Boston thieves pull off historic Brink’s robbery

Relying upon strategic creativity, Brigadier General Daniel Morgan and a mixed Patriot force rout British Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton and a group of Redcoats and Loyalists at the Battle of Cowpens on January 17, 1781. It would become a turning point on the American Revolution‘s southern front. Commander in chief of the Southern Army, Major […]

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 occurred with the foreknowledge of John L. Stevens, the U.S. minister to Hawaii, and 300 U.S. Marines from the U.S. cruiser Boston were […]

On January 17, 1916, a group of golf professionals and several leading amateur golfers gather at the Taplow Club in New York City, in a meeting that will result in the founding of the Professional Golfers Association (PGA). The lunch meeting occurred at the invitation of Rodman Wanamaker, the son of the pioneering founder of […]

Leon Trotsky, a leader of the Bolshevik revolution and early architect of the Soviet state, is deported by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to Alma-Ata in remote Soviet Central Asia. He lived there in internal exile for a year before being banished from the USSR forever by Stalin. Born in Ukraine of Russian-Jewish parents in 1879, […]

On January 17, 1953, a prototype Chevrolet Corvette sports car makes its debut at General Motors’ (GM) Motorama auto show at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. The Corvette, named for a fast type of naval warship, would eventually become an iconic American muscle car and remains in production today. In the early 1950s, […]

On January 17, 1966, the National Broadcasting Corporation orders 32 episodes of a new TV show, “The Monkees,” for its upcoming fall schedule. Little did producers know that the fake pop music band they were launching would become an actual pop culture sensation—whose records would even outsell the Beatles. Indeed, the inspiration for “The Monkees” […]

Gary Gilmore, convicted in a double murder, is shot to death by a firing squad in Utah, becoming the first person to be executed in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that, in violation of the eighth Amendment to the Constitution, the death […]

On January 17, 1995, the Los Angeles Rams announce they are leaving Southern California after 49 years and moving to St. Louis. The team, which reportedly lost $6 million in 1994, is lured to Missouri with a package that includes a new $260 million stadium and a $15 million practice facility. The Rams’ move, which […]

In a crime that scandalized Russia and made headlines around the world, Sergei Filin, the artistic director at the famed Bolshoi Ballet, is attacked with acid outside his home in Moscow on January 17, 2013. A dancer at the ballet, Pavel Dmitrichenko, was later convicted for ordering the attack, which revealed deep divisions within the […]