Gary Gilmore executed

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, […]

11 men steal more than $2 million from the Brink's Armored Car depot in Boston, Massachusetts. It was the largest bank robbery in U.S. history at the time. The robbers weren’t caught until January 1956.

On January 17, 1961, Dwight D. Eisenhower ends his presidential term by warning the nation about the increasing power of the military-industrial complex. His remarks, issued during a televised farewell address to the American people, were particularly significant since Ike had famously served the nation as military commander of the Allied forces during WWII. Eisenhower […]

On January 17, 1966, a B-52 bomber collides with a KC-135 jet tanker over Spain’s Mediterranean coast, dropping three 70-kiloton hydrogen bombs near the town of Palomares and one in the sea. It was not the first or last accident involving American nuclear bombs. As a means of maintaining first-strike capability during the Cold War, U.S. […]

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 […]