On This Day: January 17

This is the 17th day of the year.

Fact of the Day: Franklin

Benjamin Franklin is not as famous as Shakespeare for coinages, but some of his most famous lines are "Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days;" "Time is money;" and "snug as a bug in a rug." Franklin, along with John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, selected the motto "E Pluribus Unum" (Out of many, one) as a national motto, and it appears on every piece of American money. He also had a lot to say about words he did not like. In 1789, Franklin, who had lived in England, denounced the verb usages of "to advocate," "to progress," and "to oppose" as barbarisms.

Holidays

Feast day of St. Sabinus of Piacenza, St. Julian Sabas, St. Antony the Abbot, St. Geulf or Genou, St. Richimir, St. Sulpicius II or Sulpice of Bourges, and Saints Speusippus, Eleusippus, and Meleusippus.

Mexico: San Antonio Abad / Blessing of the Animals at the Cathedral.

Philippines: Constitution Day.

Poland: Liberation Day.

Events

1377 - The Papal See was transferred from Avignon in France back to Rome.

1562 - French Protestants were recognized under the Edict of St. Germain.

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

1819 - Simon Bolivar the "Liberator" proclaims Columbia a republic.

1871 - San Franciscan Andrew Smith Hallidie patented the first cable car.

1893 - Hawaii's monarchy was overthrown by a group of American businessmen and sugar planters, forcing Queen Liliuokalani to abdicate. Hawaii was organized into a formal U.S. territory and in 1959 entered the United States as the 50th state.

1916 - The Professional Golfers' Association of America was founded.

1945 - Soviet and Polish forces liberated Warsaw during World War II.

1946 - The United Nations Security Council held its first meeting.

1959 - Senegal and the French Sudan joined to form the Federal State of Mali.

1995 - More than 6000 people were killed when an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 devastated the city of Kobe, Japan. A year earlier, a 6.7 earthquake hit southern California, killing 61.

1997 - A court in Ireland granted the first divorce in the Roman Catholic country's history.

2000 - British pharmaceutical companies Glaxo Wellcome PLC and SmithKline Beecham PLC agreed to a merger that would create the world's largest drugmaker.

Births

1706 - Benjamin Franklin, American statesman, signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America, printer, author, publisher, scientist, inventor, founder of the University of Pennsylvania.

1860 - Anton Chekhov, Russian playwright, short story writer.

1899 - Al Capone, American gangster.

1942 - Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay), American boxer, heavyweight champ.

1962 - Jim Carrey, Canadian-born actor, comedian.

Deaths

1893 - Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th President of the United States of America.

2007 - Art Buchwald, American Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist.