January 17th

Chess master Bobby Fischer died at age 64.

Faced with an electricity crisis, California used rolling blackouts to cut off power to hundreds of thousands of people.

President Bill Clinton became the first U.S. president to testify as a defendant in a criminal or civil suit when he answered questions from lawyers for Paula Jones, who had accused Clinton of sexual harassment.

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

A magnitude 7.2 earthquake devastated the city of Kobe, Japan; more than 6,000 people were killed.

A magnitude 6.7 earthquake struck Southern California, killing at least 61 people and causing $20 billion worth of damage.

Operation Desert Storm was launched against Iraq.

Convicted murderer Gary Gilmore was shot by a firing squad at Utah State Prison in the first U.S. execution in a decade.

Patrice Lumumba is murdered with support from western governments. An independent commission concluded that Lumumba, the first democratically elected leader of the Congo, died at the hands of his domestic adversaries with the assistance of the Belgian government and the CIA.

The United Nations Security Council held its first meeting.

Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, was taken into Soviet custody in Budapest, Hungary. (His fate has never been determined.).

Kuomintang forces under orders from Chiang Kai-shek open fire at communist forces, resuming the Chinese Civil War after World War II.

Captain Robert Scott's expedition arrives at the South Pole, one month after Roald Amundsen.

Gangster Al Capone was born in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th president of the United States, died in Fremont, Ohio, at age 70.

A group of Modoc warriors defeats the United States Army in the First Battle of the Stronghold, a part of the Modoc War.

Thomas Jefferson's daughter, Martha, gave birth to James Madison Randolph, the first child born in the White House.

Captain James Cook becomes 1st to cross Antarctic Circle (66° 33' S).

Statesman and inventor Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston.

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