January 17, Murderer Gary Gilmore executed by firing squad

Today is Saturday, Jan. 17, the 17th day of 2026. There are 348 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Jan. 17, 1977, convicted murderer Gary Gilmore, 36, was shot by a firing squad at Utah State Prison in the first U.S. execution in a decade. He was put to death after the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty the previous year.

Also on this date:

In 1920, prohibition of alcohol began in the United States as the Volstead Act went into effect in support of the 18th Amendment.

In 1950, the Great Brink’s Robbery took place as seven masked men held up the Brink’s Building in Boston, stealing $1.2 million in cash and $1.5 million in checks and money orders.

In 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered his farewell address in which he warned against “the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”

In 1990, The Four Seasons, The Four Tops, The Kinks, The Platters, Simon and Garfunkel and The Who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

In 1994, the Northridge earthquake rattled the Los Angeles area; the magnitude 6.7 quake was responsible for 57 deaths, 9,000 injuries and an estimated $25 billion in damages.

In 1995, more than 6,000 people were killed when a magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck the city of Kobe (koh-bay), Japan.

In 2017, President Barack Obama granted clemency to Chelsea Manning, allowing the transgender Army intelligence officer convicted of leaking more than 700,000 U.S. documents to go free nearly three decades early. Manning was one of 209 people whose sentences were commuted by Obama days before leaving office.

In 2022, as Russian troops stationed near Ukraine’s border launched drills, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov angrily rejected U.S. allegations that Moscow was preparing a pretext to invade Ukraine. (Russia would launch a full-scale invasion of the neighboring country on Feb. 24.)