudi Arabia.
1991 Iraqi SCUD missiles launched against Israel and Saudi Arabia
      On the second day (US time) of the Persian Gulf War, Iraq launches seven SCUD missiles against Israel and one against Saudi Arabia in an attempt to bring Israel, and thus the rest of the Arab world, into the conflict. The Soviet-designed SCUD missiles, which have similar characteristics to the World War II-era German V-2 rocket, serve primarily as a threat to civilian populations as they lack a sophisticated guidance system. In what would become a common occurrence during the Gulf War, the SCUD missile fired at Saudi Arabia is intercepted over Dhahran by an American-made Patriot antimissile missile, and blown out of the sky. The seven missiles sent to Israel are not intercepted and land in Tel Aviv and Haifa, causing extensive damage and injuring at least seven people. In an effort to prevent the Israelis from retaliating, the United States promises to make SCUD missile launchers a priority bombing target and sends the Patriot missile system to Israel along with American crews to operate the system. Israeli Defense Forces troops are also put on an accelerated training schedule to eventually take over the Patriot missile defense of Israel. In addition to these measures, the US also withholds the Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) codes from the Israeli Air Force, making their planes susceptible to coalition attacks should they cross into the combat area. Despite additional SCUD attacks against Tel Aviv the next day, Israel remains out of the conflict, and Iraq, standing alone, is completely overwhelmed by the US-led alliance, featuring forces from thirty-two nations. On February 24, a massive coalition ground offensive begins and after less than four days, Kuwait is liberated and the majority of Iraq's armed forces have either surrendered, been destroyed, or retreated to Iraq. On February 28, US President George Bush declares a cease-fire, and Iraq pledges to honor future coalition and U.N. peace terms.
1991 Gulf War’s effect on Wall Street.
      After months of lobbing threats and stern words at Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, President George Bush ordered the US military into action on this day (Arabian Gulf time) in 1991. American forces inaugurated the Persian Gulf War by launching a full round of air strikes against Iraq, which Bush and the military cautiously deemed a success. News of the military’s opening salvo sent Wall St. into a tizzy of trading and the DOW, mired in a long-standing slump, surged by 114.60 points to close at 2623.51, marking one of the biggest single-day gains in market history. Traders also defied conventional wisdom regarding the war’s impact on oil prices: rather than soaring, as most experts expected, oil went into a spectacular free-fall. By the time the markets closed for the day, the price of oil had set a record for the single largest one-day decline on the New York Mercantile Exchange, spiraling to $10.56 a barrel. However, financial officials remained doubtful about the global economy's prospects for pulling out of its prolonged recession. Their fears seemed well founded: when Saddam Hussein responded with an attack on Israel later that day, the Japanese stock market promptly plummeted.
1987 President Reagan signs secret order permitting covert sale of arms to Iran.
1986 Firmado, en La Haya, el protocolo por el que se establecen relaciones diplomáticas plenas entre España e Israel.
1984 Apertura en Estocolmo de la Conferencia Sobre Desarme en Europa, en la que participaron representantes de 35 países.
1984 VCR home taping ruled legal
      The US Supreme Court ruled that private use of a home videocassette recorder did not violate copyright laws. The decision overturned a 1981 ruling that made the copying of programs and the sale of video recorders illegal. The Supreme Court's decision marked a major defeat for Walt Disney, Universal City Studios, and other entertainment companies that had fought to ban home videotape machines. Over the next fifteen years, as technology improved for reproducing and electronically distributing images, words, movies, and other media, intellectual property cases like the VCR suit would become increasingly important.
1983 George C Wallace, becomes governor of Alabama for record fourth time
1983 Nigeria expels 2 million illegal aliens, mostly Ghanaians
1981 Philippino President Marcos ends state of siege
1979 Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi flees Iran
1972 US President threatens South Vietnamese President
      President Richard Nixon warns South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu in a private letter that his refusal to sign any negotiated peace agreement would render it impossible for the United States to continue assistance to South Vietnam.
      Nixon's National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger had been working behind the scenes in secret negotiations with North Vietnamese representatives in Paris to reach a settlement to end the war. However, Thieu stubbornly refused to even discuss any peace proposal that recognized the Viet Cong as a viable participant in the post-war political solution in South Vietnam. As it turned out, the secret negotiations were not close to reaching an agreement because the North Vietnamese launched a massive invasion of South Vietnam in March 1972. With the help of US airpower and advisers on the ground, the South Vietnamese withstood the North Vietnamese attack, and by December, Kissinger and North Vietnamese representatives were back in Paris and close to an agreement.
      Among Thieu's demands was the request that all North Vietnamese troops had to be withdrawn from South Vietnam before he would agree to any peace settlement. The North Vietnamese walked out of the negotiations in protest. In response, President Nixon initiated Operation Linebacker II, a massive bombing campaign against Hanoi, to force the North Vietnamese back to the negotiating table. After 11 days of intense bombing, Hanoi agreed to return to the talks in Paris. When Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, the main North Vietnamese negotiator, met again in early January, they quickly worked out a settlement. The Paris Peace Accords were signed on January 23 and a cease-fire went into effect five days later.
      Again, President Thieu refused to sign the Accords, but Nixon promised to come to the aid of South Vietnam if the communists violated the terms of the peace treaty, and Thieu agreed to sign. Unfortunately for Thieu and the South Vietnamese, Nixon was forced from office by the Watergate scandal in August 1974, and no US aid came when the North Vietnamese launched a general offensive in March 1975. South Vietnam succumbed in 55 days.
1971 South Vietnamese forces raid POW camp
      Led by South Vietnamese Lt. Gen. Do Cao Tri, and with US air support and advisers, some 300 paratroopers raid a communist prisoner of war camp near the town of Mimot in Cambodia on information that 20 US prisoners were being held there. They found the camp empty, but captured 30 enemy soldiers and sustained no casualties.
1973 New Philippine constitution names Ferdinand Marcos president for life.
1961 Eisenhower warns of the "military-industrial complex"
      In his farewell address to the US, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warns the American people to keep a careful eye on what he calls the "military-industrial complex" that has developed in the post-World War II years.
      A fiscal conservative, Eisenhower had been concerned about the growing size and cost of the American defense establishment since he became president in 1953. In his last presidential address to the American people, he expressed those concerns in terms that frankly shocked some of his listeners.
      Eisenhower began by describing the changing nature of the American defense establishment since World War II. No longer could the US afford the "emergency improvisation" that characterized its preparations for war against Germany and Japan. Instead, the United States was "compelled to create a permanent armaments industry" and a huge military force. He admitted that the Cold War made clear the "imperative need for this development," but he was gravely concerned about "the acquisition of unwarranted influence...by the military-industrial complex." In particular, he asked the American people to guard against the "danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."
