January 1
Emancipation
Proclamation (1863) : United States. On
this date Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing
all slaves in territories of the Confederacy.
Independence
Day : Haiti. This day commemorates
gaining independence from France in 1804 as a result of the only successful
slave revolt in history.
New Year's Day.
New Year's Day is the only secular holiday
that the entire world observes regardless of race or religious beliefs.
It is based on the solar calendar established by Pope Gregory XIII in
1582 and adopted by most countries. However, the Orthodox Eastern churches
continue to use the earlier Julian calendar with the New Year falling
on January 14. Some cultural groups, including Jews,
Chinese, Hindus, and Muslims, use a lunar calendar or some combination
of a lunar and solar calendar. The date of the Chinese New Year may fall
on any date between January 21 and February 19. For 2004, the Chinese
New Year occurs on January 22 and the first day of the
Jewish New Year begins on the first day of the month of Tishri, or sundown
on September 15, 2004. Different cultures also
count years from different starting points. For example, January 1 is
year 2004 according to the Gregorian calendar, but falls in year 5764
according to the Jewish calendar and in year 1424 according to the Islamic
calendar.
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January 2
Bank Holiday
: Japan, Scotland. Public holiday.
Berchtold's
Day : Switzerland. Public holiday.
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January 3
Bank Holiday :
Japan, Taiwan. Public holiday.
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January 4
Louis Braille
(1809–1852) : French. Educator.
Blinded in an accident at the age of three, Braille attended the Institution
Nationale des Jeunes Aveugles (National Institute for Blind Youth) in
Paris on a scholarship and began teaching there in 1826. While still a
student he became interested in a form of writing that used raised dots
to encode a message. He developed this idea into a complete writing system
that bears his name, a series of arrangements of six dots. Braille's writing
system, published in 1829, has become the most widely used form of writing
for the blind.
C[yril] L[ionel]
R[obert] James (1901–1989) : Trinidadian. Historian,
literary critic, and philosopher. The writings of C.L.R. James include
one of the first novels written in English in the West Indies (Minty
Alley, 1927), but James' most significant achievements were as a leader
of the Pan-African movement. In his writings (World Revolution,
1937, A History of Negro Revolt, 1977, for example) and in his
work as a teacher in England,
Elizabeth Ann
B. Seton Feast Day : Roman Catholic. This
feast honors the first American-born saint and founder of the American
Sisters of Charity, the first American order of Roman Catholic nuns.
This Week | January | Index | Home
January 5
Alvin Ailey (1931–1989)
: African American. Dancer and
choreographer. As founder, director, and principal choreographer of the
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (established in 1958), Alvin Ailey
blended elements of classical ballet, Afro-Caribbean dance, jazz, and
modern dance. He received his greatest acclaim for works that vividly
and eloquently evoked the historical experience of African Americans,
including the exuberant ensemble piece Revelations, with a score
drawn from spirituals. Tours sponsored by the State Department brought
Ailey's company an international following.
George Washington
Carver (1864–1943) : African American. Scientist.
This day marks the anniversary of Carver's death. As director of the department
of agricultural research at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama from 1896, Carver
developed hundreds of new uses for common agricultural products, including
the peanut, sweet potato, and soybean. His research provided the foundation
for the change in the economy of the South from dependence on a single
crop (cotton) to a more diversified base.
Guru Gobind
Singh Ji's Birthday (1666–1708) : Sikh. This
celebrates the birth of the Sikhs' tenth great master and teacher, who
sought to abolish the caste system in India by creating a single community.
Guru Gobind Singh Ji's birthday is celebrated on this date according to
the Nanakshahi calendar, introduced in 1999 and officially approved by
the Sikh clergy in 2003, which converts Sikh holidays from their traditional
Bikarami lunar dates to fixed dates based on the Gregorian solar calendar.
