Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg is highly praised for saving the lives of thousands of Jews in Nazi-occupied Hungary during World War II. However, he disappeared after being arrested by Soviet forces on January 17, 1945, and has not been heard from since. Wallenberg made significant contributions to saving Hungarian Jews during the final year of World War II.
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02-13, 2025Wallenberg rented 32 buildings in Budapest and declared them extraterritorial territories with diplomatic immunity. These buildings, with large Swedish flags hanging outside, were actually used to house nearly ten thousand Jews. Wallenberg took bold approaches to rescue those who were about to be sent to death camps.
On one occasion, he climbed onto the roof of a train heading to Auschwitz and distributed dozens of Swedish passports. Wallenberg was inspired by the 1941 British film "The Scarlet Pimpernel," whose protagonist rescued 28 Jews from the Nazis. Wallenberg had said to his wife, "That's what I want to do."
Wallenberg was arrested by Soviet occupation forces a few days after the Red Army occupied Budapest. The last time anyone saw him was on March 1, 1945, when he was still a prisoner. In 1957, the Soviet government announced that he had died of a heart attack or heart failure in 1947, but he was cremated without an autopsy. A 1991 investigation concluded that Wallenberg was executed while imprisoned, possibly by poisoning.
On January 17, 1998, the website "The Drudge Report" broke the story that US President Bill Clinton had a sexual relationship with a 23-year-old intern. The report focused on how Newsweek magazine had suppressed the story about Clinton and the intern. This article marked the first time that a major breaking news story was reported first on the internet. The next day, "The Drudge Report" published the intern Monica Lewinsky's name, and subsequently released her resume. The website reported that Lewinsky was "proficient in Microsoft Word 6.0 under Macintosh, WordPerfect under Windows, and Infosys."
On January 17, 1977, the first prisoner to be executed after the United States reinstated the death penalty was killed by a firing squad. Murderer Gary Gilmore was unusual in that he actively opposed any efforts to save his life. Gilmore stated that he wanted anti-death penalty activists to "butt out." He said, "This is my life, this is my death. The court has authorized me to die, and I accept it." His last words were, "Let's do it."
According to Utah law, one member of the five-person firing squad would unknowingly fire a blank round. This way, no one would know for sure if they killed the prisoner. However, when his brother viewed his body, he found five bullet holes in his shirt. In a particularly macabre scene, the comedy show "Saturday Night Live" sang a song called "Let's Kill Gary Gilmore for Christmas" a few days before his death.
Hawaii's last queen, Liliuokalani, was overthrown on January 17, 1893, by a Committee of Public Safety, consisting of American businessmen residing in the country. The United States deployed Marines to Hawaii to protect American interests, but did not annex it until 1898. Liliuokalani died as a private citizen in Honolulu in 1917 at the age of 79.
