Can a username and password be sent safely over HTTPS via URL parameters?

Question

A colleague and I had a heated debate yesterday whether it is safe to send login credentials via URL parameters as a means of authentication. He correctly pointed out that

Answer 1

I had no idea that HTTPS encrypted the URL as well, it's good to know.

However, from a security perspective, I'd be more bothered by the fact that the credentials can be read in the URL bar. Not to mention possibly stored in the browser history.