This Week | January | Index | Home
January 6
Zora Neale Hurston
(1891–1960) : African American. Author
and folklorist. Hurston spent years collecting folklore among the Black
people of the rural South and celebrated their culture in her stories
and novels. Her best known work is the novel Their Eyes Were Watching
God. Born in the all-black town of Eatonville, Florida, she left Eatonville
in 1917 to attend Morgan Academy in Baltimore, where she completed high
school. She then attended Howard Prep School and Howard University and
earned an associate's degree. She completed her undergraduate education
at Barnard College and studied under the well-known anthropologist Franz
Boas. While in New York, Hurston became a part of the Harlem Renaissance
literary circle that included Langston Hughes, Wallace Thurman, and Jessie
Fauset. She became well known not only for her writing, but also for her
outspokenness, her distinctive way of dress, and her refusal to be ashamed
of her culture. Hurston was a pioneer in the study of African American
folklore. For her folklore writings, she traveled "down South," to the
Caribbean and Latin America. Her most active years were the 1930s and
early 1940s. During that time she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship,
joined the Federal Writers Project in Florida, published four novels and
an autobiography, and worked as a story consultant for Paramount Pictures.
Since 1989, there has been an annual festival in her honor in Eatonville.
For more information, contact The Association to Preserve the Eatonville
Community, Inc., 227 East Kennedy Blvd., Eatonville, FL 32751, Tel. No.
407-647-3307.
Christmas :
Armenian Apostolic Church. As
part of the Orthodox Christian movement, Armenians celebrate Christmas
according to a non-Gregorian calendar. In the fourth century, Armenia
became the first country to accept Christianity as a state religion and
Armenian Christians have always celebrated Christmas on this day.
Epiphany : Christian.
Twelve days after Christmas the three kings
arrived in Bethlehem with gifts for the baby Jesus. Called Twelfth Night
in English, it was once celebrated throughout Europe with feasts and frolics.
In England today old traditions are reviving in Twelfth Night parties
marking the end to the Christmas season. In Spain, Mexico, and other Hispanic
countries of the Americas the holiday, called Día de los Tres Magos,
or simply Tres Reyes, was never abandoned. Like Jesus, children
receive gifts on this day rather than Christmas Day, and families celebrate
with big meals, often with specialties such as roast sucking pig. Many
countries follow the ancient tradition of baking a cake or bread that
conceals a trinket. The person who is served the piece with the trinket
is treated as King or Queen for the day. Cakes differ regionally. In Spain
the cake is roscon des reyes, literally, "big doughnut of the kings"
because the large cake, flavored with orange-flower water and decorated
with sugar and fruits, is shaped like a doughnut. In Portugal, a similar
cake is called bolo do rey, King Cake. Southern France has a crown-shaped
cake decorated with jewel-colored crystallized fruit. In Paris, however,
they make Galette des Rois, a puff pastry tart filled with almond
frangipan. It is brought to the table decorated with a paper crown.
As each piece is cut, a child hidden under the table calls the name of
the guest to whom it should be served, so there can be no favoritism about
who gets the trinket. The person who receives it also gets the crown,
and as King or Queen, the right to be indulged for the rest of the day.
In the United States these traditions thrive in the King Cake of Louisiana,
a cinnamon-flavored oval braid that appears around January 6th and plays
a starring role at parties during the pre-Mardi Gras season. Indeed, most
office-workers bring in a King Cake every Friday. The person who gets
the trinket, traditionally a bean or pecan, now a plastic baby, has to
provide the King Cake for the next party. Traditionally King Cake was
simply decorated with sugar in the Mardi Gras colors of purple, signifying
justice, green for faith and gold for power. Now, bakeries offer toppings
such as blueberry, lemon and German chocolate so the colored sugar is
often less dominant.
Three Kings
Day (Día de los Trés Magos) : Puerto Rico. This
traditional holiday corresponds to the Christian Feast of Epiphany. It
commemorates the arrival in Bethlehem of the three kings, or Magi. Traditionally,
children leave straw or grass under their beds and find a gift in its
place in the morning.
This Week | January | Index | Home
January 7
Christmas : Coptic
Orthodox Christian, Eastern Orthodox Christian. Christmas
is celebrated on this date, set according to the Julian calendar, by several
Eastern Orthodox Christian communities (e.g., Russian Orthodox Christians).
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January 9
Martyrs' Day
: Panama. Public holiday.
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January 10
Dean Dixon (1915–1976)
: African American. Orchestra
conductor. Although recognized as one of the finest American conductors
of his generation, Dixon was blocked by racial prejudice from obtaining
a regular conducting position in the United States. He spent much of his
professional life in Europe, where he conducted nearly every major orchestra
on the continent and served as principal conductor of the Goteborg (Sweden)
Symphony and later of the Hessian Radio Symphony in Frankfurt, Germany.
