January 21st is

New England Clam Chowder Day

Granola Bar Day

Hugging Day *

Squirrel Appreciation Day *

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MORE! Ethan Allen, Eva Ibbotson and Wolfman Jack, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Barbados – Errol Barrow Day *

Dominican Republic –
Lady of Altagracia Day

Serbia – Saint Maksin Feast Day

Trinidad & Tobago – Chaguaramas:
SOAKA Till Sunrise Music Festival

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On This Day in HISTORY

1535 – Because of a second wave of broadsides which appear in Paris on January 13 in the Affaire des Placards (Affair of the Placards), more French Protestants burn at the stake in front of Notre Dame de Paris. Anti-Catholic broadsides had originally appeared in public places in Paris, Blois, Rouen, Tours and Orléans overnight in October 1534, including one posted on the bedchamber door of King Francis I at Amboise, ending the conciliatory policies of the King. Until then, Francis had been attempting to protect the  Protestants from the more extreme measures of the Parlement de Paris

Burning a French Protestant after the Affair of the Placards

1610 – Elizabeth Fones Winthrop Feake Hallett is born, early Massachusetts Bay Colony settler; The Winthrop Woman by Anya Seton is an historical novel version of her life, and of her “scandalous” third marriage, without knowing for certain that her second husband was dead, after he abandoned the family and disappeared; also one of the few women of the time to own property in her own name; began life as a Puritan, died a Quaker

1714 – Anna Morandi Manzolini is born, Italian anatomist and sculptor, lecturer in anatomy at the University of Bologna, known for anatomical wax models

Self-Portrait in wax by Anna Morandi Manzolini

1735 – Johann Gottfried Eckard born, German composer-pianist

1738 – Ethan Allen born, American Revolutionary War general

Ethan Allen demanding the surrender of Fort Ticonderoga

1774 – Abdul Hamid I becomes Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and Caliph of Islam, after spending most of his life in virtual imprisonment as protection to a potential heir to the throne. He received much of his education from his mother, who taught him history and calligraphy. Ill-prepared to rule, military losses during his reign were devastating, but his great piety, efforts to reform the government, and personal supervision of the fire brigade fighting the 1782 fire in Constantinople, made him admired by the people

1789 – The first American novel, The Power of Sympathy, or the Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth, by William Hill Brown, is printed in Boston

1793 – After being found guilty of treason by the French National Convention, Louis XVI of France is executed by guillotine

1804 – Eliza R. Snow born, American Mormon poet and hymnist, plural wife of Brigham Young; General President of the Second Relief Society of the LDS in Utah, a women’s auxiliary for relief of the poor

1813 – John C. Frémont born, frequently insubordinate American soldier, adventurer and politician, first presidential candidate of the Republican Party, appointed Governor of Arizona by President Hayes (1878-1881)

1820 – Joseph Wolfe born, distinguished German pioneer in wildlife art and illustration

   Joseph Wolf (left) with Eurasian hobby (Falco subbuteo); Blyth’s Tragopan(Tragopan blythii)

1840 – Sophia Jex-Blake born, English physician, teacher and feminist advocate for women’s education, first practicing female doctor in Scotland, founder of two medical schools for women

1846 – The first issue of the Daily News, edited by Charles Dickens, is published

1853 – Dr. Russell L. Hawes patents the envelope folding machine

1861 – Jefferson Davis resigns from the U.S. Senate to run for governor of Mississippi

1878 – Vhan Tekeyan born, Armenian poet-newspaper editor-social activist, “Prince of Armenian poetry’

1884 – Roger Nash Baldwin born, pacifist, author and first ACLU Executive Director, from its founding in 1920 until 1950

1885 – Umberto Nobile born, Italian aviator and Arctic explorer; when his polar airship, the Italia crashed, an international rescue effort was launched in which Antarctic explorer, Roald Amundsen, and five others died when their search plane crashed

1893 – The Tati Concessions Land, formerly part of Matabeleland that was ceded by the Matabele King to Sir John Swinburne, is formally annexed to the Bechuanaland Protectorate, now Botswana

1895 –   Cristóbal Balenciaga born, Spanish couturier and influential fashion icon

1905 – Christian Dior born, major French fashion designer, creator of the ‘New Look’ after the end of WWII

1908 – NYC’s Aldermen pass the Sullivan ordinance making it illegal for women to smoke or drink in public, but it’s vetoed 2 weeks later by Mayor George McClellan Jr

1911 – The first Monte Carlo Rally begins, with drivers converging on Monaco from 11 different starting points in Europe

1915 – Kiwanis International is founded in Detroit MI by Joseph C. Prance and Allen S. Browne – the name is derived from an Ojibwe word that Prance and Browne interpreted as meaning “We build” the original motto of the service group

1919 – The first engagement in the Irish War of Independence, the ‘Soloheadbeg ambush’ of a gelignite transport, during which two policemen are killed