      Eisenhower's blunt language stunned some of his supporters. They believed that the man who led the country to victory in Europe in World War II and guided the nation through some of the darkest moments of the Cold War was too negative toward the military-industrial complex that was the backbone of America's defense. For most listeners, however, it seemed clear that Eisenhower was merely stating the obvious. World War II and the ensuing Cold War resulted in the development of a large and powerful defense establishment. Necessary though that development might be, Eisenhower warned, this new military-industrial complex could weaken or destroy the very institutions and principles it was designed to protect.
1961 Eisenhower allegedly orders the assassination of Congo's Lumumba
      Un avion se pose à Elizabethville, capitale de la province du Katanga, au sud du Congo ex-belge. A son bord, un prisonnier, Patrice Lumumba (35 ans). Cet ancien employé des postes a été nommé Premier ministre du Congo lorsque celui-ci est devenu indépendant, le 30 juin 1960. On ne le reverra plus vivant.
      Le Congo, en 2000 aussi peuplé que la France et quatre fois plus vaste, bénéficie de ressources naturelles exceptionnelles mais il est moins gâté par l'Histoire. Lorsque les Congolais demandent l'indépendance en 1958, les Belges ne se font pas prier et accèdent à leur demande sans ménager de transition. Patrice Lumumba devient chef du gouvernement et son rival Joseph Kasavubu, président de la République. Le climat se dégrade très vite en raison du manque d'élites et des dissensions entre les tribus de cet immense pays. Dans la rue, les soldats congolais s'en prennent à leurs officiers européens et aux colons. C'est le début des désordres. Ils feront au total quelques 500'000 victimes chez les Congolais et les Européens.
      Dans la province du Katanga, où se situent les mines de cuivre, Moïse Tshombé fait sécession avec le soutien actif de la compagnie qui exploite le cuivre et avec l'appui de mercenaires européens. Patrice Lumumba plaide pour un Etat centralisé, contre la volonté de la plupart des Congolais. Il en appelle à l'ONU, qui envoie des "Casques bleus". Mais ceux-ci se gardent (déjà) de s'immiscer dans les troubles intérieurs. En désespoir de cause, le Premier ministre se tourne vers les capitales européennes, sans oublier l'URSS. Le président Kasavubu révoque Lumumba. Arrêté, celui-ci est livré à Tshombé et assassiné. La CIA étatsunienne et les Belges sont soupçonnés d'avoir voulu se débarrasser d'un leader trop "progressiste" à leur goût. Cependant, de nombreuses séditions éclatent dans le pays à l'initiative des nostalgiques de Lumumba (le dictateur Kabila en faisait partie). Le 25 novembre 1965, le colonel Joseph Mobutu devient chef de l'Etat. Il met fin à la première guerre civile... et entame une longue dictature.
1958 Exito en la primera prueba del misil estadounidense Polaris, con el que se equiparán los submarinos.
1955 Beginning of test voyage by submarine Nautilus, launched on 21 January 1954 as the first submarine capable of prolonged submersion. Powered by propulsion turbines driven by steam produced by a nuclear reactor, the Nautilus was capable of submerged speeds in excess of 20 knots* (37 km/h) which it could maintain almost indefinitely. Much larger than World War II submarines, the Nautilus was 97 m long and displaced 3180 tons. [* 1 knot = 1 nautical mile per hour. 1 nautical mile = 1 minute of arc on a great circle = 1852 m]
1954 Destituído de sus cargos Milovan Djilas, presidente de la Asamblea Federal y vicepresidente de la República de Yugoslavia.
1952 Detenidos en Túnez Habib ben Ali Burguiba y numerosos militantes del Neo-Destur.
1951 China refuses cease-fire in the Korean war.
1950 The great Brinks robbery
      A team of 11 thieves, in a precisely timed and choreographed strike, steals $1.2M cash and $1.5M securities from the Brinks Armored Car depot in Boston, Massachusetts. The Great Brinks Robbery, as it quickly became known, was the almost perfect crime. Only days before the statute of limitations was set to expire on the crime, the culprits were finally caught.
      Tony Pino, a lifelong criminal, was the mastermind behind the audacious theft. Together with Big Joe McGinnis, he assembled a group that meticulously planned the heist. They staked out the depot for a year and a half to figure out when it was holding the most money. Then, the gang stole the plans for the depot's alarm system and returned them before anyone noticed that they were missing.
      The criminal team held repeated rehearsals, with each man wearing blue coats and Halloween masks. On January 17, they finally put their plan into action. Inside the counting room, the gang surprised the guards and tied up the employees. Fourteen canvas bags, weighing more than half a ton, were filled with cash, coins, checks, and money orders. Within 30 minutes, the Brinks robbery team was gone-taking $2.7 million with them. They left no clues at all.
      Next, the gang met and split the proceeds of the theft. They agreed that each would stay out of trouble for six years and they almost made it. However, one of the men, Specs O'Keefe, left his share with another member because he had to serve a prison sentence for another crime. O'Keefe, worried that he would be cheated out of his money, indicated that he might begin to talk. The others decided to send a hit man to kill O'Keefe but he was only wounded, and the assassin was caught. O'Keefe made a deal with police and testified against the others. Eight participants in the Great Brinks Robbery were caught and convicted. However, only a small part of the money was ever recovered.
1949 The first Volkswagen “Beetle” in the US arrived from Germany. The little Volkswagen ("people’s car") was a sturdy vehicle designed by Ferdinand Porsche at the request of Adolf Hitler. . After the defeat of the Nazi government in Germany, the VW Beetle remained a popular car, and its reputation for affordable reliability made it a profitable export.
1948 Netherlands and Indonesia agree to a cease fire
1948 Trial of 11 US Communist party members begins in New York City NY
1946 United Nations Security Council holds its first meeting
1945 “Liberation” of Warsaw by the Soviet Army, which, during the uprising by the Polish Home Army, had occupied remained idle in Praga, a suburb across the Vistula River from Warsaw. In addition, the Soviet government had refused to allow the western Allies to use Soviet air bases to airlift supplies to the beleaguered Poles.