This Week | January | Index | Home
January 11
Carlo Tresca
(c. 1882–1943) : Italian American. Journalist
and human rights activist. Tresca was a lifelong crusader for social and
economic justice and individual rights. After his opposition to the powerful
political leader of his southern Italian town brought him a conviction
for libel, he fled to the United States, where he continued to speak out
as editor of radical Italian newspapers, first in Philadelphia and then
in New York. Gentle and courtly in person, Tresca was an outspoken foe
of Fascism in Germany and Italy and of Communism in the Soviet Union.
He was assassinated by an unknown gunman on this date in 1943.
Eugenio Maria
de Hostos (1839–1903) : Puerto Rico. Educator,
writer, and patriot. A distinguished scholar and a writer of works ranging
from treatises on law to children's stories, Eugenio Maria de Hostos spent
most of his life in exile, working as a university teacher and leading
educational reform efforts in the Dominican Republic and Chile. He traveled
widely to promote cooperation among Latin American countries and advocate
freedom for Puerto Rico and Cuba.
Independence
Manifesto Day : Morocco. Public
holiday.
National Unity
Day : Nepal. This celebration
pays homage to King Prithvinarayan Shah (1723–1775), founder of the
present house of rulers of Nepal and creator of today's unified Nepal.
This Week | January | Index | Home
January 12
Helen Haje (1929?–1998)
: Arab American. Public relations
activist. Sometimes referred to as the "mother of Arab American organizations
in the United States," this daughter of Lebanese immigrants grew up in
Altoona, Pennsylvania. The mother of three children, Haje left Altoona
in the early 1940s after her husband died and moved to Washington, D.C.,
to work for Catholic Charities. Becoming increasingly concerned about
the negative image of Arabs among the American public, in 1972 she joined
the National Association of Arab Americans, the first political Arab American
organization, as its first executive secretary. She continued her work
to champion Arab American interests in the United States until her death.
Mordecai Johnson
(1890–1976) : African American. University
president. In 1926 this 36-year-old Baptist minister became the first
African American president of Howard University in Washington, D.C. The
30 years of his presidency saw the transformation of the institution to
a distinguished university with a faculty tripled in size, a law school
distinguished for its leadership in the field of civil rights, and a multimillion
dollar campus. Johnson also served on numerous government commissions
and advisory boards.
José Limón (1908–1972)
: Mexican American. Dancer and
choreographer. Soon after his debut as a performer with Doris Humphrey's
modern dance troupe, Limón began creating his own dances, many of them
drawing on the traditional dances he had seen as a boy in Mexico. His
greatest works, including The Moor's Pavane, based on Shakespeare's
tragedy Othello, are distinguished for their combination of emotional
expressiveness and formal elegance. Limón's dance troupe was the first
to be sent abroad on a tour sponsored by the U.S. Department of State's
cultural exchange program.
Coming of Age
Day (Seijin No Hi) : Japan. This
public holiday celebrates the coming of age of everyone who turned 20
in the past year. Those who reached age 20 in the past year gather at
public halls for commemorative ceremonies.
This Week | January | Index | Home
January 13
Ernestine Potowski-Rose
(1810–1892) : Polish American. Orator
and political activist. After immigrating to the United States in 1836,
Potowski-Rose gave her energies to the economic emancipation of women,
the abolition of slavery, and the improvement of conditions for working
people. Her first political success was her leadership of the 12-year
campaign to secure property rights for married women in New York State.
Her efforts led to the state legislature's passage in 1848 of the Married
Women's Property Act, the first law in the United States to give married
women the right to control their own property and share legal guardianship
of their children.
Charlotte Ray
(1850–1911) : African American. Lawyer.
While working as a teacher in the teacher-training program at Howard University,
Charlotte Ray began studying in that university's law department. Soon
after her graduation in 1872 she was admitted to the District of Columbia
bar, becoming the first African American woman lawyer in the United States
and the first woman to practice in the District of Columbia. Although
she was admired by colleagues, she had to give up active practice when
the prevailing prejudices of the day made it impossible for her to obtain
sufficient legal business.
