January 19th is

National Neon Day *

Popcorn Day

Tin Can Day *
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MORE! Edgar Allan Poe, Janis Joplin and Yasser Arafat, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Roman Catholic: World Day of Migrants and Refugees

Canada – Vancouver:
Winter Lights at Lafarge

Eritrea – Timkat
(Coptic Epiphany)

Georgia – Natlisgeba
(Orthodox Epiphany)

Finland – Feast Day of St. Henry
(patron saint of Finland)
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On This Day in HISTORY

1419 – Rouen surrenders to Henry V of England, completing his conquest of Normandy

1607 – San Agustin Church in Manila is officially completed, the oldest church still standing in the Philippines

1676 – John Weldon born, English composer, theatrical music and church organ music

1736 – James Watt born, Scottish-English chemist-engineer, steam engine pioneer

1764 – Englishman John Wilkes, radical politician and member of the infamous Hellfire Club, is expelled from the British House of Commons after being tried and found guilty in absentia of obscene and seditious libel when the  4^th Earl of Sandwich, also a Hellfire member, read aloud in the House of Lords a pornographic poem Wilkes co-authored called “An Essay on Woman,” a parody of Alexander Pope’s “An Essay on Man”

1795 – The Batavian Republic is proclaimed in the Netherlands, bringing to an end the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands

1809 – Edgar Allan Poe born, American author and poet

1812 – In the Peninsular War, after a 10-day siege, British Field Marshal Wellington orders his troops to storm Ciudad Rodrigo, held by the French under Marshal Ney

1817 – General José de San Martín leads his army of more than 5.000 men across the Andes from Argentina, to liberate Chile and Peru from Spain

1825 – Tin Can Day * Ezra Daggett and Thomas Kensett patent the first canned food storage process

1829 – The first full production of  Faust, Part One, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s tragic play, a masterwork in two parts, debuts in Braunschweig, Germany

1839 – Paul Cézanne born, French Impressionist painter

1851 – Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn born, Dutch astronomer, made extensive studies of the Milky Way and discovered galactic rotation

1853 – Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Il trovatore premieres in Rome

1861 – Georgia announces it is seceding from the Union

1883 – The first electric lighting system with overhead wires, built by Thomas Edison, begins service at Roselle, New Jersey

1889 – Sophie Taeuber-Arp born, Swiss painter and sculptor, one of the most important 20th century  geometric abstraction artists

1893 – Magda Tagliaferro born, Brazilian pianist, soloist and guest artist with celebrated orchestras, taught at the Conservatoire de Paris

1903 – Boris Blacher, German composer-librettist, is born

1905 – Oveta Culp Hobby born, first secretary of the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare, first commanding officer of the Women’s Army Corps

1907 – The first film reviews appear in Variety magazine

1915 – National Neon Day * Frenchman George Claude is issued a U.S. patent for neon tubes for advertising signs

1920 – The United States Senate votes against joining the League of Nations

1921 – Patricia Highsmith born, American author of psychological thrillers; her first novel was Strangers on a Train, also wrote ground-breaking novel The Price of Salt

1937 – Howard Hughes sets a new air record, flying from Los Angeles to New York City in seven hours, 28 minutes, 25 seconds

1943 – Janis Joplin born, American singer-songwriter, solo artist and member of the band Big Brother and the Holding Company

1946 – General Douglas MacArthur establishes the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo to try Japanese war criminals

1946 – Dolly Parton born, American singer-songwriter-actress

1949 – The salary of the U.S. President is increased from $75,000 to $100,000 with an additional $50,000 expense allowance for each year in office

1949 – Cuba recognizes the nation of  Israel, before it is admitted to the U.N. in May

1953 – Almost 72% of all television sets in the United States are tuned into I Love Lucy to watch Lucy give birth

1956 – UN Security Council Resolution 111 calls on Israel and Syria to met their obligations, acknowledging Syrian provocation, but declaring Israel in direct violation of the General Armistice Agreement

1960 – Japan and the United States sign the US–Japan Mutual Security Treaty

1971 – The revival of  No, No Nanette opens in NY’s 46th Street Theatre

1977 – President Gerald Ford gives last-minute pardon to “Tokyo Rose” (Iva D’Aquino)

1978 – The last Volkswagen Beetle made in Germany leaves VW’s plant in Emden, but Beetle production in Latin America continues until 2003

1981 – U.S. and Iranian officials sign an agreement to release 52 American hostages after 14 months of captivity

1981 – Styx releases their album Paradise Theater

1983 – Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie is arrested in Bolivia

1983 – The Apple Lisa, Apple’s first commercial personal computer with a graphic user interface and computer mouse, is announced

1993 – Fleetwood Mac reunites to perform at Bill Clinton’s inauguration

1993 – Czech Republic and Slovakia join the United Nations

1997 – Yasser Arafat returns to Hebron after more than 30 years and joins celebrations over the handover of the last Israeli-controlled West Bank city

2006 – NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft launches on first mission to investigate Pluto

2010 –  Republican Scott Brown captures the U.S. Senate seat held by liberal champion Edward Kennedy for nearly half a century, defeating Democrat Martha Coakley in a special election

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Visuals

• Popcorn
• Old postcard of Neon signs on a street in Montreal, Canada
• International flags
• 1419 siege of Rouen – illustration from Vigiles de Charles VII
• Edgar Allan Poe – quote from To One in Paradise
• Tin Cans Day poster
• Paul Cézanne – self portrait 
• Sophie Taeuber-Arp with Dadahead 1920
• Patricia Highsmith-quote from The Price of Salt

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