     Thus the Soviets allowed the Germans to eliminate the main body of the military organization that supported the Polish government-in-exile in London. Consequently, when the Soviet army occupied all of Poland, there was little effective organized resistance to its establishing Soviet political domination over the country and imposing the communist-led
     “Liberating” the Polish capital, the Red Army replaces Nazi oppression with Soviet oppression. Warsaw was a battleground since the opening day of fighting in the European theater. Germany declared war by launching an air raid on 01 September 1939, and followed up with a siege that killed tens of thousands of Polish civilians and wreaked havoc on historic monuments. Deprived of electricity, water, and food, and with 25 percent of the city's homes destroyed, Warsaw surrendered to the Germans on September 27. The USSR had snatched a part of eastern Poland as part of the "fine print" of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (also known as the Hitler-Stalin Pact) signed in August 1939, but soon after found itself at war with its "ally." In August 1944, the Soviets began pushing the Germans west, advancing on Warsaw. The Polish Home Army, fearful that the Soviets would march on Warsaw to battle the Germans and never leave the capital, led an uprising against the German occupiers. The Polish residents hoped that if they could defeat the Germans themselves, the Allies would help install the Polish anticommunist government-in-exile after the war. Unfortunately, the Soviets, rather than aiding the Polish uprising, which they encouraged in the name of beating back their common enemy, stood idly by and watched as the Germans slaughtered the Poles and sent survivors to concentration camps. This destroyed any native Polish resistance to a pro-Soviet communist government, an essential part of Stalin's postwar territorial designs. After Stalin mobilized 180 divisions against the Germans in Poland and East Prussia, Gen. Georgi Zhukov's troops crossed the Vistula north and south of the Polish capital, liberating the city from Germans-and grabbing it for the USSR. By that time, Warsaw's prewar population of approximately 1.3 million had been reduced to a mere 153'000.
1945 Thousands of Jews are arrested by Nazi secret police.
1945 Auschwitz concentration camp begins evacuation
1945 Raoul Gustav Wallenberg, 32, and his driver Vilmos Langfelder disappear into the clutches of the Soviets
   Born on 4 August 1912, Wallenberg was the Swedish businessman and diplomat who became a legendary figure through his efforts to rescue Hungarian Jews during World War II and through his disappearance while a prisoner in the Soviet Union.
      Wallenberg in 1936 became the foreign representative of a central European trading company, whose president was a Hungarian Jew. After the Nazis sent troops and SS units into Hungary in March 1944 to round up "subversives" and Jews, Wallenberg, with the help of US and Swedish Jewish and refugee organizations, persuaded the Swedish Foreign Ministry to send him to Budapest on a diplomatic passport (9 July 1944). There, several thousand Jews (diversely estimated at from 4000 to 35'000) were enlisted and sheltered by Wallenberg in "protected houses" flying the flags of Sweden and other neutral countries. (By this time, some 400'000 Hungarian Jews, including 90'000 from Budapest, had already been deported to the Nazi death camps.) Wallenberg also dogged the Germans at deportation trains and on "death marches," distributing food and clothing to the Jewish prisoners and trying to rescue some of them with papers and money for their passage out of the country. He was more than once threatened by Adolf Eichmann. Soon after Soviet troops reached Budapest, Wallenberg on 17 January 1945, reported to the occupying authority but was forthwith arrested for espionage--his money, radio, and dubious diplomatic status making him suspect. According to Swedish authorities, the Soviets later privately admitted that his arrest had been a mistake, during a confused period at war's end, but that their only information was that Wallenberg had died of a heart attack in a Moscow prison cell on 17 July 1947. There were a number of unconfirmed reports from freed Soviet prisoners, however, that he had since been seen alive in prison, notably in 1951, 1959, and 1975.
1945 Soviet and Polish forces “liberate” Warsaw during World War II.
1944 Allies make their move on Cassino, Italy
      Operation Panther, the Allied invasion of Cassino, in central Italy, is launched. The Italian Campaign had been underway for more than six months. Beginning with the invasion of Sicily, the Allies had been fighting their way up the Italian peninsula against German resistance--the Italians had already surrendered and signed an armistice with the Allies in September 1943. The ancient town of Cassino, near the Rapido River, was a strategic point in the German Gustav Line, a defensive front across central Italy and based at the Rapido, Garigliano, and Sangro rivers. Taking Cassino would mean a breach in the German line and their inevitable retreat farther north. Although the campaign to take Cassino commenced in January, the town was not safely in Allied hands until May. The campaign caused considerable destruction, including the bombing of the ancient Benedictine abbey Monte Cassino, which took the lives of a bishop and several monks.
1943 II Guerra mundial: se reanuda la ofensiva británica en Libia.
1938 Supreme Soviet elects Michail Kalinin as presidium chairman, a mere change of title for the man who was the formal head of the Soviet state from 1919 until 1946, while Stalin was the actual dictator (after 1922).
1937 Guerra Civil española. Manuel Azaña traslada a Valencia la sede de la presidencia de la República.
1935 El Consejo de la Sociedad de Naciones acuerda la incorporación de la cuenca del Sarre a Alemania.
1934 Promulgada en Alemania la nueva Carta del Trabajo.
1933 El Congreso de los Estados Unidos vota a favor de la independencia de Filipinas.
1920 Paul Deschanel elected President of France
1917 US pays Denmark $25 million for the Virgin Islands, strategically important to control the main passage through the Caribbean to the Panama Canal, as well as routes along the eastern coasts of the American continent. These were threatened by Germany, which on 170109 had decided to inaugurate an all-out submarine war against all commerce, neutral as well as belligerent. Denmark was willing to sell to avoid the jeopardy of seizure by the World War I Allies or conquest by Germany, which then owned Hamburg-America Line docks, warehouses, steamers, and other property in St. Thomas. The Virgin Islands became an unincorporated territory of the United States. The treaty of cession promised US citizenship to the inhabitants, except for those who chose to retain Danish citizenship. US interest in the islands had begun in the Civil War period, but the US Senate refused in 1870 to approve the purchase of St. Thomas and St. John for $7.5 million.
1915 Russia occupies Bukovina and Western Ukraine
1913 Raymond Poincaré is elected President of France.
1912 Robert Scott expedition arrives at South Pole, one month after Amundsen
1911 Failed assassination attempt on premier Briand in French Assembly.
1900 Mormon, Brigham Roberts, is denied a seat in the US House of Representatives because he practices polygamy.
1899 US takes possession of Wake Island in Pacific
1895 Félix Faure installed as President of France
1895 French President Casimir-Perier resigns
1894 US’s gold supplies sag
      The passage of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act in 1893 took a heavy toll on America's financial well being, effectively depleting the nation's gold supplies. In April of 1893 the gold reserves dwindled below the $100 million mark; Congress, however, refused to heed President Grover Cleveland's call to remedy the situation by rolling back the silver purchase legislation. After months of wrangling, the House killed the Sherman Act in November of 1893. But, the eleventh-hour repeal couldn't prevent the depletion of the precious metal; by the end of the year, the gold reserves had dipped to a scant $80 million. So, on January 17, 1894, the Treasury Department issued a $50 million bond in hopes of replenishing the nation's sagging gold supplies. Though well intentioned, the bond issue proved to be a resounding flop: the public refused to nibble, forcing banks to buy up a good bulk of the bonds. The gold reserves continued to suffer until 1896, when Cleveland mandated a public subscription that helped staunch the bleeding.
