January 5th is

National Screenwriters Day

National Bird Day *

∞

Hamburger Day *

Whipped Cream Day

∞

Twelfth Night

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MORE! Alfred Dreyfus, Kathleen Kenyon and Umberto Eco, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Armenia – Armenian Christmas Eve

Columbia – Pasto:
Carnaval de Blancos y Negros

India – Guru Govind Singh Jayanti

Spain – Día de la Toma
(1492 capture of Granada celebrated)

Sweden – Eve of Epiphany

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On This Day in HISTORY

1066 – Edward the Confessor dies childless, with the succession unclear, causing a crisis which leads to the Norman conquest of England

1587 – Xu Xiake born, Chinese explorer-geographer and travel writer

1592 – Shah Jahan born, Mughal emperor of India, builder of the Taj Mahal

1640 – Paolo Lorenzani born, Italian composer

1679 – Pietro Filippo Scarlatti born, Italian organist and composer

1778 – Zebulon Pike born, American general and explorer

1846 – The U.S. signs the Oregon Treaty with Britain, dividing the Oregon Territory,  giving Britain all of Vancouver Island and the land above the 49yh parallel, and the U.S. the land south of that line

1863 – Constantin Stanislavsky born, a master of Russian drama, acting teacher, and founder of the Moscow Art Theatre

1871 – Frederick Converse born, American composer

1875 – The Palais Garnier in Paris, one of the world’s great opera houses, is inaugurated

1879 – Marcel Tournier born, French harp player and composer

1880 – Nikolai Medtner born, Russian pianist and composer

1895 – French army officer Alfred Dreyfus, a Jew, convicted of treason and stripped of his rank,  begins a sentence of life imprisonment on Devil’s Island – 11 years later, he is completely exonerated and reinstated as a major in the French Army, but the scandalous miscarriage of justice divided France deeply

1889 – According to the Oxford English Dictionary the word ‘hamburger’ * first appeared in print on this day in a Walla Walla, Washington newspaper.

1902 – Stella Gibbons born, English author; Cold Comfort Farm

1906 – Dame Kathleen Kenyon born, leading archaeologist of the Fertile Crescent

1914 – The Ford Motor Company announces an eight-hour workday and that it would pay a “living wage” of at least US $5 for a day’s labor

1919 – The German Workers’ Party, which would become the Nazi Party, is founded

1925 – Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming becomes the first U.S. female governor

1931 – Alvin Ailey born, American dancer and choreographer, founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

1932 – Umberto Eco born, Italian philosopher and author, The Name of the Rose

1933 – Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge begins in San Francisco Bay.

1944 – The Daily Mail becomes the first transoceanic newspaper.

1945 – The Soviet Union recognizes the new pro-Soviet government of Poland

1949 – United States President Harry S. Truman unveils his Fair Deal program

1970 – The soap opera All My Children premieres on ABC-TV

1972 –United States President Richard Nixon orders the development of a Space Shuttle program

1973  –Bruce Springsteen’s debut album, Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J., is released

1974 – Warmest reliably measured temperature below the Antarctic Circle, +59 °F (+15 °C), recorded at Vanda Station

1975 – The Wiz opens on Broadway at the Majestic Theatre

1991 – The U.S. Embassy in Mogadishu, Somalia, is evacuated by helicopter airlift days during the Somali Civil War

2002 – First National Bird Day * is inaugurated by Born Free U.S.A. to bring attention to the hundreds of bird species in danger of extinction

2005 – Eris, the most massive and second-largest known dwarf  planet in the Solar System, is discovered using images originally taken on October 21, 2003, at the Palomar Observatory

2014 – A launch of the communication satellite GSAT-14 aboard the GSLV MK.II D5 marks the first successful flight of an Indian cryogenic engine

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Visuals

• Twelfth Night celebration, painted by David Teniers
• International flags
• Edward the Confessor, King of England shown on the Bayeau Tapestry
• The Taj Mahal
• Palais Garnier Grand Salon,  in Paris
• Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose book cover
• The dwarf planet Eris

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