January 27th is

National Chocolate Cake Day

National Geographic Day *

Thomas Crapper Day *

International Day in Memory of the Holocaust Victims *

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MORE! Neel Doff, Gastón Suárez and Leontyne Price, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Argentina – Cosquín:
Festival Nacional de Folklore

Canada – Laval:
Festival du film de montagne de Banff

Cayman Islands – Heroes Day

Ethiopia – Addis Ababa: Ethio Cake Fest

Finland – Helsinki: DocPoint Festival
(documentary film festival)

Germany – WWII Genocide Memorial Day

Ghana – Accra: FestivALL (food)

India – Gharapuri: Elephanta Festival

Indonesia – South Tangerang City:
Celebration of Good Fortune & Happiness

Japan – Minato City: Shinagawa Yakiimo
Festival (roasted sweet potatoes)

Mexico – Tijuana: Tijuana Rumble Fest
(music, live art installations, food & beer)

Monaco – Saint Dévote’s Day

New Zealand – Auckland: SeePort Festival

Russia – Lifting of WWII Siege of Leningrad

Serbia – Feast of St. Sava

South Africa – Soweto: Stance in the Park
(automotive event)

Uruguay – Montevideo: Montevideo Carnival

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On This Day in HISTORY

AD 98 – Trajan becomes Roman Emperor; he expanded the Roman Empire to its greatest extent; started a welfare program for poor children; and instituted several major architectural projects in Rome

1302 – Dante Alighieri, major Italian poet who broke with the tradition of using Latin and instead wrote in Italian, is exiled from Florence, is accused of corruption and financial wrongdoing by his enemies. He is never allowed to return, and dies in Ravenna

1343 – Pope Clement VI issues the papal bull Unigenitus justifying Papal power and the use of indulgences

1521 – The Diet of Worms opens, a Holy Roman Empire deliberative assembly called to address the growing dissension of the Reformation movement

1571 – Shāh Abbās I of Persia born, also called Shāh Abbās the Great, considered the strongest ruler of the Safavid dynasty. He ruled from 1588 to 1629, a time of great military, political and economic power

1593 – The Vatican opens the seven-year heresy trial of Giordano Bruno, Italian Dominican friar, scholar and cosmologist; theorized that stars are distant suns with their own planets which might support life, that the universe was infinite with no celestial body at its center. Also charged with denying Catholic doctrines, including eternal damnation, the Trinity and transubstantiation. The Inquisition finds him guilty, and burns him at the stake in 1600

1606 – Gunpowder Plot: Trial of Guy Fawkes and other conspirators begins, ending with their execution on January 31

1695 – Mustafa II becomes the Ottoman sultan and Caliph of Islam in Istanbul; rules until his abdication in 1703

1741 – Hester Thrale born in Wales, British author-diarist and art patron; considered an important source on 18th century life and Samuel Johnson; noted for Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson

Hester Thrale – 1771, by John Singleton Copley 

1756 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart born in Salzburg, child prodigy and one of the world’s greatest composers

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart by Barbara Krafft

1776 – American Revolutionary War: Henry Knox’s “noble train of artillery” arrives in Cambridge, MA

1785 – The University of Georgia founded, the first public university in the U. S.

1803 – Eunice Hale Waite Cobb born, American writer, poet, hymnist, public speaker and a temperance activist; she was married to Universalist minister Sylvanis Cobb, and frequently wrote articles and poems for Universalist publications. While not a public advocate for women’s rights, she was close friends with a number of leaders in the women’s rights movement. She was invited, and did attend, the first Woman’s Rights Convention in Massachusetts, held at Worcester in 1850. She was a public speaker for temperance and for the public welfare causes of the time. Her diaries and many of her papers are held by Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University

1805 – Maria Anna of Bavaria born, she became Queen consort of Saxony (1836-1854); noted for organizing the first women’s committees, Frauenvereinsanstalt der obererzgebirgischen und vogtländischen Frauenvereine, to help during the great famine of  Erzgebirge and Vogtland in Saxony in 1836. The committees remained in existence under various names until 1932

1806 – Juan Crisostomo Jacobo Antonio de Arriaga born, Spanish-Basque composer

1823 –  Édouard Lalo born, French violinist and composer

1825 – Ignoring rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court on the sovereignty of Indian nations, the U.S. Congress approves Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), clearing the way for forced relocation of Eastern Indians on the “Trail of Tears” – thousands died of starvation and exposure, without almost no aid from the armed U.S. Army troops driving them

