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JANUARY is:
Poverty in America Awareness Month
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January 9th is:
Apricot Day: These sweet fruits originated in northeastern China near the Russian border in ancient times. Apricots arrived in the American colonies
when English immigrants settled in Virginia
Balloon Ascension Day: January 9, 1793 - First balloon ascension in America: French aeronaut Jean Pierre Blanchard took flight in a hydrogen gas balloon in Philadelphia, above a large crowd that included President George Washington
Static Electricity Day: Static electricity is produced when the positive and negative charges of an atom are out of balance.
Law Enforcement Appreciation Day: January 9, 2016 – sponsored by C.O.P.S., Fraternal Order of Police, and Officer Down Memorial Page
India – Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (In 2003, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs launched this day to commemorate Gandhi’s return from South Africa in 1915, and celebrate overseas Indian communities’ contributions to India’s development)
Japan – Hōonkō (Jōdo Shinshū Buddhist Return of Gratitude gathering)
Panama – Duelo Nacional (Martyrs’ Day – December 9, 1964 - Riots break out over Panama Canal Zone sovereignty; 21 civilians are killed)
South Sudan – Peace Agreement Day
475 – Byzantine Emperor Zeno, regarded as the “barbarian” successor to Emperor Leo I because he was from Isauria (in the Taurus Mountains, now in Turkey) was unpopular because of his origins. On this day, he was forced to flee from the capital city of Constantinople with his wife, his mother and some loyal Isaurian troops, taking with him much of the Imperial treasure. He was besieged in a fortress while Basiliscus, a member of the House of Leo, seized power and proclaimed himself Augustus of the Eastern Roman Empire, but his reign would last less than two years
Emperor Zeno tremissis coin
681 – Erwig, newly-crowned King of the Visigoths, opens the Twelfth Council of Toledo, which confirmed the metropolitan archbishop of Toledo to consecrate all bishops appointed by the king including those outside his province, giving primacy to the Toledo diocese, and enacting 28 anti-Semitic measures
1127 – Jin-Song Wars: Jin dynasty troops besiege and sack the Song dynasty capital Bianjing, abducting Emperor Quinzong of Song and other members of his court, ending the Northern Song dynasty. Emperor Qinzong died a sick and broken man in 1161, still a captive of the Jin
1349 – 600 Jews in Basel Switzerland, blamed by Catholics as the cause of the ongoing Black Death, are rounded up and shackled inside a wooden barn, and burned to death – a few young orphans are allowed to live but forcibly converted to Catholicism, and Jews are banned from settling in Basil
1431 – Judges’ investigations for the trial of Joan of Arc begin in Rouen, France, the seat of the English occupation government
1624 – Empress Meishō of Japan born, the seventh of eight women to become empress regnant (a woman monarch who rules in her own right) as opposed to a consort, who is married to the ruler, but has no power; she officially ruled Japan from 1629 to 1643, after her father renounced the throne in her favor, although she was 5 years old when she became Empress and never really came into power. Her half brother, Prince Tsuguhito was named Crown Prince in 1641, and she abdicated in his favor in 1643. After abdication, she promoted the art of Shodo (calligraphy), and helped to propagate Buddhism
1760 – Battle of Barari Ghat: The army of Ahmad Shah Durrani of Afghanistan defeats the Maratha (yeoman warriors and champions of Hinduism) in this battle, part of a series of battles in the struggle between the two powers to take over the decaying Mughal Empire, while the British were busily consolidating their power in Bengal. The Marantha leader Dattaji Sindhia was killed in the battle and the Marantha army scattered, opening the way for the Afghan occupation of Delhi
1773 – Cassandra Austen born, English watercolorist and illustrator; Jane Austen’s elder and only sister; with six brothers, the two girls, who were born only two years apart, quickly became dear friends and close allies. Cassandra drew the illustrations for Jane’s manuscript The History of England, a highly entertaining account Jane wrote at age fifteen, “The History of England from the reign of Henry the 4th to the death of Charles the 1st, By a partial, prejudiced & ignorant Historian.” Over 100 of their letters to each other have survived, and have been an invaluable source for historians, and biographers of Cassandra’s more famous sister
Cassandra Austen - silhouette done in middle age
1788 – Connecticut becomes the fifth state to be admitted to the U.S.
