Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 January 17b

Elizabeth Willing Powel (February 21, 1743 – January 17, 1830) was an American socialite and a prominent member of the Philadelphia upper class of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. After the American Revolutionary War, she established a salon of the Republican Court of leading intellectuals and political figures. She corresponded widely, including with the political elite of the time. A close friend to George Washington, she was among those who convinced him to continue for a second term as president. She wrote extensively, but privately, on a wide range of subjects, including politics, the role of women, medicine, education, and philosophy. Powel is said to be the person who asked Benjamin Franklin "What have we got, a republic or a monarchy?", to which he replied "A republic ... if you can keep it"; over time the role played by Powel in this exchange has been all but removed. Hundreds of her letters and several of her portraits survive. (Full article...)

The Burton Cooper

• ... that The Burton Cooper (pictured) was moved inside a shopping centre in 1994 despite objections from the Burton upon Trent civic society?
• ... that during the reigns of King Kalākaua and Queen Liliʻuokalani, attempts were made to change the constitution to grant women of the Hawaiian Kingdom the right to vote?
• ... that Iqbal Qureshi composed the music for the 1964 film Cha Cha Cha, the first Indian film to feature Western dance?
• ... that Vine-Glo sold during Prohibition carried a warning telling people how to make wine from it, and Al Capone allegedly threatened to force it out of Chicago?
• ... that the artist Thilagavathi teaches social interactions and facial expressions to children on the autism spectrum through Therukoothu folk-theatre performances?
• ... that Matt Czuchry, who plays Logan in Gilmore Girls, recommended season 5's "You Jump, I Jump, Jack" as a good episode for new viewers to begin with?
• ... that the Homeward Bound leadership program organized the largest all-woman expedition to Antarctica in 2019?
• ... that after 108-year-old Sarah Thomas woke up from a thirty-hour coma, she asked for her pipe and tobacco?

Mark Rutte

• Dutch prime minister
  a child welfare fraud scandal
  .
• An earthquake on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi
  kills at least 77 people and injures more than 800 others.
• Donald Trump becomes the first U.S. president to be impeached twice after the House of Representatives charges him with incitement of insurrection.
• In Ireland, an inves­ti­gation into church-run homes for unwed mothers and their babies details the deaths of 9,000 children between 1922 and 1998.

January 17: World Religion Day (2021)

United Nations Security Council chamber

• 1377 – Pope Gregory XI, the last Avignon pope, entered Rome after a four-month journey from Avignon, returning the papacy to its original city.
• 1893 – Lorrin A. Thurston and the Citizens' Committee of Public Safety led the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the government of Queen Liliʻuokalani.
• 1946 – The United Nations Security Council (chamber pictured), the organ of the United Nations charged with the maintenance of international peace and security, held its first meeting at Church House, Westminster.
• 2002 – Mount Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo began erupting, killing hundreds and leaving about 120,000 people homeless in the nearby town of Goma.