This Week | January | Index | Home
January 14
John Dos Passos
(1898–1976) : Portuguese American. Writer.
An important novelist of the period between the two world wars, Dos Passos
is best known for his trilogy U.S.A. (1930–1936), a set of
three novels in which he depicted the United States as "two nations,"
one of the privileged and one of the powerless.
Carlos P. Romulo
(1899–1985) : Filipino. Diplomat,
author, and educator. After an early career in journalism, Romulo received
a commission in the U.S. Army when the United States entered World War
II. He spent the war working on the staff of General Douglas MacArthur
and in the Philippine government in exile in Washington, and participated
in the liberation of Manila in early 1945. For the remainder of his career
he served in diplomatic positions: as representative to the United Nations,
ambassador to the United States, secretary of foreign affairs, minister
of education, and president of the University of the Philippines. He also
wrote a number of books on history and public affairs.
Sending Off the
Kitchen God Day : China (January 14-15). This
festival is associated with the New Year. In traditional Chinese homes,
a paper image represents a home deity that is thought to keep track of
the deeds of the household for the year. On this day, the family burns
the image, whose spirit is believed to go to heaven and report to the
chief deity on the family's behavior during the past year. The chief deity
then determines the fate of the family for the next year. To positively
affect the report of the Kitchen God, the family may put honey or sticky
candy over its mouth—some say, to make sure that it reports only
sweet things; others say, so that it will not be able to speak at all.
This holiday is also celebrated on January 15. (m)
New Year : Eastern
Orthodox Christian. This date
marks the observance of New Year's Day according to the Julian calendar
by several Eastern Orthodox Christian Churches.
This Week | January | Index | Home
January 15
Martin Luther
King Jr. (1929–1968) : African American. Civil
rights leader. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gained national
prominence during the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott of 1955–1956
and soon became the acknowledged national leader of the growing movement
to obtain civil rights for African Americans. (See entry for Rosa Parks
Day on December 1.) His commitment to nonviolence, his courage, and the
moral power of his vision, eloquently expressed in masterful oratory and
writings, won him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Toward the end of his
life King became convinced of the interrelatedness of all forms of social,
economic, and military oppression, and broadened the sphere of his activism.
He spoke out against U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam and was preparing
to lead a massive Poor People's March on Washington when he was assassinated
in Memphis on April 4, 1968, while helping to organize the city’s
sanitation workers. His birthday is celebrated on January
19 as a federal holiday.
This Week | January | Index | Home
January 16
Ruhiyyih Rabbani
(1910–2000) : Baha'i. Religious
Leader. She became a prominent leader of the Bahai faith after the death
of her husband, Soghi Effendi Rabbani, the last official leader of the
faith. Since his death, the Baha'is have been governed by a legislature.
Mrs. Rabbani was a member of the “nine hands” who oversaw the affairs
of the Baha'i community and interpreted matters of faith. This is the
day of her death.
Hiram Revels
(1822–1901) : African American. Legislator
and university president. In 1870 Revels became the first African American
elected to the United States Senate when he was chosen to fill the Mississippi
seat vacated by Jefferson Davis. After serving his term in the Senate,
he became president of Alcorn University in Mississippi. He died on this
date.
This Week | January | Index | Home
January 17
Pablo Manlapit
(1891–1969) : Filipino. Labor
leader. A worker who came to Hawaii at the age of 19 to work on sugar
plantations, Manlapit was discharged from his first job for involvement
in labor organizing. While working as a janitor in a law office, he studied
for a law degree, eventually becoming the first Filipino to pass the bar
examination in Hawaii. Rather than practicing law, he resumed his efforts
to organize unions that would press the powerful Hawaiian Sugar Planters
Association (HSPA) for improvements in the harsh living and working conditions
of laborers, most of them Filipinos and Japanese. Manlapit succeeded in
building a united movement, but the HSPA repeatedly thwarted the workers'
efforts, breaking strikes and using the resulting violence to charge Manlapit
with criminal activity. He was permanently deported to the Philippines
in 1935.
This Week | January | Index | Home
January 18
Daniel Hale Williams (1858–1931) : African American.
Surgeon and hospital administrator. After founding
Provident Hospital in Chicago to provide a medical center open to doctors
of all races, Williams made medical history in 1893 by performing the first
successful heart operation on record.