1832 – Lewis Carroll, born Charles Dodgson in Cheshire, England; author, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass

1850 – John Collier born, leading English Pre-Raphaelite portrait painter

Mrs Dalahaye by John Collier

1850 – Samuel Gompers born in England, American labor leader; founder of the American Federation of Labor (AFL)

1858 – Neel Doff born as Cornelia Doff in the Netherlands; Dutch-Belgium author writing mainly in French; important contributor to proletarian literature; after earning her living as an artist’s model, married Fernand Brouez, founder and publisher of  La Société Nouvelle (The New Society), influential magazine on social issues and the arts for French speaking Europeans; her first book, Jours de Famine et de Détresse (Days of Hunger and Distress) was semi-autobiographical, and nominated for the 1911 Prix Goncourt (it lost by one vote); followed by two more books Keetje and Keetje Trottin, which formed a trilogy

1868 – Boshin War: The Battle of Toba–Fushimi between forces of the Tokugawa shogunate and pro-Imperial factions begins, it would end in defeat of the shogunate, a pivotal point in the Meiji Restoration

1869 – During Boshin War, Tokugawa rebels establish the Ezo Republic in Hokkaidō

1870 – Kappa Alpha Theta, the first women’s sorority, is founded at Indiana Asbury University (now DePauw University)

1878 – Dorothy Scarborough born, American novelist and non-fiction author who wrote about the South and the Plains states; best known for her novel The Wind, which was made into the celebrated 1928 silent film starring Lillian Gish

1880 – Thomas Edison receives the patent on the incandescent lamp

1885 – Maeda Seison born as Maeda Renzō, Japanese painter, one of the leaders of the 20^th century Nihonga (modern paintings reflecting traditional Japanese style) movement

Fish, by Maeda Seison

1885 – Jerome Kern born, American composer

1888 – National Geographic Day * – The National Geographic Society is founded in Washington DC

1892 – Edouard-Victoire-Antoine Lalo born, French composer

1898 – Georgia Clark born, American bank president, first woman appointed as U.S. Treasurer (1949-1953), by Harry Truman

1900 – In China, foreign diplomats in Peking, fearing a revolt, demanded that the imperial government discipline the Boxer rebels

1908 – William Randolph Hearst born, American newspaper publisher

1910 – Thomas Crapper Day * – the day British plumber Thomas Crapper died; he opened the first bathroom fixtures showroom, popularizing installing lavatories inside homes; inventor of the floating ball cock, siphonic flush toilet, plumbing u-bend trap and the manhole cover

1912 – Arne Næss born, Norwegian philosopher, mountaineer and environmental ethicist who coined the term “deep ecology.” Næss cited Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring as a key influence on his philosophy, combined with nonviolent direct action

1914 – Black women in South Africa’s Free State protest their inclusion in the Pass Laws which previously only applied to Black African men

1926 – John Baird, a Scottish inventor, demonstrates a pictorial transmission machine called television

1927 – United Independent Broadcasters Inc. started a radio network with contracts with 16 stations. The company later became Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS)

1929 – Gastón Suárez born, Bolivian novelist, playwright, and short story writer; noted for his novels Mallko, and Las aventuras de Miguelín Quijano (The adventures of Miguelin Quijano), and his play, Vértigo

1934 – Édith Cresson born, French politician and diplomat; European Commissioner for Research, Science and Technology (1995-1999); first woman Prime Minister of France (1991-1992)

1941 – Beatrice Tinsley born, New Zealand astronomer-cosmologist; revolutionary pioneer in theoretical studies of how galaxies evolve, relation of stars aging to galaxies; but after coming to the U.S. for better opportunities in her field,  Tinsley wrote to her father: “The University of Texas in Dallas has kept me at the nearest possible level to nothing.” She was asked to design an astronomy department for the University of Texas, yet in spite of her startling scientific achievements, her application for the job as head of the university’s astronomy department was not even answered; she eventually left her husband and children for a professorship at Yale, a tough choice between career and family

1944 – WWII: The 872-Day Siege of Leningrad is lifted, one of the longest sieges in history; over 1 million Soviet troops are killed, captured or missing, and another 2.4 million wounded or sick; civilian casualties numbered over 642,000 during the siege; over 579,000 Axis troops were killed or wounded

