January 17
1377 - The Papal See was transferred from Avignon in France back to Rome.
1562 - French Protestants were recognized under the Edict of St. Germain.
1773 - Captain Cook's Resolution became the first ship to cross the Antarctic Circle.
1795 - The Dudingston Curling Society was organized in Edinburgh, Scotland.
1806 - James Madison Randolph, grandson of U.S. President Thomas Jefferson, was the first child born in the White House.
1852 - The independence of the Transvaal Boers was recognized by Britain.
1871 - Andrew S. Hallidie received a patent for a cable car system.
1882 - Thomas Edison's exhibit opened the Crystal Palace Exhibition in London.
1893 - The Kingdom of Hawaii's monarchy was overthrown when a group of businessmen and sugar planters forced Queen Liliuokalani to abdicate.
1900 - The U.S. took Wake Island where there was in important cable link between Hawaii and Manila.
1900 - Yaqui Indians in Texas proclaimed their independence from Mexico.
1900 - Mormon Brigham Roberts was denied a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives for his practicing of polygamy.
1905 - Punchboards were patented by a manufacturing firm in Chicago, IL.
1912 - English explorer Robert Falcon Scott reached the South Pole. Norwegian Roald Amundsen had beaten him there by one month. Scott and his party died during the return trip.
1913 - All partner interests in 36 Golden Rule Stores were consolidated and incorporated in Utah into one company. The new corporation was the J.C. Penney Company.
1916 - The Professional Golfers Association was formed in New York City.
1928 - The fully automatic, film-developing machine was patented by A.M. Josepho.
1934 - Ferdinand Porsche submitted a design for a people's car, a "Volkswagen," to the new German Reich government.
1938 - "Stepmother" debuted on CBS radio.
1945 - Soviet and Polish forces liberated Warsaw during World War II.
1945 - Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg disappeared in Hungary while in Soviet custody. Wallenberg was credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews.
1946 - The United Nations Security Council held its first meeting.
1949 - "The Goldbergs" debuted on CBS-TV. The program had been on radio since 1931. The TV version lasted for four years.
1959 - Senegal and the French Sudan joined to form the Federal State of Mali.
1961 - In his farewell address, U.S. President Eisenhower warned against the rise of "the military-industrial complex."
1966 - A B-52 carrying four H-bombs collided with a refuelling tanker. The bombs were released and eight crewmembers were killed.
1977 - Double murderer Gary Gilmore became the first to be executed in the U.S. in a decade. The firing squad took place at Utah State Prison.
1985 - Leonard Nimoy got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1991 - Coalition airstrikes began against Iraq after negotiations failed to get Iraq to retreat from the country of Kuwait.
1992 - An IRA bomb, placed next to a remote country road in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, killed seven building workers and injured seven others.
1994 - The Northridge earthquake rocked Los Angeles, CA, registering a 6.7 on the Richter Scale. At least 61 people were killed and about $20 billion in damage was caused.
1995 - More than 6,000 people were killed when an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 devastated the city of Kobe, Japan.
1997 - A court in Ireland granted the first divorce in the Roman Catholic country's history.
1997 - Israel gave over 80% of Hebron to Palestinian rule, but held the remainder where several hundred Jewish settlers lived among 20,000 Palestinians.
1998 - U.S. President Clinton gave his deposition in the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit against him. He was the first U.S. President to testify as a defendant in a criminal or civil lawsuit.
2000 - British pharmaceutical companies Glaxo Wellcome PLC and SmithKline Beecham PLC agreed to a merger that created the world's largest drugmaker.
2001 - Congo's President Laurent Kabila was shot and killed during a coup attempt. Congolese officials temporarily placed Kabila's son in charge of the government.
2001 - The director of Palestinian TV, Hisham Miki, was killed at a restaurant when three masked gunmen walked up to his table and shot him more than 10 times.
2002 - It was announced that Microsoft had signed a joint venture agreement to produce software with two partners in China. The two partners were Beijin Centergate Technologies (Holding) Co. and the Stone Group.