Revolution Day : Tunisia.
Public holiday.
This Week | January | Index | Home
January 19
Epiphany : Eastern Orthodox Christian.
Eastern Orthodox Christians celebrate this
holiday on this day based on the Julian calendar.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day : United States.
National observance of Dr. King's birthday.
(m)
This Week | January | Index | Home
January 21
New Year (Losar)
: Tibet. This begins the Tibetan
lunar year 2131, the Year of the Monkey, based on the Han solar calendar.
The date of the new year sometimes corresponds to that of the Chinese
new year, but at other times can be as much as a month or more later.
This is a day of celebration that links all people in the Tibetan diaspora,
resulting from the decision of many Tibetans, led by the Dalai Lama in
1959, to flee the Communist Chinese. The traditional New Year’s
greetings are “Happy Losar” and Tashi Delek ((tah-SHEE dehlek).
Our Lady of Altagarcia
: Dominican Republic. Public
holiday.
This Week | January | Index | Home
January 22
Pilar Barbosa
(189?–1997) : Puerto Rican. Historian
and political activist. Pilar Barbosa de Rosario, historian and mentor
to generations of Puerto Rican politicians, scholars, and intellectuals,
was widely regarded as the conscience of the New Progressive Party. She
started her career as the first woman to teach at the University of Puerto
Rico and later created the departments of history and social studies.
She became an authority on Puerto Rican political history and was named
the Commonwealth's official historian in 1993. Professor Barbosa led the
movement to make the Progressive Party both the party of statehood and
of social justice. She died on this day at the age of 99.
New Year : China.
This is the beginning of a three-day celebration
of the Chinese New Year, although traditionally the New Year celebration
extends for fifteen days until the Lantern Festival. The festivities mark
the beginning of year 4702 (The Year of the Monkey) since the mythical
founding of the Chinese people. On New Year’s Eve, the Kitchen God
returns from heaven to the shrine prepared by each family, where he is
welcomed back with firecrackers and offerings. New Year’s Day is
a day when all business accounts are settled and grudges forgotten. Traditional
Chinese celebrate New Year’s Day as a birthday and count themselves
one year older. The Chinese celebrate by eating noodles to signify a long
life and pork dumplings called jiao zi, which means “midnight”
or “the end and the beginning of time.” A Chinese coin is
hidden in one of the dumplings, and the person who finds it will have
good luck over the coming year. Children receive decorated red envelopes
with good luck money inside. Celebrations include fireworks, a dragon
dance and the beating of drums and cymbals, visits to temples, and prayers
for blessings in the new year. This celebration is called “Spring
Festival” in the People’s Republic of China because the official
New Year’s Day is January 1, based on the Gregorian calendar.
(See entries for Sending Off the Kitchen God Day
and Lantern Festival.) (m)
An appropriate greeting is “Happy New Year.”
In Chinese, the greeting is Gung Hay Fat Choy (Cantonese pronunciation),
Gungshi Shin Nien (Mandarin pronunciation).
New Year (Sol)
: Korea. This begins the traditional
Korean New Year 4337 of the era of Tan’gun, the mythical progenitor
of the Korean people. The New Year’s celebration is, along with
Chusok, one of the two most important holidays in Korea. Officially a
three-day holiday, it is traditionally celebrated for fifteen days until
Taeborum. This is a time when families renew their ties and prepare for
the year ahead. The day before New Year’s is spent cleaning house
and preparing special foods for the next day, such as fried meats, fish,
dumplings, and ttokkuk, a rice-cake soup. Bamboo sticks are burned to
cast off house demons. Early on New Year’s morning, family members
bathe and don hanbok, the traditional formal dress. They gather at the
home of the eldest male family member for the chare, or offering to ancestors,
in which the foods prepared the day before are arranged on a table altar
and a ceremony to honor their ancestors is held. Then the younger generation
offers New Year’s greetings to their elders in a custom called sebae.