1893 The Hawaiian monarchy is overthrown by a conspiracy of non-Hawaiians organized by John L. Stevens. the United States Minister assigned to the sovereign and independent Kingdom of Hawaii. On 14 January, he had conspired with a small group of non-Hawaiian residents of the Kingdom of Hawaii, including citizens of the United States, to overthrow the indigenous and lawful Government of Hawaii. In pursuance of the conspiracy, the US Minister and the naval representatives of the US caused armed naval forces of the US to invade the sovereign Hawaiian nation on 16 January 1893, and to position themselves near the Hawaiian Government buildings and Iolani Palace to intimidate Queen Liliuokalani and her Government; and on the afternoon of 17 January 1993, a Committee of Safety that represented the US and European sugar planters, descendents of missionaries, and financiers deposed the Hawaiian monarchy and proclaimed the establishment of a Provisional Government; and the US Minister thereupon extended diplomatic recognition to the Provisional Government that was formed by the conspirators without the consent of the Native Hawaiian people or the lawful Government of Hawaii and in violation of treaties between the two nations and of international law.
     When informed of the risk of bloodshed with resistance, on 17 January 1893, Queen Liliuokalani issued the following statement yielding her authority to the US Government rather than the Provisional Government: “I do hereby solemnly protest against any and all acts done against me and the constitutional government of the Hawaiian Kingdom......yield to the superior force of the United States of America....which has caused US troops to be landed at Honolulu......to avoid any collision of armed forces and perhaps the loss of life, do this under protest and impelled by said force yield my authority until such time as the government of the US shall.........undo the action of its representatives.”
      On the Hawaiian Islands, a group of American sugar planters under Sanford Ballard Dole overthrow Queen Liliuokalani, the Hawaiian monarch, and establish a new provincial government with Dole as president. The coup occurs with the foreknowledge of John L. Stevens, the US minister to Hawaii, and three hundred US Marines from the US cruiser Boston are called to Hawaii, allegedly to protect American lives. The first known settlers of the Hawaiian Islands were Polynesian voyagers who arrived sometime in the eighth century, and in the early eighteenth century the first American traders came to Hawaii to exploit the islands' sandalwood, which was much valued in China at the time. In the 1830s, the sugar industry was introduced to Hawaii, and by the mid-nineteenth century, had become well established. American missionaries and planters brought about great changes in Hawaiian political, cultural, economic, and religious life, and in 1840, a constitutional monarchy was established, stripping the Hawaiian monarch of much of his authority.
      Four years later, Sanford B. Dole was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to US parents. Over the next four decades, Hawaii entered into a number of political and economic treaties with the United States, and in 1887, a US naval base was established at Pearl Harbor as part of a new Hawaiian constitution. Sugar exports to the US expanded greatly over the next four years, and US investors and American sugar planters on the islands broadened their domination over Hawaiian affairs. However, in 1891, Liliuokalani, the sister of the late King Kalakaua, ascended to the throne, refusing to recognize the constitution of 1887, and replaced it with a constitution increasing her personal authority. In January of 1893, a revolutionary "Committee of Safety," organized by Sanford B. Dole, staged a coup against Queen Liliuokalani with the support of Minister John Stevens and a division of US marines.
      On 01 February 1893, Stevens recognized Dole's new government on his own authority and proclaimed Hawaii a US protectorate. Dole submited a treaty of annexation to the US Senate but most Democrats opposed it, especially after it was revealed that most Hawaiians did want annexation. President Grover Cleveland sent a new US minister to Hawaii to restore Queen Liliuokalani to the throne under the 1887 constitution, but Dole refused to step aside and instead proclaimed the independent Republic of Hawaii. Cleveland was unwilling to overthrow the government by force, and his successor, President William McKinley, negotiated a treaty with the Republic of Hawaii in 1897. In 1898, the Spanish-American War broke out, and the strategic use of the naval base at Pearl Harbor during the war convinced Congress to approve formal annexation. Two years later, Hawaii was organized into a formal US territory and in 1959 entered the United States as the fiftieth state.
1893 -17ºF (-27ºC), Millsboro DE (state record)
1885 British beat Mahdists at Battle of Abu Klea in the Sudan
1874 Armed Democrats seize Texas government ending Radical Reconstruction
1863 President Lincoln signs a resolution for immediate payment of Federal troops and for currency reform
1852 British recognize independence of Transvaal (Republic of South Africa) — Gran Bretaña reconoce en la convención de Sand River la independencia de Transvaal, que se llama a partir de ese momento República Sudafricana.
1821 México permits Moses Austin and 300 US families to settle in Texas.
1817 El general José de San Martín, al mando de 4000 hombres, inicia el cruce de la cordillera de los Andes para la conquista de Chile.
1811 Batalla del Puente de Calderón entre el ejército realista y el ejército insurgente mejicano, en la que venció el primero.
1793 La Convención francesa decide por un solo voto de diferencia (361 a favor y 360 en contra) la pena de muerte del rey Luis XVI.
1779 Almost one year to the day when Captain Cook had first sighted the Hawaiian islands, and after giving up on finding the Northwest Passage, he returns to Hawaii with his two ships. Little did he know that, within less than a month, he would be killed on the beach at Kealakekua by the Polynesian natives.
1773 Captain James Cook becomes first to cross Antarctic Circle (66º 33' S)
1757 German Diet declares war on Prussia, thus entering the Seven Years War  
1656 Brandenburg and Sweden sign Treaty of Königsberg
1601 France gains Bresse, Bugey, Valromey and Gex in treaty with Spain
1595 French king Henri IV declares war on Spain
1584 (Tuesday) Bohemia and Moravia (the future Czech Republic) start using the Gregorian calendar (yesterday there was Monday 06 January 1584 Julian)
1562 Edict of St Germain recognizes the Huguenots in France. — Se emite el edicto de Tolerancia, por el que se pretendía resolver el problema de los protestantes.
1536 François Rabelais, 42, authorized to practice medicine and absolved of infractions to the Benedictine rule by Pope Paul III .
     He sometimes used the pseudonym (anagram) Alcofribas Nasier. He was a French writer and priest who for his contemporaries was an eminent physician and humanist and for posterity is the author of the comic masterpiece Gargantua and Pantagruel . The four novels composing this work are outstanding for their rich use of Renaissance French and for their comedy, which ranges from gross burlesque to profound satire. They exploit popular legends, farces, and romances, as well as classical and Italian material, but were written primarily for a court public and a learned one. The adjective Rabelaisian applied to scatological humor is misleading; Rabelais used scatology aesthetically, not gratuitously, for comic condemnation. His creative exuberance, colorful and wide-ranging vocabulary, and literary variety continue to ensure his popularity. Rabelais died on 9 April 1553
RABELAIS EN-LIGNE Les horribles et épouvantables faits et prouesses du très renommé Pantagruel, roy des Dipsodes La Vie Très Horrificque du Grand Gargantua Père de Pantagruel La vie inestimable du grand Gargantua Tiers livre des faits et dits héroïques du noble Pantagruel   Quart livre des faits et dits héroïques du noble Pantagruel Pantagrueline Prognostication. Certaine, veritable & infaillible pour l'an perpetuel. Nouvellement composée au prouffit & advisement de gens estourdis & musars de nature, Par maistre Alcofribas, architriclin dudict Pantagruel.
