January 25th is

Irish Coffee Day *

Opposite Day

(Robert) Burns Night *

A Room of One’s Own Day *

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MORE! Robert Burns, Nellie Bly and Joe Sheridan, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Aruba – G F Betico Croes Birthday
(Aruban separatist leader)

Brazil – Sao Paulo: Founding Day

Egypt – January 25 Revolution Day

Lithuania – Midwinter Festival/Kirmeline
(day of the serpents and grass-snake dance)

New Caledonia – Marguerite Bridge Day *

Russia – St. Tatiana/Students Day *
(begins Winter Holiday)

Scotland – Burns Night *

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On This Day in HISTORY

AD 41 – After members of the Praetorian Guard assassinate the depraved Caligula by stabbing him to death, another faction within the guard proclaims his uncle Claudius the new Emperor; a reluctant Roman Senate is persuaded to accept him

750 – Battle of the Zab, near the Great Zab River in what is now Iraq is won by the Abbasid rebels against the Umayyad Caliphate, which is caused by wide-spread corruption among Umayyad-appointed governors, especially in the Caliphate’s outlying provinces. The Abbasids found a new dynasty, which until the 13^th century

1459 – Paul Hofhaimer born, Austrian organist and composer

1515 – Coronation of Francis I, the first French King from the Angoulême branch of the House of Valois

1533 – Henry VIII of England secretly marries his second wife, Anne Boleyn

1575 – Portuguese navigator Paulo Dias de Novais founds Luanda, capital of Angola

1579 – The Treaty of Utrecht is signed; marks beginning of the Dutch Republic

1755 – Ivan Shuvalov, first Russian Minister of Education, gets permission on his mother Tatiana’s name day for his protégé Mikhail Lomonosov to establish a state university in Moscow; Tatiana Day still celebrated as Students Day; also marks the end of term, followed by 2 week holiday – St. Tatiana now the Russian Orthodox patron saint of students

1759 – Burns Night * – Robert “Rabbie” Burns born, the Bard of Scotland, poet and lyricist, whose birthday is celebrated throughout Scotland and by poetry lovers around the world with Burns Night * suppers and recitations, since 1802

1765 – Port Egmont, first British settlement in the Falkland Islands, is founded

1787 – Debt-ridden farmers in Shay’s Rebellion fail to capture Springfield MA arsenal

1791 – The British Parliament passes the Constitutional Act of 1791 and splits the old Province of Quebec into Upper Canada and Lower Canada

1792 – The London Corresponding Society founded, a Radical reform group dedicated to universal suffrage for British men and annual parliaments

1799 – Eliakim Spooner receives the first U.S. patent for a seeding machine

1858 – Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” written for Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, is popularized for weddings after it is played at the British Princess Royal’s wedding

1868 – Juventino Rosas born, Mexican composer and violinist; best known for Sobre las Olas (“Over the Waves”)

1874 – W. Somerset Maugham born, British author and playwright, Of Human Bondage, The Moon and Sixpence, The Razor’s Edge

1882 – Virginia Woolf born, leading English modernist author and feminist, To the Lighthouse, Mrs. Dalloway and A Room of One’s Own *

1890 – Nellie Bly, intrepid newspaperwoman, completes her round-the-world journey in 72 days, beating the fictitious record in Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days

1896 – Helen Heffernan born, develops education and childcare programs for California State Department of Education (1926-66) influencing public education policy nationally on rural education, progressive education, kindergarten and preschool, educational supervision, curriculum development, and international education

1896 – New York NY annexes Staten Island, completing its expansion to five boroughs

1905 – Margery Sharp born, English novelist and children’s author; The Rescuers 

1909 – Richard Strauss’s opera Elektra debuts at the Dresden State Opera

1909 – The Marguerite Bridge * opens, a suspension bridge over the La Foa River, named for the wife of the governor of New Caledonia

1915 – Alexander Graham Bell inaugurates U.S. transcontinental telephone service, speaking from New York to Thomas Watson in San Francisco

1924 – The first Winter Olympic Games open in Chamonix, in the French Alps

1927 – Antônio Carlos Jobim born, Brazilian singer-songwriter

1933 – Corazon Aquino born, Filipino politician, first woman President of the Philippines, and first woman president in Asia; after her husband, Senator Benigno Aquino is murdered, she emerges as a leader of the 1986 People Power Movement which topples Ferdinand Marcos and restores democracy

1937 – The Guiding Light debuts on NBC radio (moves to television in 1952)

1939 – Mary Martin records “My Heart Belongs to Daddy”

1942 – According to legend, Irish chef Joe Sheridan comes up with Irish Coffee * on this day for cold and weary travelers at the local airport in Limerick where he operates a restaurant

1944 – Florence Li Tim-Oi is ordained in China, becoming the first woman Anglican priest

1945 – Grand Rapids, MI is the first U.S. city to fluoridate drinking water

1948 – Roslyn “Ros” Kelly born, Australian Labor politician, member for Canberra of the House of Representatives (1980-1995); first Australian federal MP to give birth while in office; first woman Minister for Defense, Science and Personnel (1987-1989); Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Status of Women (1993-1994)

1949 – The first Emmy Awards are presented, at the Hollywood Athletic Club

1950 – Gloria Naylor born, American novelist; The Women of Brewster Place, Bailey’s Café, The Men of Brewster Place

1954 – Kay Cottee born, Australian sailor and boat builder; first woman to circumnavigate the globe single-handed, non-stop and unassisted, taking 189 days

1954 –Renate Dorrestein born, Dutch author, journalist and feminist; recipient of the 1993 Annie Romein prize for body of work; Verborgen gebreken (Crying Shame)

1959 – American Airlines’ first scheduled transcontinental flight of a Boeing 707

1960 – The National Association of Broadcasters reacts to the “payola” scandal by threatening fines for disc jockeys who accept money for playing particular records

1961 – President Kennedy appears on the first live presidential television news conference

1963 – Molly Holzschlag born, American computer scientist and author; advocate for the Open Web; Color for Websites: Digital Media Design; her whole focus changed when she was diagnosed with aplastic anemia

1969 – Creedence Clearwater Revival releases “Proud Mary” single

1971 – Charles Manson and three female “Family” members are found guilty of the Tate–LaBianca murders in 1969

1971 – Idi Amin stages a coup which deposes Milton Obote; Idi Amin becomes Uganda’s ‘president for life’

1986 – The National Resistance Movement topples Tito Okello’s government in Uganda

1998 – During his historic visit to Cuba, Pope John Paul II demands political reforms and release of political prisoners while condemning US attempts to isolate the country

1999 – In Louisville KY, a man receives the first hand transplant in the U.S.

2006 – The Islamic militant group Hamas wins a majority of seats in the Palestinian parliament

2016 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Montgomery v. Louisiana that its prohibition of mandatory life sentences for juveniles convicted of murder (under Miller v. Alabama in 2012), had to be applied retroactively, potentially affecting 1300 to 2300 cases nationally

2016 – A Texas grand jury clears Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing; indicts two anti-abortionists who assumed false identities to secretly film inside Planned Parenthood, then editing the video so it appeared the organization was violating the law

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