1944 – Mairéad Maguire born, Northern Irish peace activist; co-founder with Betty Williams of the Women for Peace, now the Community for Peace People; she and Williams were awarded the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize

1945 – International Day in Memory of the Holocaust Victims * – Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration/death camp, is liberated by Russia’s Red Army (see also 2005 entry)

1947 – Vyron Polydoras born, Greek politician, author and lawyer who studied international law, human rights law and international economy; Minister for Public Order and Justice of Greece (2006-2007); vice-speaker of the Hellenic Parliament (2009–2012); as the Speaker for the hung parliament that resulted from the May 2012 elections, he sparked much anger, resulting in his expulsion from his party’s parliamentary faction, but he refused to give up his seat on the Institutions and Transparency committee. In 2014, he founded the party Union for the Homeland and the People in order to take part in 2014 European Parliament Elections; author of several books, including Μείζων Αθήνα (The Greater Athens) and Gia mia néa ideología (For a New Ideology)

1948 – Wire Recording Corporation of America announced first magnetic tape recorder: The ‘Wireway’ machine with built-in oscillator selling for $149.50

1948 – Mikhail Baryshnikov born, Latvian Kirov Ballet Premier danseur who defected; NYC Ballet and American Ballet Theatre; choreographer, and ABT artistic director

1951 – An Air Force plane drops a one-kiloton atom bomb on Frenchman Flats NV

1960 – Fiona O’Donnell born in Canada, Scottish Labour Party politician; MP for East Lothian (2010-2015); elected in 2017 to the East Lothian Council

1961 – Leontyne Price makes her debut at NY’s Metropolitan Opera House as Leonora in Verdi’s Il Trovatore

1967 – At Cape Kennedy, FL, astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee die in a flash fire during a test aboard their Apollo I spacecraft

1967 – More than 60 nations sign the Outer Space Treaty which bans orbiting of nuclear weapons and placing weapons on celestial bodies or space stations

1973 – The Vietnam peace accords are signed in Paris

1977 – A Vatican committee reaffirms the Roman Catholic Church’s ban on women in the priesthood, saying a woman priest would not reflect “the image of Christ”

1981 – Ronald Reagan gets a photo-op at the White House with the 52 former American hostages released by Iran

1981 – The South African apartheid regime decides to close The Post and The Sunday Post newspapers because they have become media for “communist viewpoints”

1984 – Cyndi Lauper releases “Time After Time”

1985 – The Coca-Cola Company, of Atlanta, GA, announces plans to sell its soft drinks in the Soviet Union

1992 – Former world boxing champion Mike Tyson goes on trial, accused of raping an 18-year-old contestant in the 1991 Miss Black America Contest

1996 – Mahamane Ousmane, first democratically elected president of Niger, overthrown by a military coup led by Ibrahim Bare Mainassara, who was then assassinated in 1999

Mahamane Ousmane

1997 – There are reports that French national museums are holding nearly 2,000 works of art stolen from Jews by the Nazis during World War II

1999 – The U.S. Senate blocks dismissal of impeachment charges against President Clinton; voted for new testimony from Monica Lewinsky and two other witnesses

2005 – International Day in Memory of the Holocaust Victims * is designated by the UN General Assembly as an annual commemoration on January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau (see also 1945 entry)

2011 – The Yemeni Revolution, part of the Arab Spring, begins as over 16,000 protesters demonstrate in Sana’a, Yemen’s largest city

2013 – Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi invokes emergency powers, including curfews, in the cities of Ismailia, Port Said and Suez, to stem riots that have killed 50 people. The ongoing violence raises questions about the ability of his Islamic-backed government to secure order

2013 – In Washington DC, a bipartisan group of senators reach agreement on a proposal which could grant legal status to most of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. This blueprint is expected to set the parameters for the coming legislative battle over major changes to U.S. immigration laws, which is shaping up after the strong influence of Latino voters in the previous November’s elections

2019 – Federal agencies affected by the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history spent the weekend preparing to reopen and start getting missed paychecks to their workers later in the week. About 800,000 government employees were furloughed or had to work without pay for the five weeks of the shutdown, which was caused by Donald Trump’s insistence on $5.7 billion for a wall on the Mexican border. He didn’t get it, but warned that the government could shut down again or he could declare a national emergency to get the wall built if Republicans and Democrats didn’t agree on a long-term spending bill that included money for the wall before the current stopgap spending measure ran out in just three weeks

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