January 26: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

January 26 is the 26th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 339 days remaining (340 in leap years).

Events

• 1340 - King Edward III of England is declared King of France.
• 1500 - Vicente Yáñez Pinzón becomes the first European to discover Brazil.
• 1531 - Lisbon, Portugal is hit by an earthquake--thousands die.
• 1699 - Treaty of Carlowitz signed.
• 1700 - The magnitude 9 Cascadia Earthquake took place off the coast of the American Northwest, as evidenced by Japanese records.
• 1736 - Stanislaus I of Poland abdicates his throne.
• 1785 - Benjamin Franklin writes a letter to his daughter expressing disappointment over the selection of the eagle as the symbol of the United States; he wanted the turkey.
• 1788 - The British First Fleet, led by Arthur Phillip, sail into Sydney Harbour to establish Sydney, the first permanent European settlement on the continent. Celebrated as Australia Day.
• 1802 - The U.S. Congress passes an act calling for a library to be established within the U.S. Capitol; eventually this becomes the Library of Congress.
• 1808 - Rum Rebellion, the only successful (but temporary) armed takeover of the government in Australia.
• 1837 - Michigan is admitted as the 26th U.S. state.
• 1838 - Tennessee enacts the first prohibition law in the United States
• 1841 - The United Kingdom formally occupies Hong Kong, which China had ceded.
• 1861 - The state of Louisiana secedes from the Union.
• 1863 - American Civil War: General Ambrose Burnside is relieved of command of the Army of the Potomac after the disastrous Fredericksburg campaign. He is replaced by Joseph Hooker.
• 1863 - American Civil War: Massachusetts Governor receives permission from Secretary of War to raise a militia organization for men of African descent.
• 1870 - American Civil War: Virginia rejoins the Union.
• 1885 - Troops loyal to the Mahdi conquer Khartoum.
• 1887 - Battle of Dogali: Abyssinian troops defeat Italians.
• 1905 - The Cullinan Diamond is found near Pretoria, South Africa at the Premier Mine.
• 1911 - Glenn H. Curtiss flies the first successful seaplane.
• 1934 - The Apollo Theater opens in Harlem, New York City.
• 1939 - Spanish Civil War: Troops loyal to Francisco Franco and aided by Italy take Barcelona.
• 1942 - World War II: The first American forces arrive in Europe landing in Northern Ireland.
• 1946 - Félix Gouin becomes Prime Minister of France.
• 1950 - India promulgates its constitution forming a republic and Rajendra Prasad is sworn in as its first president.
• 1956 - 1956 Winter Olympic Games open in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy.
• 1961 - John F. Kennedy appoints Janet G. Travell to be his physician. This is the first time a woman holds this appointment.
• 1962 - Ranger 3 is launched to study the moon. The space probe later missed the moon by 22,000 miles (35,400 km).
• 1965 - Hindi becomes the official language of India.
• 1966 - The Beaumont Children go missing from Glenelg Beach in Adelaide, South Australia.
• 1970 - Folk rock duo Simon and Garfunkel release classic album Bridge Over Troubled Water.
• 1980 - Israel and Egypt establish diplomatic relations.
• 1983 - Lotus 1-2-3 is released.
• 1986 - Super Bowl XX: The Chicago Bears defeat the New England Patriots, 46-10.
• 1992 - Boris Yeltsin announces that Russia is going to stop targeting United States cities with nuclear weapons.
• 1992 - Super Bowl XXVI: The Washington Redskins defeat the Buffalo Bills, 37-24.
• 1993 - Václav Havel elected President of the Czech Republic.
• 1994 - A man fires two blank shots at Charles, Prince of Wales in Sydney, Australia.
• 1996 - Whitewater scandal: Hillary Rodham Clinton testifies before a grand jury.
• 1997 - Super Bowl XXXI: The Green Bay Packers defeat the New England Patriots, 35-21.
• 1998 - Lewinsky scandal: On American television, Bill Clinton denies he had "sexual relations" with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
• 1998 - Compaq buys Digital Equipment Corporation.
• 2000 - Robert F. Vasa ordained Bishop of the Diocese of Baker
• 2000 - XHTML 1.0 becomes a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Recommendation.
• 2001 - A 50-year-old Douglas DC-3 crashes near Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela killing 24.
• 2001 - An earthquake hits Gujarat, India, causing more than 20,000 deaths.
• 2003 - Super Bowl XXXVII: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeat the Oakland Raiders, 48-21, earning the Buccaneers their first Vince Lombardi Trophy.
• 2005 - Three trains crash, killing 11 and injuring 200 in Glendale, California near Los Angeles.
• 2005 - Having been confirmed earlier in the day by a vote of 85-13 in the United States Senate, Condoleezza Rice is sworn in as U.S. Secretary of State, becoming the first African American woman to hold the post.
• 2005 - A helicopter crash in eastern Iraq kills 31 United States soldiers.

