January 30th is

Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day *

Croissant Day

Street Children Day *

Inspire Your Heart with Art Day
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MORE! William Shakespeare, Barbara Tuchman and Eleanor Smeal, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Lunar New Year celebrations continue in China, Christmas Island, Hong Kong, Malyasia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam

Czech Republic – Praha: Reduta Jazz Club Festival

Dominican Republic – Juan Pablo Duarte Day

Italy – Bologna: Arte Fiera (art fair)

New Zealand – Auckland and Nelson
Provincial Anniversary Days
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On This Day in HISTORY

516 AD – Construction is completed on the Second Temple of Jerusalem

1018 – The Peace of Bautzen between the Ottonian Holy Roman Emperor Henry II and the Piast duke of the Polans Bolesław I Chrobry which ended a series of Polish-German wars over the control of Lusatia and Upper Lusatia, Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia

1505 – Thomas Tallis born,  one of England’s greatest composers

1595 – Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet debuts at London’s Curtain Theatre

1648 – The Treaty of Münster and Osnabrück is signed, ending the Eighty Years’ War between the Netherlands and Spain

1649 – King Charles I of England is beheaded, wearing two shirts to prevent the cold from making him shiver lest the crowd assume he was afraid – he wasn’t a wise king, but he died bravely

1661 – Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England is ritually executed more than two years after his death, on the 12th anniversary of the execution of the monarch he himself deposed

1697 – Johann Joachim Quantz is born, German Baroque composer and royal flutist

1703 – The Forty-seven Ronin, led by Ōishi Kuranosuke, avenge their master’s death

1710 – Vigilio Blasio Faitello born, Italian composer

1775 – Walter Savage Landor born, English author and poet

1790 – The first purpose-built lifeboat is tested on the River Tyne in northern England

1798 – The first fisticuffs on the U.S. House of  Representatives floor takes place when Connecticut’s Roger Griswold (Federalist) attacks Vermont’s Matthew Lyon (Democratic-Republican), who had spit tobacco juice at him, with a cane. Lyon defended himself with a pair of fire tongs. Griswold was a supporter of John Adams preparations for a possible war with France, but Lyon believed preparations for war would precipitate one. A resolution to expel them from the House is defeated 73-21.

1820 – Edward Bransfield sights Trinity Peninsula and claims discovery of Antarctica

1826 – The Menai Suspension Bridge opens, considered the first modern suspension bridge, connecting the Isle of Anglesey to the north West coast of Wales

1844 – Richard Theodire Greener becomes the first black graduate from Harvard

1847 –  Yerba Buena, California is renamed San Francisco, California

1861 – Charles Martin Tornow Loeffler born in Germany, American composer

1862 – The first American ironclad warship, the USS Monitor is launched

1868 – Charles Darwin’s Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication is published

1882 – Franklin Delano Roosevelt is born, 32nd U.S. President

1883 – James Ritty and John Birch patent the first cash register

1889 – Archduke Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, age 30, heir to the Austro-Hungarian crown, is found dead, having shot his 17-year-old mistress Baroness Mary Vetsera and then himself, at Mayerling, his hunting lodge

1894 – C.B. King patents the pneumatic hammer

1899 – Max Theiler, South African-born, American virologist, Yellow Fever vaccine

1902 – The first Anglo-Japanese Alliance is signed in London, which would be in effect until the early 1920s

1908 – Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi, leading the non-violent resistance to laws requiring persons of color to be registered and carry registration cards, is released from prison by Jan Smuts after serving less than half his sentence after public outcry

1911 – The destroyer USS Terry makes the first airplane rescue at sea saving the life of pilot Douglas McCurdy ten miles from Havana, Cuba

