January 9th is

Apricot Day

Balloon Ascension Day *

Cassoulet Day

Static Electricity Day

Law Enforcement Appreciation Day *

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MORE! Humphry Davy,  Rigoberta Menchú  and Sam Cooke, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

India – Pravasi Bharatiya Divas *
(Non-Resident Indian Day)

Japan – Hōonkō (Jōdo Shinshū
Buddhist Return of Gratitude gathering)

Panama – Duelo Nacional
(Martyrs’ Day – 1964 *)

Philippines – Manila: Hesus Nazareno
(Procession of the Black Nazarene)

South Sudan – Peace Agreement Day

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On This Day in HISTORY

475 – Byzantine Emperor Zeno, regarded as the “barbarian” successor to Emperor Leo I because he was from Isauria (in the Taurus Mountains, now in Turkey) was unpopular because of his origins. On this day, he was forced to flee from the capital city of Constantinople with his wife, his mother and some loyal Isaurian troops, taking with him much of the Imperial treasure. He was besieged in a fortress while Basiliscus, a member of the House of Leo, seized power and proclaimed himself Augustus of the Eastern Roman Empire, but his reign would last less than two years

Emperor Zeno tremissis coin

681 – Erwig, newly-crowned King of the Visigoths, opens the Twelfth Council of Toledo, which confirmed the metropolitan archbishop of Toledo to consecrate all bishops appointed by the king including those outside his province, giving primacy to the Toledo diocese, and enacting 28 anti-Semitic measures

King Erwig at the Council of Toledo

1127 – Jin-Song Wars: Jin dynasty troops besiege and sack the Song dynasty capital Bianjing, abducting Emperor Quinzong of Song and other members of his court, ending the Northern Song dynasty. Emperor Qinzong died a sick and broken man in 1161, still a captive of the Jin

1349 –  600 Jews in Basel Switzerland, believed by Catholics to be causing the ongoing Black Death, are rounded up and shackled inside a wooden barn, and burned to death – a few young orphans are allowed to live but forcibly converted to Catholicism, and Jews are banned from settling in Basil

1431 – Judges’ investigations for the trial of Joan of Arc begin in Rouen, France, the seat of the English occupation government

1624 – Empress Meishō of Japan born, the seventh of eight women to become empress regnant (a woman monarch who rules in her own right) as opposed to a consort, who is married to the ruler, but has no power; she officially ruled Japan from 1629 to 1643, after her father renounced the throne in her favor, although she was 5 years old when she became Empress and never really came into power. Her half brother, Prince Tsuguhito was named Crown Prince in 1641, and she abdicated in his favor in 1643. After abdication, she promoted the art of Shodo (calligraphy), and helped to propagate Buddhism

1674 – Reinhard Keiser born, German opera composer

1760 – Battle of Barari Ghat: The army of Ahmad Shah Durrani of Afghanistan defeats the Maratha (yeoman warriors and champions of Hinduism) in this battle, part of a series of battles in the struggle between the two powers to take over the decaying Mughal Empire, while the British were busily consolidating their power in Bengal. The Marantha leader Dattaji Sindhia was killed in the battle and the Marantha army scattered, opening the way for the Afghan occupation of Delhi

1773 – Cassandra Austen born, English watercolorist and illustrator; Jane Austen’s elder and only sister; with six brothers, the two girls, who were born only two years apart, quickly became dear friends and close allies. Cassandra drew the illustrations for Jane’s manuscript The History of England, a highly entertaining account Jane wrote at age fifteen, “The History of England from the reign of Henry the 4^th to the death of Charles the 1^st, By a partial, prejudiced & ignorant Historian.” Over 100 of their letters to each other have survived, and have been an invaluable source for historians, and biographers of Cassandra’s more famous sister

Cassandra Austen – silhouette in middle age

1778 – Hammamizade İsmail Dede Efendi born, composer of classical Turkish music

1788 – Connecticut becomes the fifth state to be admitted to the U.S.

1793 – Balloon Ascension Day * – Jean Paul Blanchard, French aeronaut makes the first balloon ascension in North America in Philadelphia PA; President George Washington is an onlooker

1799 – British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger introduces an income tax of two shillings to the pound to raise funds for Great Britain’s war effort during the Napoleonic Wars

1816 – Sir Humphry Davy tests his new safety lamp for miners at Hebburn Colliery in NE England

1822 – Portuguese Prince Pedro I of Brazil decides to stay in Brazil against the orders of Portuguese King João VI, beginning the Brazilian independence process

1839 – The French Academy of Sciences announces the Daguerreotype photography process

1858 – Elizabeth Knight Britton born, American botanist whose efforts contributed greatly to the founding of New York’s Botanical Gardens; in 1893 she was the only woman nominated to be one of 25 charter members of the Botanical Society of America; she was an expert in bryology, the study of mosses

1859 – Carrie Chapman Catt, American women’s rights activist; first woman school superintendent in Mason County Iowa (1885); first female reporter in San Francisco (1887); president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (1900-1904 and 1915-1920); campaigned for the 19^thAmendment, which gave U.S. women the right to vote; founder of the League of Women Voters and International Alliance of Women

1861 – Mississippi becomes the second state to secede from the Union before the outbreak of the American Civil War

1870 – Joseph Strauss born, American engineer, co-designer of San Francisco’s famed Golden Gate Bridge

1875 – Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney born, American sculptor, patron of the Arts, and art collector; founder of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City; noted for her Aztec Fountain at the Pan Union Building in Washington DC, the Fountain of El Dorado for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, and the Titanic Memorial in Washington DC, commissioned by the Women’s Titanic Memorial Association: ‘To the Brave Men who perished in the wreck of the Titanic April 15 1912 – They gave their lives that women and children might be saved’

1890 – Karel Čapek born, Czech author and playwright, R.U.R.

