January 10th is

Save the Eagles Day

Bittersweet Chocolate Day

Cut Your Energy Costs Day

Houseplant Appreciation Day

League of Nations Day *

Oysters Rockefeller Day *

Peculiar People Day *

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MORE! Alice Paul, Fritz Lang and Bernadette Olowo, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Bahamas – Majority Rule Day

Bénin – Vaudoun/Traditional Day

Falkland Islands – Margaret Thatcher Day

Mexico – Merida, Yucatan:
Merida International Arts Festival

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On This Day in HISTORY

49 BC – Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon, signaling the start of civil war; the year before the Roman Senate, led by Pompey, had ordered Caesar to disband his army and return to Rome because his term as governor of Gaul had finished, but Caesar thought he would be prosecuted if he entered Rome without the immunity enjoyed by a magistrate; Pompey then accused Caesar of insubordination and treason

9 AD – Wang Mang, a Han dynasty official, seizes the throne from the Liu family and founds the Xin dynasty. His reign (9-23) is the beginning and the end of the Xin dynasty. Emperor Wang Mang dies in battle defending the capital city, Chan’an, which is overrun and sacked. Liu Xiu reestablishes the Han dynasty, taking the throne as Emperor Guangwu

1480 – Archduchess Marguerite (Margaret) of Austria, daughter of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, and Mary, Duchess of Burgundy; Governor of the Habsberg Netherlands (1507-1515 and 1519-1530), After a broken engagement, and two short marriages, each ended by the death of her husband, she vowed at the age of 24 never to marry again. In 1506, she became the only woman to be elected by the representative assembly of the Franche-Comté (an eastern French region) as their ruler. In 1507, her father named her Governor of the Low Countries and guardian of her seven-year-old nephew, the future Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. She acted as intermediary between her father and her nephew’s subjects in the Netherlands, and negotiated the restoration of a treaty of commerce with England favorable to the Flemish cloth interests. After his majority in 1515, Charles rebelled against her influence, but he soon recognized her as one of his wisest advisers, and she became the only regent ever re-appointed indefinitely by the ruler who dismissed her. She was again governor of the Netherlands from 1519 until 1530. Her reign was a period of relative peace and prosperity for the Netherlands, but the Dutch were beginning to rebel against Roman Catholicism, and the first Protestant martyrs were burnt at the stake in 1523. In 1529, together with Louise of Savoy, she negotiated the Treaty of Cambrai, called the Ladies’ Peace. In November 1530, a maid broke a glass goblet, and a glass splinter lodged in Margaret’s foot. When the wound became gangrenous, her doctors strongly urged the amputation of her foot. She gave her consent for the operation, received the sacrament, and revised her will. Before the amputation could be performed, she died, apparently from an overdose of opium given to her in preparation for the operation, on December 1, 1530. She appointed Charles V as her universal and sole heir

Marguerite of Austria, by Bernard van Orley – 1518

1573 – Simon Marius German astronomer; his work Mundus lovialis describes Jupiter

1776 – Thomas Paine publishes his pamphlet Common Sense

1838 – Peculiar People Day * – ‘The Peculiar People’ is founded by John Banyard in Rochford Essex, a Christian movement. The name comes from Deuteronomy 14-2:
“For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be
a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth.”

1839 – Indian tea becomes available in Britain for the first time, which is much less expensive than Chinese tea, and quickly increases tea’s popularity

1840 – The penny post, a standard rate paid for by the sender instead of the recipient, begins in Britain

1861 – Florida secedes from the union

1863 – The London Underground, the world’s oldest underground railway, opens between London Paddington station and Farringdon station

1870 – John D. Rockefeller incorporates Standard Oil

1879 – The first Anglo-Zulu War begins when British troops enter Zululand

1887 – Robinson Jeffers born, American poet-playwright-philosopher

1889 –Jules Alciatore of Antoine’s creates Oysters Rockefeller *

1889 –After French officer and explorer Louis-Gustave Binger traveled from the Niger River to the Gulf of Guinea, France declares the Côte d’Ivoire as a French Protectorate, and Binger is appointed as its first colonial governor

1898 – Katharine Burr Blodgett born, American physicist and engineer; first woman to earn a PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge; inventor of low-reflectance “invisible” glass

1900 – Violette Cordery, English race car driver; set a long distance record at the 1926 Autodromo Nazionale Monza, Italy, co-driving a 19.6 hp Invicta for 10,000 miles (16,000 km) at 56.47 miles per hour (90.88 km/h); and averaged  70.7 mph (113.8 km/h) for 5,000 miles (8,000 km) at Autodrome de Linas-Montlhéry, Paris, becoming the first woman to win the Dewar Trophy of the Royal Automobile Club

Violette Cordery in 1920

1900 – Second Anglo-Boer War: During the siege of Makeking, Barolong Chief Wessel Montshiwa advises his people not to help the British

1901 – The first great Texas oil gusher is discovered at Spindletop in Beaumont, Texas

1903 – Barbara Hepworth born, English Modernist artist and sculptor

1910 – Jean Martinon born, French conductor-composer[

1915 – Beatrice Cynthia Freeman born as Bea Feinberg, American novelist; after ill-health forced her to give up her interior design business, she turned to writing to earn her living, specializing in multi-generational stories of Jewish families, centering on women protagonists; noted for A World Full of Strangers, Come Pour the Wine, and her best-selling No Time for Tears