The elders in turn give the children cakes, fruit, or money. Everyone
then sits down to a family breakfast with the foods from the offering
table. It is believed that eating the New Year’s rice-cake soup,
ttokkuk, makes a person one year older. All Koreans count themselves one
year older on New Year’s Day. Popular drinks include shikhye, rice
punch, and sujunggwa, a concoction of persimmon and cinnamon. Favorite
New Year’s pastimes are kite-flying and top-spinning for boys, and
see-sawing for girls, but the most popular entertainment is a New Year’s
game called yut nore, which involves throwing four sticks and advancing
one’s player on the board according to how the sticks land. Yut
nore is played from New Year’s Day until Taeborum. (See entry for
Taeborum.) (m)
The New Year’s greeting is Say-hay boke
mahn-he pah-du-say-oh, which means “Many New Year’s blessings
to you.”
New Year (Tet
Nguyen Dan) : Vietnam. This
is the most important holiday in Vietnam and begins the Vietnamese lunar
year 4702 (The Year of the Monkey). Officially a three-day holiday, it
is often celebrated for seven or more days. The days before the new year
are spent cleaning and painting homes, paying off debts, resolving differences
between family and friends, and preparing three days’ worth of special
foods for the celebration. On the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, the
head of the family performs a ceremony to welcome back ancestors for the
New Year’s celebrations. Midnight on New Year’s Eve, known
as Giao Thua, is the most sacred time since it is the passage from the
old year to the new. A special ceremony called Le Tru Tich is held, with
drums, gongs, and firecrackers ushering out the spirits of the old year
and welcoming the new. This ceremony also welcomes back the Kitchen God,
who went to heaven to report on the household’s behavior during
the past year. On New Year’s Day, people dress in their best clothes
and visit a temple or pagoda to pray for good fortune and good health.
The first visitor to a family’s home on New Year’s Day is
very important, since he will influence the well-being of the family for
the coming year. Apricot and peach blossoms in the home ensure longevity
and ward off demons—it is especially auspicious if they bloom on
the first morning of the new year. All Vietnamese become one year older
on New Year’s Day. Adults congratulate children on becoming a year
older by giving them red envelopes containing money for good luck. A special
New Year’s treat is banh chung, or “earth cake,” a square
cake made of a mixture of glutinous rice, pork, and bean paste wrapped
in banana leaves and boiled, all of the ingredients of which are believed
to keep the positive and the negative in harmony. (m)
An appropriate greeting is Chuc Mung Nam Moi,
or “Happy New Year.”
This Week | January | Index | Home
January 23
Thomas A. Dorsey
(1899–1993) : African American. Gospel
songwriter, blues singer, and pianist. The son of a Georgia revivalist
preacher, Dorsey began his career as a pianist, composer, and arranger
of blues pieces. When he turned to composing church music, he introduced
elements of the blues into his work, thereby creating the sound of contemporary
gospel music. In 1932, Dorsey became musical director of Chicago's Pilgrim
Baptist Church, a position he held for more than 40 years. In the same
year he cofounded the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses.
The most famous of Dorsey's more than 1,000 gospel songs is "Take My Hand,
Precious Lord," written in 1932 after the death of his first wife and
infant son.
This Week | January | Index | Home
January 24
Arthur Alfonso
Schomburg (1874–1938) : Puerto Rican. Scholar
and collector. Son of a Black laundress and a German-born merchant, Schomburg
left Puerto Rico at age 17 to continue his education in New York City.
His growing involvement in efforts to improve conditions for Black and
Latino people led him to become fascinated with African American culture,
and he began collecting books, pamphlets, manuscripts, and prints documenting
the history of Black people in America. His personal collection, which
he amassed as a hobby, became the finest of its kind in the nation and
was purchased in 1926 by the New York Public Library. The Arthur A. Schomburg
Collection of Negro Literature and Art opened to the public in 1934 with
Schomburg as its curator, a position he held until his death.
This Week | January | Index | Home
January 25
Robert Burns
(1759–1796) : Scottish. Poet.
Robert Burns, the national poet of Scotland, is known throughout the world
for poems, including Comin Thro' the Rye and A Red, Red, Rose.
The celebration of Burns' birthday focuses around a Burns' Night Supper
that features the procession into the dining area of the haggis, accompanied
by playing of the bagpipes. The haggis is a sheep stomach filled with
a mixture of chopped lamb and oatmeal cooked just below boiling point.
It is eaten with bashed neeps, which are turnips. The preferred drink
is well-aged scotch. This feast often features the reading of Burns' poem
"To a Haggis." His birthday is celebrated throughout the world where there
are Scottish communities, including Japan, other parts of Asia, and Russia.
