January 20th is

Buttercrunch Day

Disc Jockey Day

Cheese Lover’s Day

Day of Acceptance *

Penguin Awareness Day *

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MORE! Clarice Cliff, Federico Fellini and Ruchi Sanghvi, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Azerbaijan – Martyrs’ Day

Brazil – Rio de Janeiro: St. Sebastian’s Day
(Patron Saint – City Founding Day)

Cape Verde & Guinea-Bissau– Heroes’ Day
(Anniversary of death of Amilcar Cabral *)

Laos – Army Day

Mali – Armed Forces Day

Peru – Canas: Chiaraje
(ritual battle hill to give life to Mother Earth)

Spain – San Sebastián: La Tamborrada
(mockery of Napoleonic War – begins night before)

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On This Day in HISTORY

250 – Emperor Decius issues an imperial edict requiring all inhabitants of the empire to make a sacrifice on behalf of the Emperor to the Roman ancestral gods and consumption of sacrificial food and drink before the magistrates of their community in order to obtain a libellus (certificate) confirming their loyalty and compliance with the edict, which caused a crisis within the Christian community, and led to persecution of Christians. Pope Fabian was among those who were killed for their refusal to comply

1265 – The first English parliament to include not just Lords but also representatives of major towns holds its first meeting in the Palace of Westminster, now commonly known as the “Houses of Parliament”

1356 – After being deposed several times by the Scots, Edward Balliol surrenders his claim to the Scottish throne to Edward III in exchange for an English pension

1576 – The Mexican city of León is founded by order of the viceroy Don Martín Enríquez de Almanza

1649 – Charles I of England is put on trial for treason and other “high crimes”

1703 – Joseph-Hector Fiocco born, Belgian late Baroque composer

1732 – Richard Henry Lee born, American statesman; one of the first correspondents of the Committees of Correspondence among independence-minded colonial leaders; delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses, he made the motion at the Second Continental Congress calling for independence from Britain; signer of the Declaration of Independence: President of the Congress of Confederation (1784-1785); U.S. Senator from Virginia (1789-1792); President pro tempore of the Senate (1792)

1775 – André-Marie Ampère born, French physicist and mathematician, pioneer in the science of electromagnetism, and inventor of the solenoid and the electrical telegraph. Ampere, the SI unit of measurement of electric current, is named for him

1785 – Siamese forces invade amidst political chaos in Vietnam, but are ambushed and annihilated at the Mekong river by the Tây Sơn in the Battle of Rạch Gầm-Xoài Mút

1785 – Samuel Ellis advertises his Oyster Island for sale, but no buyer responds –later renamed Ellis Island

1788 – The main body of First Fleet arrives at Botany Bay, where Arthur Phillip decides the Bay is an unsuitable location for a penal colony, and moves the site to Port Jackson

1801 – John Marshall is appointed chief justice of the United States

1839 – At the Battle of Yungay, Chile defeats an alliance between Peru and Bolivia

1840 – Anne Jemima Clough born, British suffragist and promoter of higher education for women; one of the founders in 1867 of the North of England Council for Promoting the Higher Education of Women, and served as its president (1873-1874); Clough was the first principal of Newnham College, when it was founded in 1871, which is the  second women’s college at Cambridge (Girton College was the first, founded in 1869)

 Anne Jemima Clough –
by William Blake Richmond

1841 – The British occupy Hong Kong Island

1855 – Ernest Chausson born, French Romantic composer; died at age 44 in a freak bicycle accident

1856 – Harriot Stanton Blatch born, American author, suffragist and women’s rights activist, daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton

1873 – Johannes V. Jensen born, most prominent 20^th century Danish author; awarded the 1944 Nobel Prize in Literature

1878 – Ruth St. Denis born, American modern dance pioneer; co-founder of the Denishawn School of Dance; teacher and mentor of Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman and other notable American dancers

1885 – L.A. Thompson patents the roller coaster

1887 – The U.S. Senate approves the lease of Pearl Harbor by the Navy as a base

1891 – James Hogg takes office as the first native-born governor of Texas

1894 – Harold Gray born, American cartoonist, creator of Little Orphan Annie

1894 – Walter Hamor Piston born, American composer; taught Leonard Bernstein

1899 – Clarice Cliff, notable English potter and ceramic artist

1900 – Dorothy Annan born in Brazil to British parents, English painter, potter, and muralist; noted for the Fleet Building telecom murals, nine ceramic tile murals, commissioned in 1960, which were granted Grade II listed status in 2011 by the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), frustrating the plans of building’s current owner, Goldman Sachs, to redevelop the site, destroying the murals in the process

1908 – Fleur Cowles born, American writer, editor, columnist and artist; associate editor of Look magazine (1947-1955), founder and creative force behind the short-lived but influential Flair magazine (1950-1951)

