January 11 – German saboteurs set off the Kingsland Explosion at Kingsland, New Jersey (modern-day Lyndhurst), one of the events leading to U.S. involvement in World War I.
An anti-prostitution drive in San Francisco attracts huge crowds to public meetings. At one meeting attended by 7,000 people, 20,000 are kept out for lack of room. In a conference with Rev. Paul Smith, an outspoken foe of prostitution, 300 prostitutes make a plea for toleration, explaining they had been forced into the practice by poverty. When Smith asks if they will take other work at $8 to $10 a week, the ladies laugh derisively, which loses them public sympathy. The police close about 200 houses of prostitution shortly thereafter.[1]
January 28 – The United States ends its search for Pancho Villa.
January 30 – Pershing's troops in Mexico begin withdrawing back to the United States. They reach Columbus, New Mexico February 5.
February 3 – World War I: The United States breaks off diplomatic relations with Germany.
February 5
Congress and Senate override a veto by President Woodrow Wilson to reinstate the Immigration Act of 1917, which allows more restrictions on immigration to the U.S., including the wholesale ban of people from much of Asia.[2]
February 24 – World War I: United States ambassador to the United Kingdom, Walter H. Page, is shown the intercepted Zimmermann Telegram, in which Germany offers to give Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico back to Mexico if Mexico declares war on the United States.
December 1–31 – A severe cold wave in Interior Alaska produces the coldest recorded mean monthly temperatures in the United States. Fort Yukon averages −48.3 °F or −44.6 °C and Eagle −46 °F or −43.3 °C.[8]
December 26 – United States president Woodrow Wilson uses the Federal Possession and Control Act to place most U.S. railroads under the United States Railroad Administration, with the aim of transporting troops and materials for the war effort more efficiently.
The calendar year is the coolest averaged over the contiguous United States in mean temperature (average of 50.06 °F or 10.03 °C against a long-term average of 51.86 °F or 11.03 °C)[10] and minimum temperature (37.62 °F or 3.12 °C against a long-term average of 39.84 °F or 4.36 °C).[11] it is also the second-driest with a coast-to-coast average precipitation of 25.35 inches or 643.9 millimetres against a long-term mean of 29.57 inches or 751.1 millimetres.[12]
^MacLaren, Don (1998). "Prostitute March 1917". FoundSF. Retrieved 2019-02-05.
^Powell, John (2009). Encyclopedia of North American Immigration. New York: Infobase Publishing. p. 137. ISBN 978-1-4381-1012-7.
^Cyrulik, John M. (2003). A Strategic Examination of the Punitive Expedition Into Mexico, 1916–1917. US Army Command and General Staff College. pp. 67–68.
^"William Knowles, Nobel Winner in Chemistry, Dies at 95". The New York Times. June 15, 2012.
^Baugess, James S.; DeBolt, Abbe Allen (2012). Encyclopedia of the Sixties: A Decade of Culture and Counterculture Volume 1. Santa Barbara: Greenwood. p. 259. ISBN 978-0-31332-945-6.
^Esther Cooper Jackson, civil rights writer, leader for decades, dies at 105
^Thomas, Robert McG. Jr. (1997-06-06). "Dennis James, 79, TV Game Show Host and Announcer, Dies". The New York Times. Retrieved May 16, 2010.
^McArdle, Terence (2022-04-15). "Art Rupe, record mogul who helped launch Little Richard and Sam Cooke, dies at 104". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2022-04-16.
^Carlson, Michael (July 30, 2017). "June Foray obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved March 19, 2018.
^Holcomb B. Noble and Charles McGrath, Louis Auchincloss, Chronicler of New York's Upper Crust, Dies at 92 The New York Times. Retrieved on January 27, 2010.
^"Martha W. Capps 27 August 1845 – 15 August 1917 • K637-F1B". ident.familysearch.org. Retrieved 17 July 2022.
External linksedit
Media related to 1917 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons