178 Fun Facts About January

The month of January takes its name from which Roman god of beginnings and transitions?

Janus was invoked at the start of every Roman ceremony, whichever god the ceremony was actually for, which suits a month of beginnings.

January had 29 days until whose calendar reform of 45 BC gave it 31?

Julius Caesar added two days to January, and before his new calendar began he stretched 46 BC to 445 days so that the months could catch up with the seasons.

The god January is named for is usually shown with what unusual feature?

A double-sided head: Janus, the Roman god of doorways and beginnings, has two faces on one neck, one looking back to the past and the other ahead to the future.

Which successor of Romulus is traditionally credited with adding January and February to Rome's ten-month calendar?

Numa Pompilius, Rome's second king, is credited with adding January and February to a ten-month year of 304 days that had simply left the winter uncounted.

In 153 BC Rome's consuls began taking office on 1 January, moved up from the middle of which month?

March: the consuls had taken office on the 15th, the Ides, but a rebellion in Hispania needed commanders sooner, so the new pair started on 1 January instead.

The doors of the Temple of Janus in Rome were shut only when?

The doors of Janus's shrine in the Forum stood open in wartime and were shut only when Rome was at peace; Augustus boasted of closing them three times.

Which gemstone is the birthstone for January?

Garnet is January's birthstone; its name probably comes from the Latin granatum, pomegranate, a fruit whose red seeds look much like the crystals.

Which band gave its final public performance on a London rooftop on 30 January 1969?

The Beatles played for 42 minutes on the roof of their Savile Row headquarters before police, called out over the noise, climbed up and had the volume turned down.

Galanthus, the snowdrop's genus name, combines the Greek for flower with the Greek word for what?

Milk: Linnaeus formed the name in 1753 from the Greek gála, milk, and ánthos, flower; the same gála gives us 'galaxy', named after the Milky Way.

Which two zodiac signs fall in January?

Capricorn and Aquarius: the signs change around 20 January, but the stars have drifted since the dates were fixed, so the Sun really sits in front of Sagittarius for most of the month.

In most of the Northern Hemisphere, January is on average the year's what?

Coldest month: January is usually colder than December even though its days are already getting longer, because land and sea go on losing heat for weeks after the winter solstice.

Earth is closest to the Sun in early January, so what makes that month winter in the north?

A tilted axis: in January the north leans away from the Sun, so its light arrives low and brief, even though Earth is about 5 million km closer than it is in July.

The full moon in January is traditionally named after which animal?

Wolf: January's full moon is the Wolf Moon, a name spread by American almanacs and said to recall hungry wolves howling in the depths of midwinter.

The Times Square ball drop borrows from 'time balls', dropped daily at Greenwich from 1833 to help whom set their clocks?

Ships' captains on the Thames set their chronometers by the Greenwich ball, vital for fixing longitude at sea; Times Square first borrowed the idea to welcome 1908.

When wartime lighting limits halted the Times Square ball drop in 1942 and 1943, what marked midnight instead?

A silence, then chimes: with the ball dark for two wartime years, the crowds still came and stood quiet before bells rang out from sound trucks parked at the foot of the tower.

From 1752 an Act of Parliament began England's year on 1 January and brought in which calendar?

The Gregorian calendar: the same Act moved the start of the legal year from Lady Day in spring and cut eleven days out of September 1752 to catch up with the Continent.

New Year's Day cold-water plunges are nicknamed after which animal?

Polar bear plunges are named after clubs like Coney Island's Polar Bear Club, founded in 1903 by fitness guru Bernarr Macfadden, who held that a winter dip in the sea built stamina and immunity.

Hogmanay is the Scots word for what?

Hogmanay is the Scots name for 31 December, the last day of the year; the celebration runs so long that 2 January is also a Scottish bank holiday.

Who is traditionally preferred as the first-foot across a Scottish threshold after midnight?

A tall, dark-haired man is the luckiest first-foot, a preference often traced to Viking raids, when a fair-haired stranger meant trouble; he brings coal, shortbread, whisky or black bun.

In Western Christianity, the feast of Epiphany on 6 January principally commemorates what?

Western Epiphany commemorates the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus; Eastern churches instead mark his baptism in the Jordan and call the feast Theophany.

In Mexico, whoever finds the baby Jesus figure in a Three Kings' Day rosca must do what?

The finder must host a party on Candlemas, Día de la Candelaria on 2 February, usually serving tamales and atole to everyone who shared the rosca.

Superstition says it is unlucky to leave Christmas decorations up after which January date?

Twelfth Night, 5 or 6 January depending on how the twelve days are counted, is the modern deadline; in medieval and Tudor England the greenery stayed up until the start of February.

Why do many Russians celebrate Christmas on 7 January?

The Orthodox Church uses the Julian calendar, which runs 13 days behind the civil one until 2100, so its 25 December falls on 7 January; after that the feast slips to 8 January.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is observed on which day each year?

The third Monday of January can fall anywhere from the 15th to the 21st, so the holiday lands on King's actual birthday, 15 January, only in years when that date is a Monday.

On 15 January 2009, Captain 'Sully' Sullenberger ditched a stricken airliner in which river?

The Hudson: a flock of Canada geese knocked out both engines minutes after take-off from LaGuardia, and all 155 people on board were picked up by ferries and rescue boats.

Martin Luther King Jr. was born on 15 January 1929 in which city?

King was born in Atlanta, at 501 Auburn Avenue in the Sweet Auburn district; born Michael King Jr., he and his father took the name Martin Luther in 1934.