1910 – Joy Adamson born, in Austria-Hungary, Kenyan naturalist, artist, conservationist and author; best known for Born Free, the story of Elsa, the first lioness raised in captivity to be successfully released back into the wild

1920 – The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is founded

1920 – Federico Fellini born, one of Italy’s greatest directors and screenwriters; La Dolce Vita, 8 ½, La Strada, Juliet of the Spirits, Amarcord

1920 – The 50-50 Club opens, considered the first ‘speakeasy’

1921 – The first Constitution of Turkey is adopted, consecrating the principle of national sovereignty; it is amended in 1923 to declare Turkey a republic, then replaced entirely  by the Constitution of 1924, ratified April 20, 1924

1925 – Jamiluddin Aali born, Pakistani poet, playwright, critic, essayist, columnist and scholar; honored by the President of Pakistan with  1991 Pride of Performance Award, and the 2004 Hilal-e-Imtiaz Award (Crescent of Excellence)

1929 – In Old Arizona released, first full-length ‘talking picture’ filmed outdoors

1936 – Edward VIII ascends the throne of the United Kingdom

1937 – Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John Nance Garner are sworn in for second terms as U.S. President and Vice President, the first time a Presidential Inauguration takes place on 20 January after the ratification of the 20th Amendment

1942 – Linda Moulton Howe born, American investigative journalist, documentary filmmaker and UFO conspiracy theorist; her early work on environmental issues won the 1982 Florence Sabin Award “for outstanding contribution to public health”

1942 – At the Wannsee Conference held in Berlin’s Wannsee suburb, senior Nazi officials discuss the “Final Solution to the Jewish question”

1945 – Germany begins evacuating 1.8 million people from East Prussia because of Russia’s advancing Red Army

1948 – U.N. Security Council Resolution 39 offering assistance in the Kashmir crisis to India and Pakistan is adopted

1948 – Nancy Kress born, American Science Fiction author; Beggars in Spain won both Hugo and Nebula awards; After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall and Yesterday’s Kin both won Nebula Awards

1949 – Point Four Program for economic aid to poor countries announced by Harry S. Truman in his inaugural address for a full term as U.S. President

1954 – Alison Seabeck born, British Labour politician; Member of Parliament
for Plymouth Moor View (2005-2015); member of the feminist Fawcett Society and the Labour Women’s Network

1954 – National Negro Network launches with 40 charter member radio stations

1956 – Maria Larsson born, Swedish politician; Christian Democrat MP (1998-2014); deputy party leader (2013-2014); Governor of Örebo County since 2015

1960 – Hendrik Verwoerd announces a plebiscite on South Africa becoming a Republic

1964 – The Wisconsin Cheese Foundation presents the world’s largest cheese at the New York World’s Fair, weighing in at over 34,000 pounds, from over 170,000 quarts of milk from over 16,000 cows

1969 – Elvis Presley records “In the Ghetto” and “Suspicious Minds”

1972 – Pakistan launches its Nuclear weapons program weeks after its defeat in Bangladesh Liberation War and Indo-Pakistani War of 1971

1972 – Amílcar Cabral * one of Africa’s foremost anti-colonial leaders and founder of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC, initials in Portuguese), is murdered by a rival within the party

1981 – Minutes after Ronald Reagan’s inauguration, Iran releases 52 American hostages

1982 – Ruchi Sanghvi born, Indian computer engineer, the first woman engineer hired by Facebook in 2005, but left the company in late 2010 to co-found the start-up Cove, which was acquired by Dropbox in 2012; she is a founder of the 501-c4 lobbying group FWD.us, formed to promote immigration reform, improve STEM education and facilitate technological breakthroughs in the U.S.

1990 – The Red Army cracks down on civil protests in Baku, Azerbaijan during the dissolution of the Soviet Union

1991 – Sudan’s government imposes Islamic law nationwide, worsening the civil war between the country’s Muslim north and Christian south

2001 – Philippines President Joseph Estrada is ousted in a nonviolent 4-day revolution, and is succeeded by Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo

2009 – Steve Hopkins starts Day of Acceptance in memory of his sister, Annie Hopkins, who founded 3E Love, to promote respect, understanding and equality for people of all abilities, and created the International Symbol of Acceptance, a wheelchair in the shape of a heart

2009 – Barack Obama is inaugurated as the first African-American U.S. President

2012 – Penguin Awareness Day * is launched to bring attention to their dwindling numbers as the Southern Ocean ice melts due to global warming

2018 – The U.S Federal Government shuts down after the Senate fails to pass a temporary funding bill during a dispute over the extension of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) for undocumented people brought to the U.S. as small children, enabling them to apply for work permits, and also over the question of funding the Trump-proposed border wall between the U.S and Mexico. The shutdown ends on Monday evening, January 22

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