(images de pages): Oeuvres de Rabelais. Tome I, Tome II Les œuvres de Me François Rabelais,... contenant cinq livres, de la vie, faicts, et dits héroïques de Gargantua, et de son fils Pantagruel ; plus la Prognostication pantagrueline, avec l’oracle de la dive Bacbuc, & le mot de la bouteille ; augmenté des Navigations et Isle sonante, l’Isle des Apédèfres, la Cresme philosophale avec une Epistre limosine et deux autres epistres à deux vieilles de differentes moeurs
RABELAIS ONLINE: Five Books of the Lives, Heroic Deeds and Sayings of Gargantua and Pantagruel
1562 Edict of St Germain recognizes the Huguenots in France
1501 Cesare Borgia returns in triumph to Rome from Romagna
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.
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Deaths which occurred on a January 17:
2002 Some 45 persons as Nyiragongo volcano erupts, pouring lava through villages on its slopes, down through Goma, Congo, and into Lake Kivu straddling the Rwandan border. Gisenyi, Rwanda, 4 km away, is also threatened.
2002 Edward Bakshayev, 42, his uncle Anatoly Backshayev, 63, unarmed security guard Avi Yazdi, 25, three other Israelis, and their killer, Abdul Salaam Sadek Hassouneh, 24, of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. At the David's Palace banquet hall in Hadera, Israel, Anatoly Backshayev's grand-daughter Nina Kardashova, 12, was celebrating her bat mitzvah with more than 150 guests. In walks Hassouneh firing a semiautomatic gun. The gun jams, guests subdue and beat the gunman, then policemen arrive and kill him.
2002 Camilo José Cela, 85, Spanish novelist (1989 Nobel Prize in literature).
   Cela died from chronic heart disease. With his first novel, La Familia de Pascual Duarte,' Cela became the leader of an uncommonly straightforward style of writing called “tremendismo” that clashed with the lyricism of previous Spanish writers. Cela's death represents the disappearance of the last great Spanish writer, creator of fables, of language, of words, with a prodigious capacity of expression.
       A bon vivant known in Spain for his flamboyant lifestyle, Cela tended to show a darker side of life in his writing. He drew from his experiences in the Spanish Civil War for many of his stories, which were often violent and gruesome. He was recruited as a private to fight on the side of the rebel forces led by the future dictator Gen. Francisco Franco, but was released after receiving serious wounds. He later published an anti-fascist magazine that became a forum for opposition to the 36-year Franco dictatorship.
      His breakthrough 1942 novel, La Familia de Pascual Duarte, was first published in Argentina because it was deemed too violent and crude for Spain at the time. It tells the story in the language of a rural, uneducated man who commits a series of brutal murders without really knowing why and ends up being executed. It often is credited with creating a sort of literary vanguard in the years immediately following the 1936-39 Civil War, both in Spain and Latin America.
      Another well-known work, La Colmena, published in 1951, takes place in the cold, depressing postwar years and depicts starving writers who would sit for hours during the winter in Madrid's literary cafes.
      Cela was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1989 for “rich and intensive prose, which with restrained compassion forms a challenging vision of man's vulnerability.” La Familia de Pascual Duarte was the most popular work of fiction in Spanish since Miguel Cervantes' masterpiece Don Quixote' was published nearly 400 years ago.
      Cela said he would like this epitaph: “Here lies someone who tried to screw his fellow man as little as possible.”
      The son of a Spanish father and English mother, Cela was born in 1916 in comfortable surroundings in the town of Iria de Flavia in the northwestern region of Galicia. Over his lifetime, Cela produced well over 70 works, including essays, poems and travel books, and 10 novels. But at home, he was better known for his love of food, travel and women. He enjoyed touring his country in a Rolls-Royce.
      Cela was the fifth Spaniard to win the Nobel Prize in literature, but the first novelist. Previous winners from Spain included two poets and two playwrights. In 1977, two years after the death of Franco, Vicente Aleixandre, an obscure poet from Spain's prewar literary generation, received the Nobel Prize for literature. Fellow poet Juan Ramón Jiménez received the award in 1956. Spain's first literary Nobel laureate was playwright José Echegaray, who won in 1904. Playwright Jacinto Benavente won the award in 1922.
      At his death, Cela was involved in an unresolved court battle with an obscure Spanish writer, Carmen Formoso Lapido, who accused him of plagiarism. She said a novel she wrote in the early 1990s served as the basis for Cela's book, La Cruz de San Andrés, which won Spain's prestigious Planeta Award in 1994.
2001 Ophir Rakhum, 16, Israeli, shot after being lured to Ramallah.
      Ophir Rakhum, a quiet computer-obsessed Israeli teen-ager, had a secret he shared only with a few friends - he had made contact with an American girl, a tourist, through the Internet and was planning to meet her. On Tuesday 16 Jan 2001, Rakhum left his home in the coastal town of Ashkelon for his date in Jerusalem, reportedly carrying a large sum of money. A day later, he is found dead in the West Bank town of Ramallah, his body riddled with 15 bullets. The girl turned out to be Palestinian, an accomplice either of criminals or Palestinian militants. In all, the four months of the al-Aqsa intifadah have left 368 persons dead — 315 Palestinians, 13 Israeli Arabs, 39 other Israelis and a German doctor.
2001: 25 men of Chengue, Colombia, macheted by paramilitaries.
     50 heavily armed men dressed in military uniforms converge on the town of Chengue at about 03:00 and round up 25 villagers they accuse of working with leftist guerrillas. The victims, all men between the ages of 22 and 65, are removed one by one from their homes, surrounded and killed with machete blows to the head and neck. The attackers then set fire to about 30 homes in the village and carried off seven other men as hostages, police said. After the assault, many villagers fled for neighboring hamlets. Chengue is home to about 1200 people, and is about 600 km north of Bogotá.
2000 Mikhail Malofeyev, Russian Major General, as his unit is ambushed in Grozny. The Chechens claim they have him prisoner and some days later would say that he was killed by a Russian bombing. The Russians however say they find his body in Grozny at that time.
1997 Clyde Tombaugh, 90, in Las Cruces NM, American astronomer who discovered the planet Pluto in 1930 after a systematic search at Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona. He also discovered several clusters of stars and galaxies, studied the apparent distribution of extragalactic nebulae, and made observations of the surfaces of Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and the Moon. Tombaugh also worked at Arizona State College; White Sands Missile Range; and New Mexico State University
1995: Some 6400 persons in magnitude MW 6.9 earthquake in Kobe, Japan. — Un terremoto de 7,2 grados en la escala Richter sacude la región japonesa de Kansay y causa 5500 muertos, 26'000 heridos y pérdidas económicas de más de un billón de pesetas.
