Today's Highlight in History:
On Jan. 17, 1950, the Great Brink's Robbery took place as seven masked men held up a Brink's garage in Boston, stealing $1.2 million in cash and $1.5 million in checks and money orders. (Although the entire 11-member gang was later caught, only part of the loot was recovered.)
On this date:
In 1562, French Protestants were recognized under the Edict of St. Germain.
In 1605, "Don Quixote" was published.
In 1706, statesman and inventor Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston.
In 1806, Thomas Jefferson's daughter, Martha, gave birth to James Madison Randolph, the first child born in the White House.
In 1871, Andrew Hallikie received a patent for a cable car system that went into service in San Francisco in 1873.
In 1893, the 19th president of the United States, Rutherford B. Hayes, died in Fremont, Ohio, at age 70. Hawaii's monarchy was overthrown as a group of businessmen and sugar planters forced Queen Lili'uokalani to abdicate.
In 1899, gangster Al Capone was born in Brooklyn, N.Y.
In 1945, Soviet and Polish forces liberated Warsaw; Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews, disappeared in Hungary while in Soviet custody.
In 1946, the United Nations Security Council held its first meeting, in London.
AP Highlight in History:
On Jan. 17, 1961, in his farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned against the rise of "the military-industrial complex."
President Dwight D. Eisenhower
In 1977, convicted murderer Gary Gilmore, 36, was shot by a firing squad at Utah State Prison in the first U.S. execution in a decade.
In 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the private use of home video cassette recorders to tape TV programs did not violate federal copyright laws.
In 1987, U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed a secret order permitting the covert sale of arms to Iran.
In 1989, five children were shot to death at the Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, Calif., by a drifter, Patrick Purdy, who then killed himself.
In 1991, Harald V became king of Norway.
In 1994, a 6.7 magnitude earthquake struck Southern California, killing at least 72 people. [Let's see, that was ... 2004 is ten yrs., 13, 14, so ... 16 yrs. ago. We predict: Another big one by 2017. — Ed.] Also: In 1994, a magnitude 6.7 earthquake struck Southern California, killing at least 61 people and causing $20 billion worth of damage. [At least. — Ed.]
In 1995, more than 6,000 people were killed when an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 devastated the city of Kobe, Japan.
In 1996, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman was sentenced to life in prison and 16 others were also sentenced to jail for plotting to bomb the United Nations.
In 1997, a court in Ireland granted the first divorce in the Roman Catholic country's history. Israel handed over Hebron to the Palestinians, ending 30 years of occupation of the West Bank city.
In 1998, President Bill Clinton became the first U.S. president to testify as a defendant in a criminal or civil suit when he answered questions from lawyers for Paula Jones, who had accused Clinton of sexual harassment.
In 1999, as White House lawyers met to work on President Bill Clinton's defense, their client spent the day preparing for his State of the Union address. The defending Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos defeated the New York Jets, 23-10, to win the American Football Conference title; the Atlanta Falcons upset the Minnesota Vikings, 30-27, to win the National Football Conference championship.
In 2000, decrying the Confederate flag as a symbol of slavery and racism, nearly 50,000 people marched to South Carolina's Statehouse on Martin Luther King Day to demand the banner be taken down. British pharmaceutical firms Glaxo Wellcome PLC and SmithKline Beecham PLC announced a merger.
In 2001, faced with an electricity crisis, California used rolling blackouts to cut off power to hundreds of thousands of people.
In 2004, three U.S. soldiers were killed north of Baghdad, pushing the U.S. death toll in the Iraq conflict to 500.
In 2005, Iraqi expatriates in 14 countries began registering to vote in Iraq's Jan. 30 elections. Zhao Ziyang, who was ousted as China's Communist Party leader after sympathizing with the 1989 pro-democracy protests, died in Beijing at age 85 after 15 years under house arrest.
In 2006, the Supreme Court protected Oregon's assisted-suicide law, ruling that doctors there who helped terminally ill patients die could not be arrested under federal drug laws.
In 2008, Bobby Fischer, the chess master who became a Cold War icon when he dethroned the Soviet Union's Boris Spassky as world champion in 1972, died in Reykjavik, Iceland, at age 64.
In 2009, Israel declared a unilateral cease-fire in its 22-day Gaza offensive. President-elect Barack Obama arrived in the nation's capital after a daylong rail trip that began in Philadelphia, retracing the path Abraham Lincoln took in 1861. Salvage crews hoisted a downed US Airways jetliner from the Hudson River, three days after a dramatic water landing survived by everyone on board. A nationwide alert was issued linking an outbreak of salmonella with peanut butter and peanut paste produced in a Blakely, Ga., a factory owned by the Peanut Corp. of America. The peanut products eventually were linked to at least 637 illnesses and nine deaths.
Today's Birthdays: Actress Betty White is 88. Former Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach is 88. Former FCC chairman Newton N. Minow is 84. Hairdresser Vidal Sassoon is 82. Actor James Earl Jones is 79. Talk show host Maury Povich is 71. Former heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali is 68. Pop singer Chris Montez is 68. R&B singer William Hart (The Delfonics) is 65. Rock musician Mick Taylor is 62. R&B singer Sheila Hutchinson (The Emotions) is 57. Singer Steve Earle is 55. Singer Paul Young is 54. Actor-comedian Steve Harvey is 53. Singer Susanna Hoffs (The Bangles) is 51. Actor-comedian Jim Carrey is 48. First Lady Michelle Obama is 46. Actor Joshua Malina is 44. Singer Shabba Ranks is 44. Rock musician Jon Wysocki (Staind) is 42. Actor Naveen Andrews is 41. Rapper Kid Rock is 39. Actor Freddy Rodriguez is 35. Actress Zooey Deschanel is 30. Singer Ray J is 29. Country singer Amanda Wilkinson is 28.
Those Born On This Date Include: British statesman David Lloyd George (1863); Mack Sennett, director of slapstick silent films (1880); English novelist Nevil Shute in 1899; singer Eartha Kitt (1927); actress Sheree North (1933); puppeteer Shari Lewis (1933) & comedian Andy Kaufman (1949).
Today In Entertainment History January 17
In 1926, George Burns and Gracie Allen were married.
In 1970, singer Billy Stewart and three members of his band were killed when their car went off a bridge in North Carolina. Stewart was 32. His biggest hit was his cover of the George Gershwin song "Summertime."
In 1972, part of Highway 51 South in Memphis was renamed Elvis Presley Boulevard. It runs in front of Graceland.
In 1974, Dean Martin's son Dino, of Dino, Desi and Billy, was arrested after he allegedly tried to sell a machine gun to an undercover agent. He was released on bail the next day.
In 1975, "Baretta" premiered on ABC.
In 1979, Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt announced that they would record an album together. The result was the album "Trio," which wasn't released until eight years later.
In 1990, The Four Seasons, The Four Tops, The Kinks, The Platters, Simon and Garfunkel and The Who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. [Apparently The Four Fucks & The Fantastic Four didn't get enough votes that yr. — Ed.]
In 1993, hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Washington for a free outdoor concert that was staged as part of the festivities for the inauguration of President Bill Clinton. Performers included Michael Bolton and Aretha Franklin.
In 1996, talk show host Phil Donahue announced he was retiring at the end of the season, after 29 years on the air.
In 2001, Metallica announced bassist Jason Newsted had quit.
In 2004, Hollywood producer Ray Stark died at age 88.
In 2005, actress Virginia Mayo died in Thousand Oaks, Calif., at age 84.
In 2008, character actor Allan Melvin died in Los Angeles at age 84.
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