January 26th is

Dental Drill Day *

Peanut Brittle Day

National Spouses Day

International Customs Day *

Toad Hollow Day of Encouragement *

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MORE! Alda Facio, Gustavo Dudamel and Libby Lane, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Australia – Australia Day *

Azerbaijan – Baku:
Baku Coffee & Tea Festival

Brazil – Santos: Founding Day

Dominican Republic – Duarte Day

Canada – Prince George: Coldsnap Music Festival

Germany – Hamburg:
Hamburger Skiffle Festival (music)

India – Republic Day *

Japan – Kamuicho:
Snow Endurance Festival

Morocco – Casablanca:
Concert De Soutien Hardzazat 

Panama – Engineers’ Day

Portugal – Nogueira do Cravo:
Festival de Teatro

South Africa – Cape Town:
Little Known Blues Fest

South Korea – Seoul:
Hwacheon Sancheoneo Ice Festival

Spain – Barcelona:  Festival Beethoven
Uganda – NRM Liberation Day

United Kingdom – Oxford: Oxford Music Festival

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On This Day in HISTORY

661 – The Rashidun Caliphate ends with the assassination of Ali, the last caliph

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

1565 – Battle of Talikota, fought between the Vijayanagara Empire and the Deccan sultanates, leads to the subjugation, and eventual destruction of the last Hindu kingdom in India, and the consolidation of Islamic rule over much of the Indian subcontinent

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

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

Hong Kong Harbour 1845

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, and many people were dependent on rations from the Union Army and its Freedmen’s Bureau, which was a mixed blessing for the newly-freed slaves: the Bureau forced freedmen to work for whites or be arrested as vagrants, and urged 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. She was the 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

1887 – Battle of Dogali: Ethiopian army defeats invading Italians 

1892 – Bessie Coleman born, first African-American woman to fly a plane and first woman to earn an international pilot’s license. She went to France to learn to fly, and in 1921 was issued an international aviation license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. She was sponsored by Robert Abbott, publisher of the Chicago Defender, the nation’s largest African-American weekly, and wealthy real estate dealer, Jessie Binga. She learned aerobatics to make a living at air shows, and became known as “Queen Bell.” In 1923, she was hospitalized for three months after a crash. She returned to flying and speaking engagements, and hoped to open a school for flyers. In 1926, her life ended at age 34 in a flying accident

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; River World 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

1935 – Dame Paula Rego born in Portugal, Portuguese-British visual artist known for paintings and prints based on storybooks; the first artist-in-residence at the National Gallery in London

1939 – Spanish Civil War – Catalonia Offensive: Troops loyal to the nationalist General Francisco Franco, aided by Italy, take city of 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, regarded as one of the greatest cellists of all time, in spite of her career being cut short when she began to lose sensitivity in her fingers in 1971, then was diagnosed with Multiple sclerosis (MS) in 1973. She struggled with the disease for 14 years, until her death in 1987, at age 42

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

1947 – International Customs Day * – Setting up a World Customs Organization is explored by a study group representing 13 European governments. On January 16, 1953, the inaugural session of the Customs Co-operation Council was held in Brussels, with representatives from 17 European countries attending. In 1994, the Council adopted the working name World Customs Organizations, because membership now included 180 Customs administrations.  The WCO is the sponsor of International Customs Day

1948 – Alda Facio born, Costa Rican jurist, author, feminist and international expert in gender and human rights in Latin America. She was a 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 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. Martial law is declared

1958 – Anita Baker born, American singer-songwriter

1961 – John F. Kennedy appoints Dr. Janet G. Travell to be his physician, the first time a woman held the appointment as 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

1986 – The national Resistance Army takes over the Ugandan capital of Kampala

1991 – Rebels overrun Mogadishu, capital of Somalia

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 the first African-American woman, and the second woman (after Madeleine Albright) to serve as U.S. Secretary of State 

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

2013 – Egypt: On the second anniversary of protests that overthrew Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Egyptians again take to the streets to protest their newest president, Mohamed Morsi. Thousands of people gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the iconic location of the first uprising, to protest Morsi and the Islamists, who they believe have hijacked the revolution for their own gain. The protests turn violent, and five people are killed in the Egyptian city of Suez. Another 280 civilians and 55 security personnel are injured

2015 – Libby Lane is ordained as the first woman bishop of the Church of England

2019 – After The Telegraph, a British newspaper, published an excerpt from the book The Golden Handcuffs: The Secret History of Trump’s Women, by journalist Nina Burleigh, they issued a three-page apology to Melania Trump, and agreed to pay damages for what it called false statements about her early modeling career. The excerpt published by the Telegraph in its magazine said Melania Trump’s modeling career was struggling before she met Donald Trump, and only improved with his help. The paper apologized “unreservedly.” Burleigh stood by her reporting, noting that U.S. publications have published excerpts “without a peep of objection” since her book came out in October 2018. In U.S. courts, the burden of proof rests on the plaintiff, and statements are not libelous if they can be proved to be true. But under British law, a libel claim is based on the “serious harm” a defamatory statement will cause the plaintiff, even if it is true.

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