1920 – Errol Barrow Day * – Errol Barrow born, Democratic Labour Party founder, first Prime Minister of Barbados (1966-1976); Premier of Barbados (1961-1966 Barbados became independent November 30, 1966)

1924 – Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin dies, and Joseph Stalin starts purging his rivals for the leadership of the Soviet Union

1925 –Eva Ibbotson born in Austria, British novelist, children’s and young adult author;  her historical novel Journey to the River Sea won the Smarties Book Prize for ages 9-11; Ibbotson’s The Secret of Platform 13, may have been the inspiration for “Platform 9 ¾” in the Harry Potter books

1925 – Albania declares itself a republic

1927 – Charles Gounod’s Faust is the first opera broadcast on a national radio network

1930 – Mainza Chona born, Zambian politician, ambassador and Prime Minister (1973-1975  and 1977-1978)

1931 – Sir Isaac Isaacs becomes the first Australian-born Governor-General of Australia

1938 – ‘Wolfman Jack’ born as Robert W. Smith; American disc jockey and radio host

1941 – Sparked by German officer’s murder in Bucharest the day before, members of Romania’s far right ‘Iron Guard’ engage in a pogrom killing 125 Jews

1941 – Elaine Showalter born, American writer, literary critic and pioneer in feminist literary criticism in U.S. academia; Teaching Literature and Inventing Herself: Claiming a Feminist Intellectual Heritage

1941 – Britain’s communist newspaper, the Daily Worker, is banned because of its harsh criticism of the British Government and support of the Soviet-German alliance

1941 – Plácido Domingo born, Spanish tenor and conductor

1942 – Count Basie and His Orchestra record “One O’Clock Jump”

1943 – Dame Rosemary Butler born, Welsh Labour Member of the National Assembly for Wales (1999-2016), Presiding Officer of the Welsh National Assembly (2011-2016)

1946 – Gretel Ehrlich born, American poet and essayist, noted for works on nature; Islands, The Universe, Home; The Solace of Open Spaces; This Cold Heaven; in 1991, she was struck by lighting and incapacitated for some time, but wrote about the experience in A Match to the Heart (1994)

1950 – Alger Hiss, accused of spying for the Soviets, is found guilty of perjury in a second trial – his first trial ended with a hung jury

1950 – Agnes van Ardenne born, Dutch politician and diplomat; Secretary General of the UNICEF National Committee of the Netherlands before entering politics; member of House of Representatives (1994-2002); Minister of Development Cooperation (2002-2007), focusing on bilateral development cooperation in Africa; went to Pakistan after the 2005 Kashmir earthquake to survey emergency aid operations; increased Netherlands’ support for children’s education in the world’s poorest countries

1954 – The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, is launched in Groton, Connecticut by First Lady Mamie Eisenhower

1957 – Chuck Berry records “School Days”

1960 – Little Joe 1B, a Mercury spacecraft, lifts off from Wallops Island VA with a female rhesus monkey on board named Miss Sam

1968 – The Battle of Khe Sanh begins in Vietnam

1970 – A Boeing 747 made its first commercial flight on Pan American’s New York to London route

1971 – Emley Moor transmitting station, the tallest free-standing structure in the United Kingdom, begins transmitting UHF broadcasts

1976 – Concorde commercial service begins on London-Bahrain and Paris-Rio routes

1976 – Emma Bunton, aka ‘Baby Spice’ of the British group the Spice Girls, is born

1977 – President Jimmy Carter pardons almost all Vietnam War draft evaders

1980 – Gold is valued at $850 an ounce

1981 –The DeLorean DMC-12 sports car goes into production in Northern Ireland

1986 – The first Hugging Day *

1987 – Aretha Franklin is the first woman inducted into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame

1997 – U.S. House of Representatives votes 395–28 to reprimand and fine Newt Gingrich for ethics violations, first Speaker of the House disciplined for ethics breaches

2001 – Squirrel Appreciation Day * is started by Christy Hargrove  of Asheville NC

2002 – The General History of Virginia, New England and the Summer Isles, written by English Jamestown leader Captain John Smith, is auctioned for $48,800 in London

2004 – NASA’s Mars Rover Spirit (MER-A) ceases communication with mission control because of flash memory problems, fixed remotely from Earth on February 6

2010 –The U.S. Supreme Court, in a bitterly divided decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, vastly increases the power of big business to influence government decisions by allowing them to spend millions to directly sway elections for president and Congress

2013 – Myrlie Evers-Williams becomes the first woman and first layperson to deliver the invocation, at the second inauguration of Barak Obama as U.S. President

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2017 – The Women’s March Day * – originally planned as “The Women’s March on Washington,” it quickly became a worldwide protest, calling for legislation and policies regarding human rights and other issues, especially women’s rights, but also immigration reform, healthcare reform, reproductive rights, the natural environment, LGBTQ rights, racial equality, freedom of religion, and workers’ rights. It was the largest single-day protest in U.S. history