January 17, 2024
QUOTE
Make yourself sheep and the wolves will eat you.
--Benjamin Franklin
BIRTHDAYS
1706 – Benjamin Franklin, American publisher, inventor, and politician, 6th President of Pennsylvania
1922 – Betty White, American actress, game show panelist, television personality, and animal rights activist
1931 – James Earl Jones, American actor
1942 – Muhammad Ali, American boxer and activist
1962 – Jim Carrey, Canadian-American actor, comedian, and producer
IN MEMORY
1718 – Benjamin Church, American colonel
1888 – Big Bear, Canadian tribal chief
1893 – Rutherford B. Hayes, American general, lawyer, and politician, 19th President of the United States
2008 – Bobby Fischer, American chess player and author
IN ON THIS DAY
1362 – Saint Marcellus’ flood kills at least 25,000 people on the shores of the North Sea.
1773 – Captain James Cook leads the first expedition to sail south of the Antarctic Circle.
1899 – The United States takes possession of Wake Island in the Pacific Ocean.
1912 – British polar explorer Captain Robert Falcon Scott reaches the South Pole, one month after Roald Amundsen.
1917 – The United States pays Denmark $25 million for the Virgin Islands.
1920 – Alcohol Prohibition begins in the United States as the Volstead Act goes into effect.
1961 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers a televised farewell address to the nation three days before leaving office, in which he warns against the accumulation of power by the “military–industrial complex” as well as the dangers of massive spending, especially deficit spending.