1995 Adolfo Correia da Rocha, "Miguel Torga", médico, poeta y escritor portugués.
1994 At least 61 people in 6.7 magnitude Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles. About $20 billion in damage is caused. — Un terremoto en Los Angeles (California) causa 54 muertos, 5420 heridos y pérdidas por valor de 35'000 millones de dólares.
1991 Olav V de Noruega, coronación de Harald V de Noruega.
1991 The F-18 fighter plane of US Navy Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher, 33, shot down over Iraq.
     Speicher is listed as “killed in action,” the first one of the Gulf War. The Navy had makes no effort to locate the site of the crash and rescue the pilot. After a long controversy and as indications surface that Speicher may have ejected safely his status would be changed, on 10 January 2001, to “missing in action”
      Shortly before, the first US pilot shot down is Jeffrey Zahn.
1989 Five children shot to death at the Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, Calif., by a drifter who then kills himself.
1988 Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov, político soviético.
1987 Unas 50 personas en el naufragio de un barco frente a la isla de Bohol (Filipinas).
1978 Blas de Otero, poeta español.
1977 Gary Gilmore, executed by firing squad in Utah.
      Gary Gilmore, 36, convicted in the double murder of an elderly couple, becomes the first person to be executed in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. In 1972, the US Supreme Court ruled that, in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, the death penalty qualified as "cruel and unusual punishment" primarily because states used capital punishment in "arbitrary and capricious ways," especially in regard to race. However, in 1976, with 66% of US citizens supporting the death penalty, the court ended the constitutional ban on capital punishment, provided that states create specific guidelines for imposing death sentences. In 1977, Gary Gilmore, a career criminal who had murdered an elderly couple because they would not lend him their car, was the first person to be executed since the end of the ban. Defiantly facing a firing squad, Gilmore's last words to his executioners before they shot him through the heart were "Let's do it."
1975 Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, político colombiano.
1966 Eight crew members as a B-52 carrying four H-bombs collides with a refueling tanker and the bombs are released. — Colisión de dos aviones de los EE.UU. sobre Almería. Cuatro bombas atómicas caen, tres en las cercanías de Palomares y otra en las proximidades de Almería. Casi tres meses se tardó en encontrarlas y duró el "suspense" en la opinión pública.
1961 Patrice Lumumba, 35, revolutionary, first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (June-September 1960), murdered by police of the Katanga secessionist regime of Moise Tshombe, to whom the forces of embattled president Joseph Kasavubu had delivered him (they had arrested him on 02 Dec 1960). The murder is perpetrated in the presence of Belgian police and government officials. Belgium's government and king Baudouin knew of plans to kill Lumumba but did nothing to stop it. On 05 February 2002, the Belgian government would apologize. — Asesinato en Katanga del dirigente congoleño Patrice Emery Lumumba, impulsor de la independencia del Congo.
1940 Day 49 of Winter War: USSR aggression against Finland.
More deaths due to Stalin's desire to grab Finnish territory.
USA to send two military attachés to Finland       Ladoga Karelia: the Finnish 12th Division launches its offensive in the Uomaa sector. IV Army Corps halts its offensive in the Pitkäranta area. The Finnish force does not have sufficient strength in the area to push on to the border.       Fokker fighters from 24 Squadron shoot down 8 enemy SB bombers over the Isthmus.       Central Isthmus: in the Lähde road sector, heavy enemy shelling inflicts serious damage on 'Fort Poppius'. This concrete fortress named after Second Lieutenant Poppius can house up to 26 men.       Enemy bombers hit Turku, Hanko, Lappeenranta and Koivisto.       Viipuri: bombers concentrate on the south harbour.       Finland's civil defence chief reminds members of the public to keep their identity papers with them at all times.       The Ministry of the Interior is to set up a supply centre for evacuees. In Summa, temperatures have fallen to -42° Celsius.       Abroad: Norwegian fruiterers have today donated six trainloads (50,000 kilos) of apples to Finland.       The United States has decided to send two military attachés to Finland.       In Uppsala, the author Frans Emil Sillanpää addresses a Swedish audience on the situation in Finland.
Yhdysvallat lähettää Suomeen kaksi sotilasasiamiestä Talvisodan 49. päivä, 17.tammikuuta.1940      Suomalaisten 12. Divisioona aloittaa hyökkäyksensä Uomaan suunnalla.       IV Armeijakunta keskeyttää hyökkäyksensä Pitkänrannan alueella. Etenemiseen valtakunnan rajalle eivät suomalaisten voimat riitä.       Lentolaivue 24:n Fokker-hävittäjät ampuvat alas 8 vihollisen SB-pommikonetta Kannaksella.       Vihollisen raskas tykistötuli vaurioittaa pahoin ns. Poppiuksen linnaketta Lähteen tien suunnassa.Vänrikki Poppiuksen mukaan nimensä saaneessa betoni-linnakkeessa on majoitustilat 26 miehelle.       Vihollinen pommittaa Turkua, Hankoa, Lappeenrantaa ja Koivistoa.       Viipurissa vihollisen pommitusten kohteena on Eteläsatama.       Väestönsuojelupäällikkö muistuttaa, että kansalaisten on aina pidettävä mukanaan henkilöllisyystodistus.       Sisäasiainministeriön yhteyteen perustetaan Siirtoväen Huollon Keskus.Summassa mitataan pakkasta 42 astetta.       Ulkomailta: Norjalaiset hedelmäliikkeet ovat tänään lahjoittaneet Suomelle kuusi rautatievaunullista eli 50 000 kiloa omenoita.       Yhdysvallat on päättänyt lähettää Suomeen kaksi sotilasasiamiestä.       Kirjailija Frans Emil Sillanpää puhuu Upsalassa järjestetyssä kokouksessa Suomen asiasta ruotsalaisille
1938 William H Pickering, 79, US astronomer who in 1899 discovered Phoebe, the ninth satellite of Saturn, and noted that it revolves around Saturn in the opposite direction from that of Saturn's other satellites. In 1919 Pickering also predicted the existence of, and gave a position for, the planet Pluto. However Percival Lowell (who died in 1916) had already done so in 1905 and built an observatory for finding the planet, which was accomplished on 18 February 1930 by young Clyde Tombaugh. He found Pluto in the constellation Gemini. The new planet appeared as a dim "star" of the 15th magnitude that slowly changed its position against the fixed background stars as it pursued its 248-year orbit around the Sun.
