Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/January 17

This is a list of selected January 17 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.

Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article, featured list or picture of the day.

To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.

← January 16	January 18 →

Staging area

Images

Use only ONE image at a time

• 
  Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1959
• 
  Lorrin A. Thurston
• 
  E. C. Segar
• 
  One of the hydrogen bombs recovered from the 1966 Palomares B-52 crash
• 
  Raoul Wallenberg
• 
  Pope Gregory XI
• 
  Patrice Lumumba
• 
  United Nations Security Council chamber

Ineligible

Blurb	Reason
National Day in Menorca (1287)	refimprove sections
1524 – Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano set sail westward from Madeira to find a sea route to the Pacific Ocean.	refimprove section
1781 – American Revolutionary War: American forces won a surprising victory over the British at the Battle of Cowpens, one of the most pivotal battles of the war.	lots of CN tags (8), especially in one section
1885 – Mahdist War: British troops defeated Mahdist Sudanese forces at the Battle of Abu Klea in Khartoum, Sudan.	needs more footnotes
1899 – The United States took possession of Wake Island in the Pacific Ocean.	Copyedit needed banner
1904 – Russian playwright Anton Chekhov's last play, The Cherry Orchard, premiered at the Moscow Art Theatre.	cleanup list
1915 – World War I: During the Caucasus Campaign's Battle of Sarikamish, Russian troops defeated Ottoman forces who were ill-prepared for winter conditions.	refimprove section
1917 – Denmark sold their portion of the Virgin Islands archipelago to the United States for US$25 million.	Too much uncited
1929 – American cartoonist E. C. Segar's character Popeye first appeared in his newspaper comic strip Thimble Theater.	refimprove section
1946 – The United Nations Security Council, the organ of the United Nations charged with the maintenance of international peace and security, held its first meeting at Church House, Westminster.	Orange "update needed" banner
1955 – USS Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine, put to sea for the first time from Groton, Connecticut, with the message, "Underway on nuclear power."	lots of CN tags (17)
1977 – Convicted murderer Gary Gilmore was executed by firing squad in Utah, ending a four-year moratorium on the death penalty in the United States.	trivial pop culture references
1981 – President of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos lifted martial law, eight years and five months after declaring it.	multiple issues
1991 – Harald V, the current King of Norway, succeeded to the throne upon the death of his father Olav V.	refimprove section
1994 – A 6.7 Mw earthquake killed 72 people, injured more than 9,000 others, and caused an estimated US$20 billion in damage in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles.	unreferenced sections
1995 – The Great Hanshin earthquake struck near Kobe, Japan, killing over 6,000 people and causing over ¥10 trillion (US$200 billion) worth of damage.	refimprove

Eligible

• 1562 – Representatives of Catherine de' Medici, the regent of France, drew up the Edict of Saint-Germain, providing limited tolerance to the Protestant Huguenots.
• 1773 – On James Cook's second voyage, his vessel HMS Resolution became the first vessel to cross the Antarctic Circle.
• 1912 – Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition reached the South Pole, only to find that Roald Amundsen's team had beaten them by 33 days.
• 1920 – The Volstead Act went into effect, beginning the prohibition of alcohol in the United States.
• 1945 – Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who had saved thousands of Jews from the Holocaust, was taken into Soviet custody during the Siege of Budapest and was never seen in public again.
• 1961 – Patrice Lumumba (pictured), a former prime minister of Congo-Léopoldville, was murdered in circumstances suggesting the support and complicity of the Belgian and US governments.
• 1961 – Three days before leaving office, U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered a farewell speech to the nation, in which he warned about the dangers of the military–industrial complex.
• 1966 – A U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress collided with a KC-135 Stratotanker during aerial refueling over the Mediterranean Sea, dropping three hydrogen bombs on land near Palomares, Spain, and a fourth one into the sea.
• 1989 – Patrick Purdy opened fire in an elementary school in Stockton, California, killing 5 and wounding 32 others.
• 1998 – The Drudge Report became the first news source to break the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal to the public.
• 2002 – Mount Nyiragongo, a volcano in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, began an eruption that killed hundreds and left about 120,000 people homeless in the nearby town of Goma.
• 2010 – The first spate of violence between Muslims and Christians began in Jos, Nigeria, and would end in more than 200 deaths.
• Born/died: | Henry of Asti |d|1345| Martino Zaccaria |d|1345| William Backhouse |b|1593| Thomas Fairfax |b|1612| Thomas Linley the elder |b|1733| Anne Brontë |b|1820| Alva Belmont |b|1853| David Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty |b|1871| Big Bear |d|1888| Abram Lincoln Harris |b|1899| Gauhar Jaan |d|1930| Mateiu Caragiale |d|1936| Thomas Jaggar |d|1953| Barbara Jordan |d|1996| Zhao Ziyang |d|2005|

Notes

• Volstead Act appears on October 28, so Prohibition should not appear soon after
• Amundsen's South Pole expedition appears on December 14 and Nimrod Expedition appears on January 9, so Terra Nova should not appear soon after

January 17

Queen Liliʻuokalani of Hawaii

• 1377 – Gregory XI, the last Avignon pope, entered Rome after a four-month journey from Avignon, returning the papacy to its original city.
• 1893 – Lorrin A. Thurston and the Citizens' Committee of Public Safety led the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the government of Queen Liliʻuokalani (pictured).
• 1945 – World War II: Australian troops advanced along the northern part of Bougainville Island (in present-day Papua New Guinea) and began fighting Japanese forces in the Battle of Tsimba Ridge.
• 1948 – Indonesian National Revolution: The Renville Agreement between the Netherlands and Indonesian republicans was ratified, in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to resolve disputes arising from the Linggadjati Agreement of 1946.
• 1999 – In Little Saigon, California, a series of protests began when the owner of a video rental store displayed an image of Ho Chi Minh.

• Ellen Wood (b. 1814)
• Abram Lincoln Harris (b. 1899)
• Michelle Obama (b. 1964)
• Sunanda Pushkar (d. 2014)

More anniversaries:

• January 16
• January 17
• January 18