1799 – British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger introduces an income tax of two shillings to the pound to raise funds for Great Britain’s war effort during the Napoleonic Wars
1816 – Sir Humphry Davy tests his new safety lamp for miners at Hebburn Colliery in NE England
1822 – Portuguese Prince Pedro I of Brazil decides to stay in Brazil against the orders of Portuguese King João VI, beginning the Brazilian independence process
1839 – The French Academy of Sciences announces the Daguerreotype photography process
1858 – Elizabeth Knight Britton born, American botanist and a notable expert in bryology, the study of mosses. She was a major driving force in the founding of the New York Botanical Gardens in 1891. Britton went on numerous botanical expeditions to the West Indies and into wilderness areas of the Adirondacks. Through publications, lectures, and correspondence, Britton also raised public interest in conservation issues and promoted legislation for the protection of endangered native plants. In 1893 she was the only woman nominated to be one of 25 charter members of the Botanical Society of America
1859 – Carrie Chapman Catt born, American women’s rights activist; first woman school superintendent in Mason County Iowa (1885); first female reporter in San Francisco (1887); president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (1900-1904 and 1915-1920); campaigned for the 19thAmendment, which gave U.S. women the right to vote; founder of the League of Women Voters and International Alliance of Women
1861 – Mississippi becomes the second state to secede from the Union before the outbreak of the American Civil War
1870 – Joseph Strauss born, American structural engineer, co-designer and chief engineer of San Francisco’s famed Golden Gate Bridge
1890 – Karel Čapek born, Czech author and playwright, best known for his play R.U.R. – the origin of the word “robot”
1897 – Felisa Rincon De Gautier born, Puerto Rican pharmacist who was appointed as Mayor of San Juan in 1946, then elected and re-elected to the office until 1969, becoming the first woman to serve as the mayor of a capital city in the Americas. She created elder-care centers, established “Las Escuelas Maternales” (preschools which became the model for U.S. Head Start programs), distributed clothes and food to the disadvantaged, and encouraged women’s economic and political participation. She also renovated the city’s public healthcare system
1894 – New England Telephone and Telegraph installs the first battery-operated telephone switchboard in Lexington MA
1901 – Chic Young born, American cartoonist, creator of the comic strip Blondie
1902 – Rudolf Bing born in Austria, American impresario, NYC Metropolitan Opera
1908 – Simone de Beauvoir born, French existentialist philosopher, social theorist, author and feminist; her treatise, The Second Sex, is a foundational tract of contemporary feminism; co-editor with Jean-Paul Sartre of the political journal, Les Temps moderns; also noted for novels, She Came to Stay, The Mandarins and The Blood of Others
1909 – Ernest Shackleton, leading the Nimrod Expedition to the South Pole, plants the British flag 97 nautical miles (180 km; 112 mi) from the South Pole, the farthest anyone had reached to that time
Lt Adams - Frank Wild — Ernest Shackleton - flag marking furthest South 1909
1916 – Vic Mizzy born, American TV and film composer; The Addams Family
1923 – Juan de la Cierva makes the first autogyro flight
1939 – Susannah York born as Susannah Fletcher, English actress, children’s author and activist against nuclear weapons; remembered as the true love of Tom Jones, and for a wide range of character roles in films, television, and on stage as she grew out of the “pastel beauty” roles. Noted for A Man for All Seasons; Oh! What a Lovely War; They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?; Images; The Maids; Conduct Unbecoming; Devices and Desires, and her final performances on stage in 2010, while suffering from bone marrow cancer, in the Ronald Harwood play, Quartet. She died in January of 2011
1940 – Ruth Dreifuss born, Swiss Social Democratic politician; first woman President of the Swiss Confederation (1999), previously served as: Secretary of the Swiss Trade Union (1982-1993); Canton of Geneva representative to the Swiss Federal Council (1993-2002), the second woman and first person of Jewish heritage elected to the council
1941 – Joan Baez born, folk singer and songwriter, human/civil rights/ peace activist, founded Humanitas International Human Rights Committee (1979)
1956 – The first ‘Dear Abby’ column is published
1957 – British Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden resigns from office following his failure to retake the Suez Canal from Egyptian sovereignty