1933 Louis Comfort Tiffany, US Art Nouveau Stained Glass artist born on 18 February 1848. — LINKS
1911 Carolina Coronado, poetisa española.
1908 Ferdinand IV, 72, ruler of Tuscany.
1893 Rutherford B Hayes, 70, 19th US President (1877-81), in Fremont OH.
1893 Cristino Martos, político español.
1886 Paul Baudry, French painter born on 07 November 1828. — MORE ON BAUDRY AT ART “4” JANUARY — LINKS — Le Tourment de Vestale — (Nu musclé) — La toilette de Vénus
1884 Henry Brittan Willis, British artist born in 1810.
1863 Émile Jean Horace Vernet, French painter, specialized in Orientalism, born on 30 June 1789. — LINKS — 23 lithographs at FAMSF — The Arab Tale-teller — The Lion Hunt — Napoleonic Battle in the Alps — The Battle of Habra, Algeria in December 1835 Between Emir Abd El Kadar and the Duke of Orleans — Judith and Holofernes — Raphael and Pope Leo X
1826 Joseph Boze, French artist born in 1744.
1811 Eng and Chang Bunker, 62, the original "Siamese twins".
     They were born in Siam (now Thailand) on May 10, 1811 and died within hours of each other on January 17, 1874 at age 62. The Bunker Twins fathered 21 children between them and were successful businessman and ranchers in Wilkes County, North Carolina. Attached by a five-inch connecting ligament near their breastbones, Eng and Chang married sisters Sallie and Adelaide Yates, respectively, and lived fairly private lives when they weren't touring the world to earn incomes. After their deaths it was determined they could have been successfully separated, a medical option that was never offered to Eng and Chang during their lives. Although Eng and Chang's fame helped coin the phrase 'Siamese Twins', they were not the first pair of conjoined twins recorded in medical annals as there were probably about 100 such pairs known by the time of their 1811 births, a fact which helped the King of Siam reverse an early death sentence on the brothers.
1737 Jacob Laurenszoon van der Vinne, Dutch artist born on 23 June 1688.
1706 Phillip Peter Roos “Rosa de Tivoli” “Mercurius”, German artist born in 1656 give or take one year. — LINKS
1686 Carlo “Carlino” Dolci, Italian artist born on 25 May 1616. — MORE ON DOLCI AT ART “4” JANUARY — LINKS — Self-Portrait — Ainolfo de' Bardi — Magdalene — St Catherine Reading a Book — The Guardian Angel — Flowers
1661 Andres Malong Philippines rebel leader, executed.
1654 Paulus Potter, Dutch painter, specialized in animals, born on 20 November 1625. — MORE ON POTTER AT ART “4” JANUARY — LINKS — Four Cows in a Meadow — Orpheus Charming the Beasts — Diederik Tulp — Landscape with Shepherdess and Shepherd Playing Flute — The Farm — Young Bull — 16 etchings at Fine Arts Museums of SF
1305 Roger de Lauria, almirante de la flota catalano-aragonesa.
0395 Theodosius I the Great, 49, Spanish emperor of Rome. This is the last day the (Christian) Roman Empire has a single ruler. Theodosius's will divides the empire into western and eastern portions.
0356 San Antonio Abad.
Births which occurred on a January 17:
1964 Stylish Porsche-Carrera The first Porsche-Carrera GTS, a lasting favorite in the world of luxury sports cars, was delivered to a Los Angeles customer.
1942 Antonio Fraguas de Pablo, "Forges", humorista gráfico español.
1933 Aga Khan religious leader (Muslims).
1927 Thomas Dooley, US physician and author who died on 18 January 1961.
1925 Duane Hanson, escultor estadounidense.
1919 Antonio Mingote, primer dibujante de humor miembro de la Academia Española.
1907 Alfredo Marqueríe, escritor y crítico teatral español.
1899 Al Capone Italy, gangster (Chicago bootlegging) who died on 25 January 1947.
1899 Robert Maynard Hutchins US, educator/civil libertarian who died on 17 May 1977.
1899 Nevil Shute, English Australian writer who died on 12 January 1960.
1886 Glenn Martin, US airplane inventor who died on 04 December 1955.
1871 The first cable car is patented by San Franciscan Andrew Smith Hallidie. Using metal ropes he had previously patented, Hallidie devised a mechanism by which cars were drawn by an endless cable running in a slot between the rails and passing over a steam-driven shaft in a powerhouse. (begins service in 1873)
1863 David Lloyd George (Liberal-PM-Britain, 1916-22). He died on 26 March 1945.
1861 Flush toilet patented by Mr Thomas Crapper (Honest!)
1852 Louis Béroud, French artist who died in 1930.— (Inside the Louvre?) — (Artist startled by painting he is copying in the Louvre coming to life?)
1850 Alexander Sergeyevich Taneyev St Petersburg Russia, composer.
1840 Lorenzo Delleani, Italian artist who died on 14 November 1908.
1829 Raphaël Ritz, Swiss artist who died on 11 April 1894.
1820 Anne Brontë, the youngest of the six Brontë children, in Yorkshire.
      The Brontë family lived in the remote village of Haworth on the bleak Yorkshire moors and were largely left to their own devices after the death of their mother when Anne was still an infant, and the children were left largely to their own devices in the bleak parsonage in Haworth, a remote village in Yorkshire, where their father was a clergyman. Anne's four older sisters all went to boarding school, but the two eldest died, and Emily and Charlotte returned home. The girls, along with their brother Branwell, read voraciously and created their own elaborate stories about mythical lands.
      Anne Bronte was educated at home and worked as a governess from 1841 to 1845, during which time Emily and Charlotte went to Brussels to study school administration with the hopes of opening a school in Haworth. The school idea failed, but another project took its place: poetry. In 1845, Charlotte came across some poems Emily had written, and the three sisters discovered they had all been secretly writing verse. They self-published their joint work, Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, in 1846. Although the book sold only two copies, the sisters continued writing.
      Charlotte's Jane Eyre appeared in 1847, an instant success. Emily's Wuthering Heights and Anne's Agnes Grey were printed later that year. Anne's next novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), explored the effects of a young man's unchecked debauchery. Anne died of tuberculosis on 28 May 1849, at the age of 29.
BRONTE ONLINE: by Emily, Charlotte, and Anne (two different sites):     Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell,     Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
Emily online: (five different sites): Wuthering Heights Wuthering Heights Wuthering Heights Wuthering Heights Wuthering Heights (zipped PDF) Charlotte online: (different sites) Jane Eyre   Jane Eyre   Jane Eyre Jane Eyre (zipped PDF) The Professor     The Professor The Professor (zipped PDF) Shirley     Shirley Villette Anne Brontë online: (different sites) Agnes Grey Agnes Grey Selected Works and Commentary. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
1819 Sébastien Charles Giraud, French artist who died in 1892.
1818 Sir Antoine Dorion (L) joint premier of Canada (1858, 1863-64)
1806 First Child Born in the White House In the White House executive mansion in Washington, D.C., Martha Randolph, one of President Thomas Jefferson's two daughters, gives birth to her eighth child--a son. Martha and her husband Thomas Mann Randolph decide to name their new child James Madison Randolph, in honor of James Madison, Thomas Jefferson's secretary of state, political ally, and personal friend. In September of 1893, Frances Folsom Cleveland, wife of President Grover Cleveland, gives birth to a daughter, Esther, in the White House. It is the first child of a president to be born in the executive mansion.