1892 – Eva Kelly Bowring born, first woman U.S. senator from Nebraska (R-NE, 1954)

1894 – New England Telephone and Telegraph installs the first battery-operated telephone switchboard in Lexington MA

1901 – Chic Young born, American cartoonist, comic strip Blondie

1902 – Rudolf Bing born in Austria, American impresario, NYC Metropolitan Opera

1903 – Hallam Tennyson, 2nd Baron Tennyson, son of the poet Alfred Tennyson, becomes second Governor-General of Australia

1908 – Simone de Beauvoir, French existentialist philosopher, social theorist, author and feminist; her treatise, The Second Sex, is a foundational tract of contemporary feminism; co-editor with Jean-Paul Sartre of the political journal, Les Temps moderns; also noted for novels, She Came to Stay, The Mandarins and The Blood of Others

1909 – Ernest Shackleton, leading the Nimrod Expedition to the South Pole, plants the British flag 97 nautical miles (180 km; 112 mi) from the South Pole, the farthest anyone had reached to that time

Lt Adams, Frank Wild and Ernest Shackleton, with flag marking furthest South

1915 – Gandhi’s return to India, arriving in Bombay from South Africa (see also 2003 entry)

1916 – Vic Mizzy born, American TV and film composer, The Addams Family

1923 – Juan de la Cierva makes the first autogyro flight

1939 – Susannah York born as Susannah Fletcher, English actress, children’s author and activist against nuclear weapons; remembered as the true love of Tom Jones, and for a wide range of character roles in films, television and on stage as she grew out of the “pastel beauty” roles. Noted for A Man for All Seasons; Oh! What a Lovely War; They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?; Images; The Maids; Conduct Unbecoming; Devices and Desires, and her final performances in 2010, while suffering from bone marrow cancer, in the Ronald Harwood play, Quartet. She died in January of 2011

1940 – Ruth Dreifuss born, Swiss Social Democratic politician; first woman President of the Swiss Confederation (1999), and previously: Secretary of the Swiss Trade Union (1982-1993); Canton of Geneva representative to the Swiss Federal Council (1993-2002), the second woman and first person of Jewish heritage elected to the council

1940 – Barbara Buczek born, Polish composer and pianist; she belonged to the artistic association Grupa Krakowska; Buczek lectured at the Academy of Music in Krakow, and wrote articles on contemporary music

1941 – Joan Baez born, American singer-songwriter and human rights- peace-social justice-environmental activist

1942 – Judy Malloy born, American poet and innovator of online interactive and collaborative fiction websites; Visiting Lecturer at Princeton University in Social Media Poetics and Electronic Literature (2013-2014)

1954 – Philippa Gregory born in Kenya, English historical novelist; author of the controversial best-seller The Other Boleyn Girl

1955 – Michiko “Michi” Kakutani, American literary critic; The New York Times literary critic/chief book critic (1983-2017)

1956 – The first ‘Dear Abby’ column is published

1957 – British Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden resigns from office following his failure to retake the Suez Canal from Egyptian sovereignty

1959 – Rigoberta Menchú born, member of the K’iche’ people in Guatemala, feminist political and human rights activist; won the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize for her work for social justice and ethno-cultural reconciliation, and the 1998 Prince of Asturias Prize for improving the condition of women and the communities they serve; she has twice run for president of Guatemala, in 2007 and 2011, but only received 3% of the vote in both elections

1960 – Egyptian President Nasser opens Aswan Dam construction by detonating ten tons of dynamite, demolishing twenty tons of granite on the Nile’s east bank

1962 – Sam Cooke’s “Twistin’ the Night Away” is released

1964 – Martyrs’ Day * – Riots break out over Panama Canal Zone sovereignty; 21 civilians are killed

1967 – Dave Matthews, South African-born singer-songwriter, Dave Matthews Band

1987 – The White House releases a memorandum prepared for President Ronald Reagan in January 1986 which shows a definite link between U.S. arms sales to Iran and the release of American hostages in Lebanon

1991 – Representatives from the U.S. and Iraq meet at the Geneva Peace Conference to try to find a peaceful resolution to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait

1992 – The Assembly of the Serb People in Bosnia and Herzegovina proclaims the creation of Republika Srpska, a new state within Yugoslavia

2003 – Indian Ministry of External Affairs sponsors Pravasi Bharatiya Divas * to commemorate Gandhi’s return from South Africa in 1915, and celebrate overseas Indian communities’ contributions to India’s development

2005 – The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and the Government of Sudan sign the Comprehensive Peace Agreement to end the Second Sudanese Civil War

2006 – The Phantom of the Opera becomes the longest-running show in Broadway history, surpassing Cats, which ran for 7,485 performances

2007 – Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduces the original iPhone at a Macworld keynote in San Francisco

2015 –Perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris two days earlier are both killed after a hostage situation. Elsewhere, a second hostage situation, related to the Charlie Hebdo shooting, occurs at a Jewish market, Hypercacher, in Vincennes. There are mass gatherings of solumn demonstrators in Paris and other cities around the world

2016 – First Law Enforcement Appreciation Day * sponsored by C.O.P.S.

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