Rihanna

"Talk That Talk" is a song recorded by Barbadian singer Rihanna for her 2011 studio album of the same name. It features a rap verse by Jay-Z, who had previously collaborated with her on "Umbrella" in 2007 and "Run This Town" in 2009. A hip hop song with R&B beats, rough drums and unrefined synths, it was written by Jay-Z, Ester Dean, The Notorious B.I.G., Buckwild, Sean Combs, and Chucky Thompson together with the Norwegian production duo StarGate. Def Jam Recordings serviced the track to urban radio in the United States on January 17, 2012. The single was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration at the 2013 ceremony. It reached number 31 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number 25 on the UK Singles Chart, and made top ten lists in Israel, Norway, and South Korea. Over one million copies were downloaded in the US. Rihanna performed the song on The Jonathan Ross Show and Saturday Night Live, and included it on set lists on tour with Eminem. (Full article...)

Bedřich Fritta's caricature of the Theresienstadt Ghetto

• ... that the Nazi authorities promoted Theresienstadt Ghetto (caricature shown) as a "spa town" and "retirement settlement" for Jews?
• ... that American suffragist Annie Nowlin Savery came into conflict with some woman suffragists because she supported free love?
• ... that Chief Justice Murray Gleeson suggested that public confidence in the independence of Australian judges largely consists of taking things for granted?
• ... that 79 pages of Robin Coste Lewis's anthology Voyage of the Sable Venus and Other Poems are devoted to the titular poem, which consists of "titles, catalog entries, or exhibit descriptions" depicting the black female form in Western art?
• ... that "Varsity", the University of Michigan fight song, was written in 1911 by two Michigan students while they were riding a street car in Detroit?
• ... that the journalist Johann Georg Reißmüller, a co-publisher of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, is credited with playing an important part in Germany's recognition of Croatia and Slovenia?
• ... that the production of the film El Caracazo required a military security presence for the filming of scenes of riot and massacre in the centre of the Venezuelan capital of Caracas?
• ... that the man who named a nearly blind amphibian Dermophis donaldtrumpi did so to raise awareness of Donald Trump's policies on climate change?

Laurent Gbagbo

• In Zimbabwe, eight people are reported dead amid protests over the government's increase in the price of fuel.
• Former President of Ivory Coast Laurent Gbagbo (pictured) is acquitted of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.
• A terrorist attack by the militant group Al-Shabaab at a hotel compound in Nairobi, Kenya, kills at least twenty-one people.
• In Poland, Gdańsk Mayor Paweł Adamowicz dies after being stabbed on stage at a charity concert.
• Fifteen people are killed when a Saha Airlines Boeing 707 crashes on landing at Fath Air Base, Iran.

January 17

Raoul Wallenberg

• 1773 – On James Cook's second voyage, his ship HMS Resolution became the first to cross the Antarctic Circle.
• 1893 – Lorrin A. Thurston, along with the Citizens' Committee of Public Safety, led the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii and the government of Queen ʻuokalani.
• 1945 – Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg (pictured), who had saved thousands of Jews from the Holocaust, was taken into Soviet custody while in Hungary and was never seen in public again.
• 1961 – Former Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was murdered in circumstances suggesting the support and complicity of the governments of Belgium and the United States.
• 1989 – Patrick Purdy opened fire in an elementary school in Stockton, California, killing 5 and wounding 32 others.

Martino Zaccaria (d. 1345) · David Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty (b. 1871) · Sunanda Pushkar (d. 2014)