Today is Wednesday, Jan. 4, the fourth day of 2017. There are 361 days left in the year.
Today's Highlight in History:
On Jan. 4, 1967, "The Doors," the self-titled debut album of the rock group featuring the song "Light My Fire," was released by Elektra Records.
On this date:
In 1717, France, Britain and Holland formed a Triple Alliance against Spain.
In 1896, Utah was admitted as the 45th state.
In 1904, the Supreme Court, in Gonzalez v. Williams, ruled that Puerto Ricans were not aliens and could enter the United States freely; however, the court stopped short of declaring them U.S. citizens. (Puerto Ricans received U.S. citizenship in March 1917.)
In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his State of the Union address, called for legislation to provide assistance for the jobless, elderly, impoverished children and the handicapped.
In 1943, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin made the cover of TIME as the magazine's 1942 "Man of the Year."
In 1951, during the Korean War, North Korean and Communist Chinese forces recaptured the city of Seoul (sohl).
In 1960, author and philosopher Albert Camus (al-BEHR' kah-MOO') died in an automobile accident in Villeblevin, France, at age 46.
In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson delivered his State of the Union address in which he outlined the goals of his "Great Society."
In 1974, President Richard Nixon refused to hand over tape recordings and documents subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee.
In 1987, 16 people were killed when an Amtrak train bound from Washington, D.C., to Boston collided with Conrail locomotives that had crossed into its path from a side track in Chase, Maryland.
In 1990, Charles Stuart, who claimed that he'd been wounded and his pregnant wife fatally shot by a robber, leapt to his death off a Massachusetts bridge after he himself came under suspicion.
In 1995, the 104th Congress convened, the first entirely under Republican control since the Eisenhower era.