On This Day January 17th

 OTD

January 17th is the Seventeenth day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 348 days remain until the end of the year.

 

Events

1362 – Saint Marcellus' flood kills at least 25,000 people on the shores of the North Sea.

1377 – Pope Gregory XI reaches Rome after deciding to move the Papacy back to Rome from Avignon.

1773 – Captain James Cook leads the first expedition to sail south of the Antarctic Circle.

1852 – The United Kingdom signed the Sand River Convention with the South African Republic.

1903 – El Yunque National Forest in Puerto Rico becomes part of the United States National Forest System as the Luquillo Forest Reserve.

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" and the dangers of massive spending, especially deficit spending.20 – Alcohol Prohibition began in the United States as the Volstead Act was enacted.

1991 – Gulf War: Operation Desert Storm begins early in the morning as aircraft strike positions across Iraq; it is also the first significant combat sortie for the F-117. A Mig-25 shoots down LCDR Scott Speicher's F/A-18C Hornet from VFA-81 and is the first American casualty of the War. Iraq fires eight Scud missiles into Israel in an unsuccessful bid to provoke Israeli retaliation.

1998 – Clinton–Lewinsky scandal: Matt Drudge breaks the story of the Bill Clinton–Monica Lewinsky affair on his Drudge Report website.

 

Birthdays

1501 – Leonhart Fuchs, German physician and botanist (d. 1566)

1706 – Benjamin Franklin, American publisher, inventor, and politician, 6th President of Pennsylvania (d. 1790)

1820 – Anne Brontë, English author, and poet (d. 1849)

1860 – Douglas Hyde, Irish academic and politician, 1st President of Ireland (d. 1949)

1863 – David Lloyd George, Welsh lawyer and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1945)

1899 – Al Capone, American mob boss (d. 1947)

1922 – Betty White, American actress, game show panelist, television personality, and animal rights activist (d. 2021)

1931 – James Earl Jones, American actor

1942 – Muhammad Ali, American boxer and activist (d. 2016)

1962 – Sebastian Junger, American journalist and author

1971 – Kid Rock, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actor

 

 

Holiday Spotlight

Ditch New Year Resolutions Day

  There’s not a lot of history behind this holiday, as it is entirely unofficial, but plenty of reasons support this day’s existence. Did you know that one in three people fail their New Year’s resolutions in the first month? And only 10% of people successfully keep their resolutions throughout the year. According to a study by the University of Scranton, 80% of people don’t stick to their resolutions.

 Ditching New Year’s resolutions has been a practice for almost as long as New Year’s Resolutions. Beginning with the ancient tradition of making resolutions for the new year at the Babylonian festival of Akitu over 4,000 years ago, the Earth completing a single orbit around the Sun brings with it the opportunity to turn over a new leaf and the hope of a ‘New Year, New Me.’ Unfortunately, most of the time, New Year’s Resolutions are as effective as pouring water into a colander.

 But the thing is, the commitment to make a change in your life and stick to it happens only when you have the willpower to do it. A date change or orbital cycle won’t miraculously make you want to alter your lifestyle. This is probably why New Year’s resolutions are mostly so unsuccessful. Why is the day celebrated on January 17? Most likely because it takes at least a fortnight for people to realize that they don’t care much about their resolutions and don’t want to feel tied to them any longer.

 

Other Include

Cable Car Day

Customer Service Day

Hot-Buttered Rum Day

International Mentoring Day

Judgement Day

Kid Inventors' Day

Museum Selfie Day

National Bootleggers Day

National Hot Heads Chili Day

Popeye Day

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