Today is Wednesday, Jan. 18, the 18th day of 2017. There are 347 days left in the year.

Birthdays: Director John Boorman is 84. Former senator Paul Kirk, Democrat of Massachusetts, is 79. Singer Bobby Goldsboro is 76. Actor Kevin Costner is 62. Actor Mark Rylance is 57. Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley is 54. Comedian Dave Attell is 52. Rapper DJ Quik is 47. Former NAACP leader Benjamin Todd Jealous is 44. Actor Jason Segel is 37.

In 1778, Captain James Cook reached present-day Hawaiian Islands, which he named ‘‘Sandwich Islands.’’

In 1911, the first landing of an aircraft on a ship took place as Eugene Ely brought his Curtiss biplane onto the deck of the armored cruiser USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco Harbor.

In 1943, during World War II, Jewish insurgents in the Warsaw Ghetto launched their initial armed resistance against Nazi troops, who eventually succeeded in crushing the rebellion.

In 1967, Albert DeSalvo, who said he was the ‘‘Boston Strangler,’’ responsible for 13 murders, was convicted in Cambridge of armed robbery, assault, and sex offenses. (Sentenced to life, DeSalvo, who later recanted his confession, was killed in prison in 1973.)

In 1997, former Massachusetts senator Paul Tsongas, who rebounded from cancer to briefly become the Democratic front-runner for president in 1992, died in Boston at age 55.

In 2012, President Obama rejected the 1,700-mile Keystone pipeline project to carry oil across six states to Texas.

Last year, Wynn Resorts picks Suffolk Construction to build its casino in Everett.