January 26th is

Dental Drill Day *

Peanut Brittle Day

National Spouses Day

Toad Hollow Day of Encouragement *

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MORE! Glenn Curtiss, Julia Morgan and Gustavo Dudamel, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Australia – Australia Day *

Brazil – Santos: Founding Day

Dominican Republic – Duarte Day

India – Republic Day *

Uganda – NRM Liberation Day

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On This Day in HISTORY

1500 – Vicente Yáñez Pinzón becomes the first European to set foot on Brazilian soil

1531 – The Lisbon earthquake kills about thirty thousand people

1564 – The Council of Trent establishes an official distinction between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism

1595 – Antonio Maria Abbatini born, Italian composer

1699 – Treaty of Karlowitz: for the first time, the Ottoman Empire permanently cedes territory, including most of Hungary and all of Crete, to the Christian powers.

1714 – Jean-Baptiste Pigalle born, French sculptor

Bust of Marie Antoinette by Jean-Baptiste Pigalle

1788 – The British First Fleet, led by Arthur Phillip, sails into Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour) to establish Sydney, the first permanent European settlement on the continent; commemorated as Australia Day

1813 – Juan Pablo Duarte born, one of the Founding Fathers of the Dominican Republic; philosopher and poet

1837 – Michigan is admitted as the 26th U.S. state

1838 – Tennessee enacts the first prohibition law in the United States

1841 – James Bremer takes formal possession of Hong Kong Island at what is now Possession Point, establishing British Hong Kong

1855 – Point No Point Treaty is signed by Washington Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens with the S’Klallam, the Chimakum, and the Skokomish tribes; the tribes cede ownership of their land in exchange for small reservations and a $60,000 payment from the federal government; it also requires them to trade only with the U.S., free all their slaves, and not acquire new ones. Another bad deal for Native Americans, but good for their slaves

1861 – The state of Louisiana announces it will secede from the Union

1870 – Virginia becomes the 8^th Confederate state to rejoin the Union. The state had been devastated by war, many people were dependent on rations from the Union Army and its Freedmen’s Bureau, which is a mixed blessing for the newly-freed slaves: the Bureau forces freedmen to work for whites or be arrested as vagrants, and urges poor unmarried freedwomen to give up their older children as apprentices to white masters

1872 – Julia Morgan born, American architect, first woman admitted to the architecture program at l’École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris; first woman architect licensed in California; designer of Hearst Castle

Julia Morgan with elephant at Hearst Castle zoo

1875 – Dental Drill Day * – George F. Green patents the battery-powered dentist’s drill 

1885 – Troops loyal to The Mahdi conquer Khartoum, killing Governor-General Gordon, who had been ordered to evacuate the area, but waited for reinforcements because he considered the escape route too dangerous with the loyalty of his Egyptian troops in question after some of them deserted during an attempt to clear the main northward road

1892 – Bessie Coleman born, first African-American woman to fly a plane and first woman to earn an international pilot’s license

1905 – The largest diamond ever found, the Cullinan, weighing 3,106.75 carats (0.621350 kg), is found at the Premier Mine near Pretoria, South Africa

1911 – Glenn H. Curtiss flies the first successful American seaplane

1911 – Norbert Schultze born, German composer and conductor; composed music for the song “Lili Marlene”

1913 – Jimmy Van Heusen born, American pianist-composer; music for many songs, including “All the Way” and “Call Me Irresponsible”

1915 – The Rocky Mountain National Park is established by an act of the U.S. Congress

1918 – A group of Red Guards hang a red lantern atop the tower of Helsinki Workers’ Hall to symbolically mark the start of the Finnish Civil War

1918 – Philip José Farmer born, American science fiction author; Riverworld series

1920 – Former Ford Motor Company executive Henry Leland launches the Lincoln Motor Company; he later sells Lincoln to his former employer

1924 – Annette Strauss born, American philanthropist and politician; major supporter of the arts and hospitals, especially pediatric sections, in the Dallas TX area; city councilwoman (1983-1984) second woman and second Jewish mayor of Dallas (1987-1991); the Annette Strauss Artist Square in downtown Dallas named for her

1925 – Paul Newman born, American movie icon, race car driver and philanthropist

1929 – Jules Feiffer born, American cartoonist

1930 – The Indian National Congress declares 26 January as Independence Day or as the day for Poorna Swaraj (complete independence) which occurs 17 years later

1934 – The Apollo Theater reopens in Harlem, NYC

1934 – German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact is signed

1939 – Spanish Civil War – Catalonia Offensive: Troops loyal to nationalist General Francisco Franco, aided by Italy, take Barcelona

1944 – Angela Davis born, American civil rights and radical activist; Communist Party member; professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, now retired, in the Feminist Studies and History of Consciousness Departments

1945 – Jacqueline du Pré born, English cellist

1946 – Susan Freidlander born, American mathematician; mathematical fluid dynamics, the Euler equations and Navier-Stokes equations; 2012 Fellow, American Mathematical Society and Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics

1948 – Alda Facio born, Costa Rican jurist, author, feminist and international expert in gender and human rights in Latin America; founding member of Ventana, one of the first feminist organizations in Costa Rica, and co-founder of the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice at the International Criminal Court

1949 – The Hale telescope at Palomar Observatory sees first light under the direction of Edwin Hubble, becoming the largest aperture optical telescope (until the BTA-6 in 1976)

1950 – Observed as Republic Day * in India: The Constitution of India comes into force, forming a republic. Rajendra Prasad is sworn in as first President of India 

1951 – Dame Anne Mills born, British authority on health economics; Vice Director and Professor of Health Economics and Policy at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; Fellow of the Royal Society; worked on cost-effective interventions for malaria and other diseases in Africa and Asia

1952 – ‘Black Saturday’ rioters burn Cairo’s central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses

1958 – Anita Baker born, American singer-songwriter

1961 – John F. Kennedy appoints Janet G. Travell to be his physician, the first time a woman holds the appointment of Physician to the President

1962 – Ranger 3 space probe launches to study the Moon, but misses its target by 22,000 miles (35,400 km)

1965 – Hindi becomes the official language of India

1980 – Israel and Egypt establish diplomatic relations

1981 – Gustavo Dudamel born, Venezuelan violinist-composer-conductor; music director of the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic

1992 – Toad Hollow Day of Encouragement * celebrates sharing knowledge and helping others: Teacher Ralph Morrison learns the story of  Toad Hollow Country School, originally built in 1834 in Michigan, and begins spinning tales about his imagined version of Toad Hollow for his second occupation as a Storyteller. The tales become so popular that a group of volunteers, dubbed the ‘Voluntoads’ raise enough money to build an educational recreation of an 1800s pioneer town with educational programs, museums and reenactments 

2005 – Condoleezza Rice is sworn in as U.S. Secretary of State

2010 – Avatar becomes the highest grossing film ever, not adjusting for inflation

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