• 1497 - Emperor Go-Nara of Japan (d. 1557)
• 1541 - Florent Chrestien, French writer (d. 1596)
• 1714 - Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, French sculptor (d. 1785)
• 1716 - George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville, British soldier and politician (d. 1785)
• 1722 - Alexander Carlyle, Scottish church leader (d. 1805)
• 1763 - King Charles XIV of Sweden, Jean Baptiste Jules Bernadotte, Napoleonic general (d. 1841)
• 1781 - Achim von Arnim, German poet (d. 1831)
• 1813 - Juan Pablo Duarte, founding father of the Dominican Republic (d. 1876)
• 1826 - Julia Dent Grant, First Lady of the United States (d. 1902)
• 1880 - Douglas MacArthur, American general (d. 1964)
• 1891 - Frank Costello, Italian-born gangster (d. 1973)
• 1892 - Zara Cully, American actress (d. 1978)
• 1900 - Karl Ristenpart, German conductor (d. 1967)
• 1901 - Stuart Symington, American politician (d. 1988)
• 1902 - Menno ter Braak, Dutch author and polemicist (d. 1940)
• 1904 - Ancel Keys, American scientist (d. 2004)
• 1904 - Seán MacBride, Irish statesman, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1988)
• 1905 - Charles Lane, American actor
• 1905 - Maria von Trapp, Austrian-born singer (d. 1987)
• 1908 - Stéphane Grappelli, French jazz violinist (d. 1997)
• 1911 - Polykarp Kusch, German-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1993)
• 1913 - James Van Heusen, American songwriter (d. 1990)
• 1915 - William Hopper, American actor (d. 1970)
• 1918 - Nicolae Ceauşescu, Romanian dictator (d. 1989)
• 1918 - Philip José Farmer, American writer
• 1921 - Akio Morita, Japanese businessman (d. 1999)
• 1922 - Michael Bentine, British comedian (d. 1996)
• 1923 - Anne Jeffreys, American actress
• 1924 - Rauf Denktash, Cypriot politician
• 1924 - Annette Strauss, philanthropist and Mayor of Dallas, Texas (d. 1998)
• 1925 - Joan Leslie, American actress
• 1925 - Paul Newman, American actor
• 1927 - José Azcona del Hoyo, President of Honduras (d. 2005)
• 1928 - Roger Vadim, French film director and actor (d. 2000)
• 1929 - Jules Feiffer, American cartoonist and writer
• 1932 - Clement Seymour "Sir Coxsone" Dodd, Jamaican record producer
• 1935 - Bob Uecker, baseball player, broadcaster, and actor
• 1937 - Joseph Saidu Momoh, Sierra Leone political leader (d. 2003)
• 1941 - Scott Glenn, American actor
• 1941 - Henry Jaglom, English director
• 1943 - César Gutiérrez, Venezuelan Major League Baseball player (d. 2005)
• 1943 - Jean Knight, American singer
• 1944 - Angela Davis, American feminist and activist
• 1945 - Jacqueline du Pré, English cellist (d. 1987)
• 1946 - Gene Siskel, American film critic (d. 1999)
• 1953 - Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Prime Minister of Denmark
• 1953 - Lucinda Williams, American singer
• 1955 - Eddie Van Halen, Dutch-born musician
• 1958 - Anita Baker, American singer
• 1958 - Ellen DeGeneres, American actress, comedienne, and talk show host
• 1961 - Wayne Gretzky, Canadian hockey player, coach, and team owner
• 1962 - Oscar Ruggeri, Argentine footballer
• 1963 - José Mourinho, Portuguese football manager
• 1963 - Andrew Ridgeley, English musician
• 1970 - Kirk Franklin, American singer
• 1971 - Dorian Gregory, American actor
• 1976 - James May, British writer
• 1977 - Vince Carter, American basketball player
• 1995 - Kyle Chavarria, American actress