1814 John Mix Stanley, US painter, specialized in the US West, who died on 10 April 1872. — LINKS
1810 Antoine Léon Morel-Fatio, French artist who died on 02 March 1871.
1806 James Madison Randolph, grandson of US President Thomas Jefferson, first child born in the White House.
1775 Nine old women burnt as witches for causing bad harvests, Kalisk, Poland.
1763 John Jacob Astor, in the small German village of Waldorf.
      Although the number of foreign immigrants to the US who succeeded in striking it rich is often exaggerated in the popular mind, Astor's brilliant success demonstrates that "rags to riches" stories did sometimes happen. In his home village of Waldorf, Germany, not far from the city of Heidelberg, the young Astor's opportunities were respectable though limited. The son of the village butcher, Astor could have followed in his father's footsteps or entered some other modest trade. Instead, when he was 16 years old, Astor left Waldorf and traveled to London to join his brother in the manufacture of musical instruments.
      Eager to find new markets, the two brothers looked overseas to the newly independent United States of America. In 1793, Astor sailed for America with a shipload of flutes and little money. En route, Astor became friends with a fur dealer who persuaded him to sell his flutes in New York and use the profits to buy furs to sell upon returning to London. He did, and the sizeable profit convinced him to enter full-time into the fur trade.
      Quickly learning all he could about the growing American fur trade, Astor made numerous trips to the western frontier, and by the end of the century, he had become the leading fur merchant in the United States. After the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, Astor moved aggressively to exploit this huge new territory for its furs. Although Lewis and Clark's exploration of the territory brought back the disappointing news that there was no easy water passage across the continent to the Pacific, Astor was nonetheless convinced that a Pacific Coast operation could profitably sell its furs to the huge China market. In 1810, he created the Pacific Fur Company. Within two years, his men had established a trading post named Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River (about sixty miles northwest of modern-day Portland).
      The outbreak of the War of 1812 forced Astor to abandon Astoria to the British, effectively destroying his Pacific Fur Company, but he eventually achieved much the same end by gradually expanding his New York-based American Fur Company westward. By 1823, Astor's firm dominated the American fur trade east of the Rockies, although the British Hudson Bay Company maintained its hold in Oregon Territory until 1845. By then, the fur trade was already going into steep decline as beaver populations were wiped out and fashion shifted to silk rather than fur hats.
      Fortunately, in the 1830s, the crafty Astor had begun diversifying his business interests by purchasing huge amounts of New York real estate. Building on the profits he had made in the fur trade, Astor abandoned his interest in the western frontier altogether in 1834 and concentrated on his East Coast investments. When he died in New York City in 1848, the German butcher's son that had arrived in the US with nothing but a shipload of flutes was the wealthiest man in America. His estate was conservatively estimated at $20 million
1732 Stanislaw II August Poniatowski last king of Poland (1764-95)
Benjamin Franklin, promoteur de l'indépendance des Etats-Unis, inventeur du paratonnerre, et grand ami de la France..
1706 Benjamin Franklin, in Boston.
      Franklin was apprenticed to his brother, a printer, at age 12. In 1729, Franklin became the official printer of currency for the colony of Pennsylvania. He began publishing Poor Richard's Almanack on 19 December 1732. The Almanack was an instant success, and a new issue follows each year for the next twenty-five years, selling an average of 10'000 copies yearly. It becomes one of the most popular writings from the colonial period, and greatly influences American popular culture with such light-hearted aphorisms as "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man, healthy, wealthy, and wise." Franklin also printed The Pennsylvania Gazette, one of the colonies' first and best newspapers.
      By 1748, Franklin had become more interested in inventions and science than publishing. His experiments with electricity led to his invention of the lightning rod.
      Franklin spent time in London representing Pennsylvania in its dispute with England and later spent time in France. He returned to America in March 1775, with war on the horizon. He served on the Second Continental Congress and helped Thomas Jefferson draft the Declaration of Independence. As a diplomat in France he was also instrumental in persuading the French to lend military assistance to the colonies. Benjamin Franklin died in Philadelphia on 17 April 1790.
FRANKLIN ONLINE: Poor Richard's Almanack selections — The Autobiography and Other Writings — The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin -- Experiments and Observations on Electricity, Made at Philadelphia in America
1657 Pieter Standard van Bloemen, Flemish artist who died on 06 March 1720.
1600 Pedro Calderón de la Barca Spanish poet / dramatist.
CALDERON ONLINE:
El Divino Jasón El Alcalde de Zalamea Amado y aborrecido Andrómeda y Perseo Andrómeda y Perseo Con quien vengo vengo El Cordero de Isaías La Dama duende Triunfar muriendo La Vida es sueño La Viña del Señor Príncipe constante La Segunda Esposa Las Cadenas del demonio El Castillo de Lindabridis Darlo todo y no dar nada El Escondido y la tapada La Hija del aire (1a parte) La Hija del aire (2a parte) Luis Pérez, el gallego El Indulto general El Mágico prodigioso Mañanas de abril y mayo El Médico de su honra Nadie fíe su secreto La Nave del mercader El Año Santo en Roma, y Loa Las Armas de la hermosura La Aurora en Copacabana Las fortunas de Andrómeda y Perseo Las Manos blancas no ofenden No hay burlas con el amor No hay instante sin milagro No siempre lo peor es cierto El Nuevo hospicio de pobres Las Tres justicias en una
CALDERON ONLINE: Belshazzar's Feast There Is No Trifling With Love
1504 Pius V [Antonio Ghislieri] saint, pope (1566-72)
1501 Leonhard Fuchs Germany, botanist (History of Plants)
1463 Frederick III the Wise, elector of Saxony (1486-25), protector Luther
1342 Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy, who died on 27 April 1404.
0463 Federico III de Sajonia, "el Sabio".
Holidays     Poland : Liberation Day      Virginia : Lee-Jackson Day
Santos Antonio Abad, Leonila y Diodoro. / Sainte Roseline de Villeneuve, fut abbesse de Celle-Roubaud, en Provence. Elle mourut en 1329
AUNT O'NIMM'S DICTIONARY: “discourteous peace”: the opposite of “civil war.”
Thoughts for the day: “Science sans conscience n’est que ruine de l’âme” — Rabelais
“Would you persuade, speak of interest, not of reason.” — Benjamin Franklin
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” — F. D. Roosevelt, first inaugural address:
“...let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
“The only thing we have to fear is the fear of fear itself.”
“We have nothing to fear, because we have nothing.” — 8-year-olds in an economically depressed area.
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