Today is the 17th day of 2023. There are 348 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1977: Convicted murderer Gary Gilmore, 36, is shot by a firing squad at Utah State Prison, ending a de facto nationwide moratorium on capital punishment in the US that had lasted for nearly a decade.

OTHER EVENTS

1595: France’s King Henry IV declares war on Spain.

1759: The Holy Roman Empire declares war on Prussia.

1773: Captain James Cook becomes the first to cross the Antarctic Circle.

1852: The Sand River Convention establishes the South African Republic of Transvaal.

1871: Determined to improve public transportation in San Francisco, wire manufacturer Andrew Hallidie patents the cable car.

1873: A group of Modoc warriors defeats the United States Army in the First Battle of the Stronghold, a part of the Modoc War.

1893: Hawaii’s monarchy is overthrown as a group of businessmen and sugar planters force Queen Liliuokalani to abdicate.

1916: Rodman Wanamaker organises a lunch to discuss forming a golfers association (later the PGA) at the Taplow Club, Martinique Hotel, New York City.

1917: The United States purchases three of the Virgin Islands — St Thomas, St John, and St Croix — from Denmark for US$25 million.

1920: The first day of prohibition of alcohol comes into effect in the US as a result of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution

1929: The cartoon character Popeye, a sailor known for his love of spinach, makes his debut, appearing in the newspaper comic strip Thimble Theatre.

1945: Soviet troops and Polish forces liberate Warsaw, more than five years after it fell to Nazi Germany. Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews, disappears in Hungary while in Soviet custody.

1946: The United Nations Security Council holds its first meeting.

1948: Netherlands and the Republic of Indonesia sign a truce.

1959: The Federal State of Mali is formed by the union of the republics of Senegal and French Sudan.

1976: I Write the Songs cover by Barry Manilow hits number one.

1984: The Supreme Court rules (5-4) that private use of home VCRs to tape TV programmes for later viewing does not violate federal copyright laws.

1990: The Colombian Medellin cartel says it has lost the drug war and offers sceptical US and Colombian authorities an end to terror in exchange for a pardon.

1991: Second and third air strikes against targets in Iraq and Kuwait are launched; at least six Iraqi Scud missiles are launched at Tel Aviv, Israel and three hit civilian areas, slightly injuring 12 people.

1992: Israel begins enforcing a sweeping curfew on Palestinians from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip.

1993: The United States unleashes a shower of Tomahawk cruise missiles against a nuclear fabricating plant 13 kilometres (8 miles) from Baghdad, delivering the point that Iraq must comply with UN resolutions.

1994: An earthquake devastates suburbs in San Fernando Valley, California, killing 61 people and injuring over 10,000.

1995: A large-scale earthquake strikes the Osaka-Kobe (Hanshin) metropolitan area, killing an estimated 6,400 people and causing major damage.

1996: Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, the spiritual leader of Egypt’s main Muslim radical faction, is sentenced to life in prison by a US court for plotting to blow up the United Nations and other New York-area landmarks.

1997: In Dublin, with little fanfare, a court grants the first divorce in Ireland’s history.

1999: Fighting erupts near a village in Kosovo, Yugoslavia, where 45 ethnic Albanians were massacred a few days earlier, forcing mourners to halt funeral services for the slain and flee.

2000: A Berlin court convicts Johannes Weinrich of murder and attempted murder and sentences him to life in prison for the 1983 terrorist bombing of a French cultural centre in then-West Berlin, which killed one person and injured 23.

2001: Faced with an electricity crisis, California uses rolling blackouts to cut off power to hundreds of thousands of people; Governor Gray Davis signs an emergency order authorising the state to buy power.

2002: The volcano Nyiragongo in eastern Congo erupts, forcing most of the 500,000 residents of the nearby city of Goma to flee. Two neo-Nazi youths are convicted for the stabbing death of a 15-year-old in the first racially motivated fatal crime on record in Norway.

2003: Rescue workers digging into thick mud find the bodies of three children in south-eastern Brazil, bringing the death toll from mudslides to 36.

2004: About 10,000 Muslim women march through Paris to protest against France’s plan to ban head coverings from public schools.

2005: Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas orders his security forces to prevent attacks against Israel and investigate the most recent deadly shooting of Israelis.

2006: In his first statement since becoming Israel’s acting prime minister, Ehud Olmert says he wants to resume final peace talks with the Palestinians and take harsh action against Israeli squatters in the West Bank.

2007: Jainal Antel Sali Jr, a top leader of the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf rebel group in the Philippines who was accused of kidnapping three Americans in 2001 and of masterminding one of Southeast Asia’s worst terror attacks three years later, is killed by Filipino army forces. The Doomsday Clock is set at five minutes to midnight in response to North Korea’s first nuclear test.

2008: A British Airways jet from Beijing carrying 152 people crash-lands at London’s Heathrow airport, injuring 19 people and causing more than 200 flights to be cancelled. American-born chess player Bobby Fischer, who became the youngest grandmaster in history when he received the title in 1958, dies at age 64 in Reykjavík, Iceland.

2009: Timmy, the oldest male gorilla in a North American zoo, celebrates his 50th birthday at the Louisville Zoo in Kentucky.

2010: In a synagogue visit haunted by history, Pope Benedict XVI and Jewish leaders spar over the record of the World War II-era pope during the Holocaust and agree on the need to strengthen Catholic-Jewish relations.

2011: Tunisia’s prime minister announces a national unity government, allowing opposition into the country’s leadership for the first time in a bid to quell civil unrest following the ouster of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

2012: Scientists confirm that 15 pounds (7 kilogrammes) of rock collected shortly before in Morocco fell to Earth from Mars during a meteorite shower the previous July.

2013: Algerian special forces launch a rescue operation at a natural gas plant in the Sahara Desert and free foreign hostages held by al-Qaeda-linked militants, but estimates for the number of dead vary widely.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Leonhard Fuchs, German physician (1501-1566); Benjamin Franklin, US statesman and scientist (1706-1790); Anton Chekhov, Russian dramatist (1860-1904); Alphonse Capone, US gangster (1899-1947); Betty White, US actress, (1922-2022); James Earl Jones, US actor (1931- ); Muhammad Ali, US boxer (1947-2016); Una Morris, Jamaican Olympian in 1964, 1968 and 1972 (1947- ); Jim Carrey, Canadian actor (1962- )

— AP/Jamaica Observer