• 1567 - Nicholas Wotton, English diplomat
• 1630 - Henry Briggs, English mathematician (b. 1556)
• 1636 - Jean Hotman, Marquis de Villers-St-Paul, French diplomat (b. 1552)
• 1697 - Georg Mohr, Danish mathematician (b. 1640)
• 1744 - Ludwig Andreas Graf Khevenhüller, Austrian field marshal (b. 1683)
• 1750 - Albert Schultens, Dutch philologist (b. 1686)
• 1795 - Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, German composer (b. 1732)
• 1799 - Gabriel Christie, British general (b. 1722)
• 1823 - Edward Jenner, English physician (b. 1749)
• 1824 - Théodore Géricault, French writer (b. 1791)
• 1855 - Gérard de Nerval, French writer (b. 1808)
• 1885 - Edward Davy, English inventor, physician, and scientist (b. 1806)
• 1885 - Charles George Gordon, British general (b. 1833)
• 1886 - David Rice Atchison, American politician (b. 1807)
• 1942 - Felix Hausdorff, German mathematician (b. 1868)
• 1943 - Harry H. Laughlin, American eugenicist (b. 1880)
• 1943 - Nikolai Vavilov, Russian botanist (b. 1887)
• 1947 - Grace Moore, American soprano (plane crash) (b. 1898)
• 1947 - Prince Gustaf Adolf, Duke of Westrobothnia, second in line to the Swedish throne (b. 1906)
• 1952 - Horloogiyn Choybalsan, leader of Mongolia
• 1961 - Stan Nichols, English cricketer (b. 1900)
• 1962 - Lucky Luciano, American mobster (b. 1897)
• 1968 - Merrill C. Meigs, American newspaper publisher, and aviation promoter (b. 1883)
• 1968 - Yvor Winters, American poet and critic (b. 1900)
• 1972 - Mahalia Jackson, American singer (b. 1911)
• 1973 - Edward G. Robinson, American actor (b. 1893)
• 1979 - Nelson Rockefeller, Governor of New York and Vice President of the United States (b. 1908)
• 1983 - Paul "Bear" Bryant, American football coach (b. 1913)
• 1990 - Lewis Mumford, American historian (b. 1895)
• 1992 - José Ferrer, Puerto Rican actor (b. 1912)
• 1993 - Jan Gies, Dutch resistance leader (b. 1905)
• 1993 - Jeanne Sauvé, Governor-General of Canada (b. 1922)
• 1996 - Harold Brodkey, American author (b. 1930)
• 1996 - Dave Schultz, American wrestler (b. 1959)
• 1997 - Jeane Dixon, American astrologer (b. 1904)
• 1998 - Shinichi Suzuki, Japanese music teacher (b. 1898)
• 2000 - Don Budge, American tennis player (b. 1915)
• 2000 - Kathleen Hale, British author (b. 1898)
• 2000 - A. E. van Vogt, Canadian-born author (b. 1912)
• 2001 - Al McGuire, American basketball coach (b. 1928)
• 2003 - Valeriy Brumel, Russian athlete (b. 1942)
• 2003 - Hugh Trevor-Roper, Baron Dacre of Glanton, English historian (b. 1917)
• 2003 - George Younger, 4th Viscount Younger of Leckie, British politician (b. 1931)
• 2004 - Fred Haas, American golfer

• Australia - Australia Day
• Roman Empire - third day of the Sementivae in honor of Ceres and Terra
• Feast day of the following saints in the Roman Catholic Church
  • Timothy and Titus
  • Saint Paula
  • Polycarp
  • Saint Alberic
  • Margaret of Hungary
• India - Republic Day - One of only three state holidays in India, celebrated with pomp and a military parade in New Delhi

January 25 - January 27 - December 26 - February 26 — listing of all days