January 8th is

Argyle Day

Bubble Bath Day

English Toffee Day

Joy Germ Day *

Sunday Supper Day

Earth’s Rotation Day *

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MORE! Crazy Horse, Emily Greene Balch and Otis Redding, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Australia – Sydney: Sydney Festival

North Korea – Kim Jong-un’s Birthday

North Marianas – Commonwealth Day *

Niue – National Takai Day
(‘going around’ in decorated vehicles)

United States –
Anchorage AK: Festival of Music
Honolulu HI: Cherry Blossom Festival Opening
Grand Rapids MI: Winter Jam

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On This Day in HISTORY

871 – Alfred the Great leads a West Saxon army to repel a Danelaw Viking invasion

1454 – The papal bull Romanus Pontifex awards the Kingdom of Portugal exclusive trade and colonization rights to all of Africa south of Cape Bojador

1547 – First Lithuanian-language book, Simple Words of Catechism, is published in Königsberg

1668 – Jean Gilles, French composer, is born

1675 – The New York Fishing Company becomes the first U.S. chartered corporation

1697 – Last execution for blasphemy in Britain;  Thomas Aikenhead, student, at Edinburgh

1705 – Premiere performance of George Frideric Handel’s Almira in Hamburg

1746 – Second Jacobite rising: Bonnie Prince Charlie occupies Stirling

1790 – George Washington delivers the first State of the Union address in New York City

1806 – Cape Colony (Dutch Kaapkolonie)  in South Africa becomes a British colony

1811 – An unsuccessful slave revolt is led by Charles Deslondes in St. Charles and St. James, Louisiana

1815 – Battle of New Orleans: Andrew Jackson’s American forces are victors over the British, two weeks after the War of 1812 officially ended, before either side got the news

1824 – Wilkie Collins born, English writer; The Woman in White

1830 – Hans von Bülow born, German pianist and composer

1835 – The United States national debt is zero for the first and only time

1851 – Léon Foucalt demonstates how the earth rotates with a lead-filled brass ball, now known as the Foucalt Pendulum

1856 – Borax is discovered by Dt. John Veatch

1867 – African American men are granted the right to vote in Washington, D.C.

1867 – Emily Greene Balch born, economist/sociologist, co-founder of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom with Jane Addams and others (1919), awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946, shared with John Mott

1877 – Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle against U.S. Cavalry at Wolf Mountain, Montana Territory

1886 – The Severn Railway Tunnel, Britain’s longest, opens

1889 – Herman Hollerith is issued a US patent for the ‘Art of Applying Statistics’ — his punched card calculator; his company Tabulating Machine Company, becomes IBM

1904 – The Blackstone Library is dedicated, marking the beginning of the Chicago Public Library system

1906 – Arthur Rubinstein makes his debut at New York’s Carnegie Hall

1912 – The African National Congress is founded, now the Republic of South Africa’s governing social democratic political party

1918 – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson announces his “Fourteen Points” for the aftermath of World War I. an outline of the steps he believed needed to assure world peace, including the founding of the League of Nations

1925 – Russian composer Igor Stravinsky debuts in America, conducting the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in a program of his own compositions

1935 – Elvis Presley, Rock ‘n Roll icon, is born

1937 – Shirley Bassey born, British Jazz singer

1940 – World War II: Britain introduces food rationing

1942 – Stephen Hawking, British physicist, is born; A Brief History of Time

1947 – David Bowie, great British rocker, is born

1952 – My Friend Irma, starring Marie Wilson, debuts on TV

1958 – Bobby Fisher, age 14, wins the U.S. Chess Championship for the first time

1959 – Charles De Gaulle is inaugurated as president of France’s Fifth Republic

1961 – In France a referendum supports Charles de Gaulle’s policies in Algeria, a referendum on self-determination for Algeria, which won the support of 75.2% of the voters.

1963 – Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is exhibited in the United States for the first time, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

1964 – President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a “War on Poverty” in the United States.

1968 – Otis Redding’s single “Sittin’ On the Dock of the Bay” is released

1971 – Bowing to international pressure, President of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto releases Bengali leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from prison, who had been arrested after declaring the independence of Bangladesh

1973 – Soviet space mission Luna 21 is launched

1973 – The trial of seven men accused of illegal entry into Democratic Party headquarters at Watergate begins

1975 – Ella T. Grasso becomes Governor of Connecticut, the first woman to serve as a Governor in the United States other than by succeeding her husband

1978 – The Northern Mariana Islands commonwealth status with U.S. goes into effect

1981 – Joan White launches ‘Joy Germ’ Day on her mother’s birthday to celebrate the contagious spreading of Joy

1982 – Bell System Break-up: AT&T agrees to divest itself of twenty-two subdivisions

1994 – Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov on Soyuz TM-18 leaves for the Mir space station, staying until March 22, 1995, for a record 437 days in space

2002 – President George W. Bush signs into law the ‘No Child Left Behind Act’

2004 – The RMS Queen Mary 2, the largest ocean liner ever built, is christened by her namesake’s granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II

2005 – The cost of a U.S. first class Postage Stamp is raised to 39¢

2009 – Archeologists discover Queen Sesheshet’s mummy in a 4300 year old pyramid

2011 – The attempted assassination of Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords and subsequent shooting in Casas Adobes, Arizona, in which five people were killed

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Visuals

• Earth’s Rotation Day image
• International flags
• Alfred the Great
• Wilkie Collins with words quote
• Emily Greene Balch with domestic tyranny quote
• Electrical work in the Severn Railway Tunnel
• Arthur Rubinstein in 1906
• Stephen Hawking with environmental quote

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