1917 – The Silent Sentinels, organized by Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party, begin their six-day-a-week vigil in front of the White House, wearing purple, white and gold sashes, and holding banners addressed to Woodrow Wilson, “Mr. President – How long must women wait for liberty?” and “Mr. President – What will you do for Woman Suffrage?” The protest will continue until June 4, 1919, when the 19^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is finally passed by both Houses and sent to the states for ratification. But before that, opponents of the suffragists will grab banners and destroy them, throw rotten fruit, and shout insults. Nearly 2,000 women participate in the protests during these 2 ½ years, and many of them will be harassed, arrested, and mistreated by local and federal authorities, including being subjected to violent forced-feedings to stop their hunger strikes in protest of their imprisonment, and even beatings and chokings. The sentences for “obstructing traffic” grow longer and longer, because the women refuse to pay bail, and insist on serving their sentences.  Eventually, newspapers across the country print accounts of how the women are being brutalized, and support for the Suffrage Movement grows. In January 1919, President Wilson announces his support of the women’s suffrage amendment

1920 – League of Nations Day * – the Treaty of Versailles takes effect, officially ending World War I; and the League of Nations holds its first meeting in Geneva

1920 – Rosella Hightower born, American ballerina of Choctaw heritage; danced with the Ballet Ruse de Monte Carlo and the American Ballet Theatre; the first American, and the first woman, to direct the Paris Opera Ballet, the world’s oldest company. After retiring from the stage, founded École supérieure de danse de Cannes, a leading European school

Rosella Hightower and Andre Eglevsky of the
Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, by Serge Lido – 1950

1924 – Max Roach born, American jazz percussionist-composer

1927 – Fritz Lang’s futuristic film Metropolis is released in Germany

1928 – The Soviet Union orders the exile of Leon Trotsky

1931 – Rosalind Howells born in Grenada, Baroness Howells of St Davids; a Labour Life Peer of the House of Lords since 1999, and a race relations and social justice activist. Formerly the Director of the Greenwich Racial Equality Council (GLC), the first black woman to sit the GLC’s Training Board, and also the first woman member of the Court of Governors of the University of Greenwich. She was also the Vice Chair at the London Voluntary Services Council

1939 – Michaela Odone born, American journalist; co-developer of Lorenzo’s Oil for their son Lorenzo, who was diagnosed with adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD) at age five, which some studies have shown may slightly delay development of symptoms of the disease in asymptomatic patients

1943 – Jim Croce born, American singer-songwriter

1946 – The first General Assembly of the United Nations opens in London, attended by representatives from fifty-one nations, and the League of Nations is dissolved

1946 – The U.S. Army Signal Corps successfully conducts Project Diana, bouncing radio waves off the Moon and receiving the reflected signals

1953 – Pat Benatar born, American singer-songwriter

1956 – Elvis Presley records “Heartbreak Hotel,” “I Was the One,” “I’m Counting On You,” “I Got a Woman” and “Money Honey” in Nashville

1960 – The foundation stone of the Aswan High Dam is laid by Gamal Abdel Nasser

1962 – NASA announces plans to build the C-5 rocket launch vehicle, which became known as the Saturn V Moon rocket, which launched every Apollo Moon mission

1962 –Kathryn S. McKinley born, American computer scientist, noted for research on compilers, runtime systems and computer architecture; a Principle Researcher at Microsoft; Senior Research Scientist at Google; ACM Fellow (2008)

1966 – Tashkent Declaration, a peace agreement signed between India and Pakistan that resolved the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965

1970 – Alisa Marić born, Serbian chess player, FIDE Woman Grandmaster and International Master; elected as Serbian Minister of Youth and Sports (2012-2013)

1971 – Masterpiece Theatre premieres on PBS with host Alistair Cooke; its debut drama series is The First Churchills  (it was first seen in the UK in 1969)

1975 – Ugandan diplomat Bernadette Olowo becomes the first woman ambassador to Vatican City in over 900 years of Holy See history

Bernadette Olowo with Pope Paul VI in 1975

1978 – The Soviet Union launches two cosmonauts aboard a Soyuz capsule for a rendezvous with the Salyut VI space laboratory

1984 – The United States and Holy See (Vatican City) re-establish full diplomatic relations after almost 117 years, overturning the U.S. Congress’s 1867 ban on public funding for such a diplomatic envoy

1985 – Sandinista Daniel Ortega becomes president of Nicaragua and vows to continue the transition to socialism and alliance with the Soviet Union and Cuba; American policy continues to support the Contras in their revolt against the Nicaraguan government

1990 – Time-Warner is formed by the merger of Time Inc. and Warner Communications

2007 – President George W. Bush announces he will send a “surge” of 21,500 U.S. forces to Iraq

2011 – A judge orders former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to serve three years in prison for his role in a scheme to illegally funnel corporate money to Texas candidates in 2002; in 2013, a Court of Appeals ruling by two Republican justices, with a dissent by the Democratic Chief Justice, overturned his convictions and entered an acquittal, which became final in 2014

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