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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...)

Saint Émilie de Rodat

• ... that Saint Émilie de Rodat (pictured) founded the Sisters of the Holy Family of Villefranche in 1815, a French religious order that provides free education for poor girls?
• ... that Barack Obama's 2020 book A Promised Land took longer to write than any other presidential memoir in the past hundred years?
• ... that Turkish artistic gymnast Ümit Şamiloğlu is the creator of a special grip in the horizontal bar event?
• ... that after releasing their debut album Black Focus, the English band Yussef Kamaal was denied entry to the United States because one member's visa was revoked by the Trump administration?
• ... that attorney Styles Hutchins was the first African American to argue a case in a court in Georgia?
• ... that the flameback coral shrimp is often found in close proximity to the yellow-edged moray eel, suggesting that they may have a cleaning symbiosis?
• ... that according to one critic, video-game designer Kitty Horrorshow does not exploit the Lovecraftian "fear of the unknown", but instead the "fear of the familiar"?
• ... that this year's Boat Race between Oxford and Cambridge will take place on the River Great Ouse instead of the River Thames for the first time since 1944?

Mark Rutte

• Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte (pictured) and his cabinet resign as a result of the child welfare fraud scandal.
• An earthquake on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi kills at least 56 people and injures more than 830 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.