Although Robert Burns wrote in the Lowland Scots dialect of English, which
differs markedly from standard English, readers throughout the world admire
his work. Auld Lang Syne is sung at New Year on every continent,
while My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose is a favorite love song.
This Week | January | Index | Home
January 26
Australia Day
: Australia. In order to relieve
the pressures of crowding in British prisons, the British government established
a penal colony in Australia. The first prisoners arrived on this date
in 1788. This has been celebrated as Foundation Day or Anniversary Day,
and now as Australia Day, since 1817. The trend in Australia is to celebrate
this day on the actual day of its occurrence rather than on the nearest
Monday to that day. The exact day of celebration, however, is determined
by each state or division within Australia rather than by the federal
government and, therefore, may vary from one part of Australia to another.
Juan Pablo Duarte's
Birthday : Dominican Republic. This
holiday marks the birthday of one of the founders of the republic.
Republic Day
: India. This commemorates two
events: the declaration in 1929 by the Indian National Congress to work
toward independence from Great Britain and the day in 1950 when India
became an independent republic.
This Week | January | Index | Home
January 27
Samuel Gompers
(1850–1924) : Jewish American. Labor
leader. Gompers founded the first major labor union in the United States,
the American Federation of Labor, and served as its president from 1886
to 1924.
This Week | January | Index | Home
January 28
José Julian Martí
(1853–1895) : Cuban. Poet,
essayist, and patriot. A distinguished writer as well as a political leader,
Martí was the chief organizer of the Cuban movement for independence from
Spain. Although he lived much of his adult life in exile, in April 1895
he helped to lead a revolutionary invasion of Cuba. He was killed in battle
on May 19.
This Week | January | Index | Home
January 29
The Hajj (hâj)
(rhymes with mahje): Islam. The hajj is
the annual pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. All Muslims
who are able are required to make the pilgrimage at least once in their
lifetime. The hajj, one of the Five Pillars of Islam, is usually undertaken
between the seventh and twelfth days of the last month of the Islamic
lunar year, although pilgrims can start the pilgrimage any time after
Ramadan. The jajj is a time for reflection and celebration, when more
than two million Muslims from around the world gather together to celebrate
their faith. At Mecca, the pilgrims perform manyu rituals, including walking
seven times around the sacred shrine of Kaaba. The culmination of the
hajj is the three-day festival of Eid al-Adha (The Feast of Sacrifice),
the most important feast of the Muslim calendar. (See entry for Eid
al-Adha.)
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January 30
Osceola (1800–1838)
: American Indian (Seminole). Military
leader. Osceola organized the Seminoles to resist the U.S. government's
takeover of their ancestral lands and led the guerrilla resistance to
federal forces from 1835 until his imprisonment in 1837. He died in captivity
on this date.
Granville T.
Woods (1856–1910) : African American. Inventor.
An electrical engineer who formed his own company to make and sell electrical
instruments, Woods patented more than 50 inventions, including the "Induction
Telegraph System," a device for telegraphing messages from moving trains.
By making it possible for engineers to communicate with trains ahead of
or behind them, Woods' invention made train travel much safer. He also
developed a system that freed electric railroads from the use of wires
by introducing iron blocks that transmitted power through the rails. This
was the prototype of the "third rail" system used in modern subways.
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January 31
William Apess
(1798–1840?) : American Indian (Pequot). Writer
and civil rights activist. A traveling Methodist preacher, Apess published
in 1829 his autobiography, A Son of the Forest—the first book
written and published by a Native American. In this and subsequent writings,
and in his public life as a spokesman for the Pequots, Apess challenged
the racial assumptions of European Americans and asserted the rights of
all people of color to be considered the equals of whites.
Ella Cara Deloria
(1889–1971) : American Indian (Dakota Sioux). Researcher
and writer. Deloria worked as a teacher and health educator and did extensive
work as a research specialist in American Indian languages and cultures.
Her novel Waterlily is a fictional portrait of traditional Sioux
life.
Jack Roosevelt
(Jackie) Robinson (1919–1972) : African American.
An outstanding hitter and fielder known for his daring base runs, Robinson
broke the color barrier in major league baseball when he signed with the
Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.
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