History for January 17

History for January 17 - On-This-Day.com:
Benjamin Franklin 1706, Anton Chekhov 1860, Al Capone 1899 - Gangster


Betty White 1922 - Actress, James Earl Jones 1931 - Actor, "Star Wars" movies as the voice of Darth Vader, Muhammad Ali 1942 - Boxer


1773 - Captain Cook's Resolution became the first ship to cross the Antarctic Circle.


1806 - James Madison Randolph, grandson of U.S. President Thomas Jefferson, was the first child born in the White House.


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.


1934 - Ferdinand Porsche submitted a design for a people's car, a "Volkswagen," to the new German Reich government.


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.


1961 - In his farewell address, U.S. President Eisenhower warned against the rise of "the military-industrial complex."


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.