1959 – Rigoberta Menchú born, member of the K’iche’people in Guatemala, feminist political and human rights activist; won the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize for her work for social justice and ethno-cultural reconciliation, and the 1998 Prince of Asturias Prize for improving the condition of women and the communities they serve; she has twice run for president of Guatemala, in 2007 and 2011, but only received 3% of the vote in both elections
1960 – Egyptian President Nasser opens Aswan Dam construction by detonating ten tons of dynamite, demolishing twenty tons of granite on the Nile’s east bank
1962 – Sam Cooke’s “Twistin’ the Night Away” is released
1971 – Angie Martinez born of Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Dominican heritage. Dubbed “the voice of New York” because of her popular afternoon radio show on WWPR-FM since 2014. She is also an actress and a rapper, known for her albums Up Close and Personal and Animal House
1987 – The White House releases a memorandum prepared for President Ronald Reagan in January 1986 which shows a definite link between U.S. arms sales to Iran and the release of American hostages in Lebanon
1991 – Representatives from the U.S. and Iraq meet at the Geneva Peace Conference to try to find a peaceful resolution to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait
2005 – The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and the Government of Sudan sign the Comprehensive Peace Agreement to end the Second Sudanese Civil War
2006 – The Phantom of the Opera becomes the longest-running show in Broadway history, surpassing Cats, which ran for 7,485 performances
2007 – Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduces the original iPhone at a Macworld keynote in San Francisco
2015 – Perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris two days earlier are both killed after a hostage situation. Elsewhere, a second hostage situation, related to the Charlie Hebdo shooting, occurs at a Jewish market, Hypercacher, in Vincennes. There are mass gatherings of solemn demonstrators in Paris and other cities around the world
Charlie Hebdo demonstration in Paris
2018 – At least 13 people were killed as heavy rains triggered mudslides in parts of Santa Barbara County, California, an area devastated by wildfire just weeks earlier. “It’s going to be worse than anyone imagined for our area,” Santa Barbara County Fire Department spokesman Mike Eliason said. “Following our fire, this is the worst-case scenario.” The rainstorm hit early in the morning, causing “waist-high” mudflows, said Kelly Hoover, a Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman. The deaths occurred in Montecito, and there were initial reports of another 25 people injured
Santa Barbara mudlsides - Photo by Mike Eliason, Santa Barbara County Fire Dept
2020 – The Justice Department effectively ended an investigation into Hillary Clinton which lasted over two years, without finding anything worth pursuing, according to a Washington Post report. The report cited current and former law enforcement officials. In November 2017, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions assigned John Huber, the U.S. attorney in Utah, the job of examining concerns expressed by President Trump and his congressional allies that the FBI had failed to adequately investigate possible corruption during Clinton's tenure as secretary of state, and at the Clinton Foundation. The current and former officials said that Huber had nearly finished his work without finding anything significant, although his work would not be formally ended until June, 2020, when Donald Trump mocked Huber in a tweet, saying, “He was a garbage disposal unit for important documents & then, tap, tap, tap, just drag it along & run out of time.”
Hillary Clinton testifying before Congress — again
2021 – Senator Lisa Murkowski (Republican-Alaska) called for Donald Trump to step down, following the attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump followers, who were trying to prevent the 2020 Electoral College vote won by Joe Biden from being confirmed by a joint session of Congress. "I want him to resign. I want him out," Murkowski said. "He needs to get out. He needs to do the good thing, but I don't think he's capable of doing a good thing." She blamed Trump for inciting his supporters to riot and break into the Capitol building, which led to five deaths. She argued Trump ordered them to fight. "How are they supposed to take that? It's an order from the president," she said. The Alaska senator joined top Democratic leadership in calling for Trump's exit