1912 – Barbara Tuchman born, American historian and author

1916 – During World War I, Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca corresponded with Sir Henry McMahon, British High Commissioner in Egypt, concerning the political status of lands held by Ottoman Empire, and the growing Arab desire for independence from the Ottoman Empire. In the letters McMahon committed Britain to recognize Arab independence after World War I “in the limits and boundaries proposed by the Sherif of Mecca,” not including areas under France influence, in exchange for Arab help in fighting the Ottomans. However, exposure of the 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement between France and UK revealed the two countries plans to split and occupy parts of the promised Arab country

1919 – Fred Korematsu born, American activist who defies President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066,  authorizing removing all individuals of Japanese ancestry from their homes and to forced-internment camps, Korematsu instead became a fugitive. The legality of the internment order was upheld by the United States Supreme Court in Korematsu v. United States, but his conviction is overturned decades later after the disclosure of new evidence challenging the necessity of the internment, evidence which had been withheld from the courts by the U.S. government during the war

1925 – Constantine VI, serving as Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople for 43 days, is exiled to Greece by the Turkish Government, briefly under the Republican People’s Party

1930 – The Politburo of the Soviet Union orders the extermination of the Kulaks, originally a name for prosperous independent farmers, but under this order, “peasants with a couple of cows or five or six acres more than their neighbors”

1933 – Adolf Hitler is sworn in as Chancellor of Germany

1933 – The Lone Ranger debuts on Detroit’s radio station WXYZ

1939 – Eleanor Smeal born, feminist, president of N.O.W. (1977-82 and 1985-87)

1946 – U.N. Security Council Resolution 2 is adopted, encouraging Iran and the Soviet Union to resolve their conflict over Soviet troops occupying Iranian territory

1948 – Mahatma Gandhi is assassinated by a Hindu extremist

1951 – Phil Collins born, British singer and drummer

1956 – The home of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. is bombed in retaliation for the Montgomery Bus Boycott

1956 – Elvis Presley records “Blue Suede Shoes”

1958 – Yves Saint Laurent, age 22, holds his first major fashion show in Paris

1959 – The “unsinkable” MS Hans Hedtoft strikes an iceberg on her maiden voyage and sinks, killing all 95 aboard

1960 – The African National Party is founded in Chad, through the merger of traditionalist parties

1964 – In a bloodless coup, General Nguyễn Khánh overthrows General Dương Văn Minh’s military junta in South Vietnam, but he is forced to resign in February 1965

1968 – Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army forces begin the Tet Offensive

1969 – The Beatles perform for the last time in public, on the roof of Apple Studios

1972 – Pakistan withdraws from the Commonwealth of Nations, begins developing ‘nuclear deterrence’ after its loss of East Pakistan in 1971’s Bangladesh Liberation War

1975 – The Monitor National Marine Sanctuary, site of the wreck of the USS Monitor, is established as the first United States National Marine Sanctuary

1979 – Iran’s  civilian government announces it will allow Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to return from exile

1989 – With Soviet forces on the verge of withdrawing, the American Embassy closes in Kabul, Democratic Republic of Afghanistan

1994 – Peter Leko at age 14 becomes the youngest Chess Grand Master

1995 –National Institutes of Health workers announce the success of clinical trials testing the first preventive treatment for sickle-cell disease

1997 – A New Jersey judge rules that the unborn child of a female prisoner must have legal representation, denying the prisoner bail reduction to enable her to leave the jail and obtain an abortion

2001 – “Spirit 95” Radio, the FM radio station in Bloomington, IN launches Bubble Wrap® Appreciation Day *with its first annual Bubblympiad with events such as a Bubble Wrap® popping relay, Pop-a-Mole, and sculpture and fashion design contests

2003 – The Kingdom of Belgium officially recognizes same-sex marriages

2005 – In Iraq, the first free Parliamentary elections since 1958 take place

2009 – The first Street Children Day *

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Visuals

• Bubble-Wrap quote
• Inspire Your Heart with Art Day poster
• International flags
• Walter Savage Landor – Ambition quote
• Max Theiler, Yellow Fever vaccine
• Barbara Tuchman, Wooden-headedness quote
• Eleanor Smeal – Guns quote
• Street children poster
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