January 23rd is

Handwriting Day

National Pie Day *

Snowplow Mailbox Hockey Day

Into the Deep Day *

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MORE! Charles Curtis, Gertrude Elion and Derek Walcott, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Cayman Islands – National Heroes Day

India – Orissa and West Bengal:
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Jayanti
(Hindustani nationalist leader)

New Zealand – Wellington:
Provincial Anniversary Day

Pitcairn Islands – Bounty Day *

United States – Princeton NJ:
Chamber Music Festival
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On This Day in HISTORY

971 – In China, the war elephant corps of the Southern Han is soundly defeated at Shao by crossbow fire from Song dynasty troops

1264 – English barons are on the brink of civil war in 1263 with King Henry III over high taxes and influence of foreigners at court, so both parties agree to arbitration by French King Louis IX, a firm believer in royal prerogative, who rules in favor of Henry, leading to the Second Barons’ War – The First Baron’s War (1215-1217) was against King John because he refused to abide by the Magna Carta)

1368 – Zhu Yuanzhang ascends the throne of China as the Hongwu Emperor, initiating Ming dynasty rule over China that will last for three centuries.

1546 – After eleven years, François Rabelais publishes the Tiers Livre, his sequel to Gargantua and Pantagruel

1556 – The deadliest earthquake in history, the Shaanxi earthquake, hits Shaanxi province, China. The death toll may have been as high as 830,000

1570 – James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, regent for the infant King James VI of Scotland, becomes the first person assassinated by firearm in recorded history

1571 – The Royal Exchange, the centre of commerce for the City of London, opens in London, founded by merchant Thomas Gresham on a site provided by the City of London Corporation and the Worshipful Company of Mercers

1656 – Blaise Pascal publishes the first of his Lettres provinciales

1719 – The Principality of Liechtenstein is created within the Holy Roman Empire

1753 – Muzio Clementi is born in Italy, British composer-musician-conductor

1790– Bounty Day * – The HMS Bounty is burned by the mutineers at what is now called Bounty Bay, Pitcairn Island, to hide their presence from the British Navy

1795 – After an extraordinary charge across the frozen Zuiderzee, the French cavalry captured 14 Dutch ships and 850 guns, in a rare occurrence of a battle between ships and cavalry

1845 – The U.S. Congress established the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November as the day for all national elections

1846 – Slavery in Tunisia is abolished

1862 – Agoston Haraszthy de Mokcsa brings 1,400 varieties of grapevines from Europe to California, and plants the first large vineyard in California in the Sonoma Valley. After the phyloxera blight destroyed much of Europe’s vineyards, some of these same vines, now on resistant American root-stock, helped save the European wine industries.

1878 – Rutland Boughton, English composer, is born, established the Glastonbury Festivals (1914-1926); best known for his opera, The Immortal Hour

1879 – In the Anglo-Zulu War, the second day of the Battle of Rorke’s Drift ends with the Zulus leaving – 150 British and colonial troops had defended the Rorke’s Drift mission station for hours against an intense assault by over 3,000 Zulu warriors

1899 – After the ‘Malolos’ Constitution is enacted, Emilio Famy Aguinaldo, a revolutionary leader, becomes the first President of the Philippines

1907 – Charles Curtis (R-KS), whose mother was of the Kaw Nation, becomes the first American Indian U.S. Senator; in March 1929, he leaves the Senate to be sworn in as Herbert Hoover’s Vice President

1909 – The White Star line passenger ship RMS Republic collides with the SS Florida off the coast of Massachusetts, and sends the first CQD (predecessor to SOS) distress signal – six people are killed, but 1500 lives are saved before the ship sinks the next day

1909 – Tatiana Proskouriakoff born, pioneering woman in Maya archaeology; made great contributions to deciphering Maya hieroglyphs because she was the first to realize that Mayan stelae were historical chronicles, rather than imagistic prophecy; her drawings bring the ancient civilization to life

1910 – “Django” Reinhardt is born in Belgium; Jazz guitarist and songwriter of Romani heritage, co-founder of the band, Quintette du Hot Club de France; his song “Nuages” (clouds) became an anthem of Paris during the Nazi occupation

1912 – The International Opium Convention, the first international drug control treaty, is signed at The Hague in the Netherlands

1918 – Gertrude Elion born, biochemist, one of only 10 women to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1988); co-developer of drugs to treat leukemia, gout and malaria, as well as drugs used in organ transplants to help prevent transplant rejection

1921 – Merija Gimbutas born, Lithuanian-American archaeologist and author, The Prehistory of Modern Europe (1956) and The Civilization of the Goddess (1994)

1925 – Marty Paich, American composer-arranger-record producer, is born

1930 – Derek Walcott born, Saint Lucia poet and playwright; 1992 Nobel Prize for Literature; Dream on Monkey Mountain

1941 – Charles Lindbergh testifies before the U.S. Congress and recommends that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler

1941 – Artie Shaw and his orchestra record “Moonglow”

1941 – Lady in the Dark, a musical with lyrics by Moss Hart and music by Kurt Weill, debuts on Broadway

1943 – Duke Ellington and his orchestra play Carnegie Hall for the first time

1950 – The Knesset resolves that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel

1957 – American inventor Walter Frederick Morrison sells the rights to his flying disc to the Wham-O toy company, which renames it the “Frisbee”

1960 – Into the Deep Day * – The bathyscaphe USS Trieste breaks a depth record by descending to 10,911 metres (35,797 ft) in the Pacific Ocean

1963 – Three million gallons of soybean oil flooded streets in Mankato, Minnesota when a storage tank ruptured. Eventually the oil ended up in the Mississippi River. In the spring, more than 10,000 ducks were found dead in the wetlands along the river.

1973 – The Exorcist opens, with Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells” playing during the opening credits

1975 – Barney Miller debuts on ABC-TV

1978 – Sweden becomes the first country to ban aerosol sprays because of environmental damage

1980 – Prince releases his single, “Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad”

1985 – The proceedings of the House of Lords are televised for the first time.

1986 – The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducts its first members: Little Richard, Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Fats Domino, The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley

1986 – National Pie Day * is first celebrated by the American Pie Council to commemorate Crisco’s 75^th anniversary

2008 – The California Coastal Commission argues in Federal Court that President George W. Bush violated the U.S. Constitution’s separation-of-powers doctrine. Bush issued an Executive Order directly contradicting a federal judge’s court order restricting the Navy’s use within 12 miles of the coast or around Santa Catalina and San Clemente Islands of a type of sonar linked to the death of marine mammals

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Visuals

• Peach pie
• Badge from the bathyscaphe USS Trieste
• International flags
• King Louis IX and Henry III
• The Royal Exchange, London – by R. White, 1671
• Capture of the Dutch Fleet at Texel by French hussars 1795 – by Eugène Leliepvre
• Drawing of Tikal —  Mayan hieroglyphs  — photo of Tatiana Proskouriakoff
• Gertrude Elion with hard work quote
• Derek Walcott with returning self quote
• The bathyscaphe USS Trieste
• Map of Channel Islands, which includes the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

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