Australia Day marks the 1788 raising of the Union Flag by which governor?

Arthur Phillip raised the flag at Sydney Cove on 26 January 1788, having rejected Botany Bay, the fleet's intended landing place, for its poor soil and scarce fresh water.

India's Republic Day on 26 January commemorates what event in 1950?

The Constitution coming into effect made India a republic; the date was picked because the Indian National Congress had declared Purna Swaraj, complete independence, on 26 January 1930.

Burns Night, celebrated on 25 January, traditionally centres on which dish?

Haggis is the centrepiece, piped in and greeted with Burns's 'Address to a Haggis'; the first supper, held by his friends in 1801, fell in July, on the anniversary of his death.

Japan moved Coming of Age Day in 2000 from 15 January to the second Monday to create what?

A three-day weekend: the 'Happy Monday System' shifted several holidays to Mondays, and as a second Monday falls between the 8th and the 14th, the day can no longer land on its old date.

Chinese New Year celebrations end on the 15th day with what?

The Lantern Festival falls on the first full moon of the lunar year, when families eat sweet rice balls and children try to solve the riddles written on the lanterns.

Dry January, the campaign to give up alcohol for the month, is run by a charity from which country?

Dry January is run by the United Kingdom charity Alcohol Change UK, which launched it in 2013 with about 4,000 sign-ups and then registered the name as a trademark.

'Blue Monday' was invented in a 2005 press release for what kind of business?

A travel agency: Sky Travel's press release dressed up a formula for the year's gloomiest day in the hope of selling holidays, and scientists have dismissed the sum as pseudoscience.

Which document, issued by Lincoln on 1 January 1863, declared enslaved people in the rebel states free?

The Emancipation Proclamation applied only to states still in rebellion, so it left slavery untouched in loyal border states such as Kentucky and Maryland.

Annie Moore from Cork was the first person processed on 1 January 1892 at which station?

Ellis Island opened that day, and Annie Moore, a teenager who had crossed from Cork with her two younger brothers to rejoin their parents, was the first through its doors.

Which US state was admitted to the Union on 3 January 1959?

Alaska became the 49th state, and the 49-star flag made for it was official for just one year before Hawaii's star joined it on 4 July 1960.

Which website, founded by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, launched on 15 January 2001?

Wikipedia launched on 15 January 2001; Larry Sanger proposed the name as a blend of 'wiki', Hawaiian for quick, and 'encyclopedia'.

How many seconds into its flight on 28 January 1986 did the Space Shuttle Challenger break apart?

73 seconds after liftoff, Challenger broke apart: a freezing night had stiffened the rubber O-ring seals in its right booster, and hot gas escaped through the joint.

A cabin fire during a launch rehearsal on 27 January 1967 killed the crew of which NASA mission?

Apollo 1's crew, Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee, died when fire swept a cabin pressurised with pure oxygen during a plugs-out test at Launch Complex 34.

Elvis Presley was born on 8 January 1935 in which Mississippi town?

Elvis was born in a two-room house in Tupelo, Mississippi; his twin brother, Jesse Garon, was stillborn, so Elvis grew up as an only child.

Which Founding Father was born in Boston on 17 January 1706, the son of a candle maker?

Benjamin Franklin left Boston at 17, running away from an apprenticeship under his brother to Philadelphia, the city his name has been tied to ever since.

Which French king was executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793?

Louis XVI was beheaded in what was then the Place de la Révolution, since renamed the Place de la Concorde, or 'harmony'; Marie Antoinette died on the same spot nine months later.

Which Nordic country swapped its own currency for euro notes and coins on 1 January 2002?

Finland was the only Nordic country to switch to euro notes and coins that day; Danish voters had rejected the currency in 2000, and Swedish voters did the same in 2003.

The first Super Bowl, played on 15 January 1967, saw the Green Bay Packers beat which team 35-10?

The Kansas City Chiefs lost 35-10 at the Los Angeles Coliseum, where about a third of the seats sat empty, even with CBS and NBC both televising the game.

Which leader was shot dead on his way to an evening prayer meeting in New Delhi on 30 January 1948?

Mahatma Gandhi was shot by Nathuram Godse in the garden of Birla House, where he led prayers each evening; the house is now a museum and India keeps 30 January as Martyrs' Day.

In 1919, a burst tank sent a wave of what through Boston's North End at about 35 mph?

Molasses: the hastily built tank had leaked and rumbled ever since it was first filled, and when it finally burst on 15 January 1919 the flood killed 21 people.

The first Winter Olympic Games opened on 25 January 1924 in which French town?

Chamonix, in the Alps below Mont Blanc, staged the events as an 'International Winter Sports Week'; only afterwards did the IOC recognise them as the first Winter Olympics.

Which composer, born on 27 January 1756, wrote his first symphony at the age of eight?

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote the symphony in London in 1764, midway through a three-year tour on which he and his sister performed in the great cities of western Europe.

World Braille Day marks the birthday of Louis Braille, born in 1809 in which country?

France: Braille, blinded as a small boy by an awl in his father's workshop, built his dot alphabet on a raised-dot code devised by Charles Barbier, a former artillery officer.

Which country singer recorded a famous live album inside Folsom Prison on 13 January 1968?

Johnny Cash had sung about Folsom since 1955, in a song inspired by a prison film he saw while in the Air Force, and letters from inmates asking him to play finally brought him inside.

Einhard records that Charlemagne gave January which name?

Wintarmanoth, 'winter month': Einhard says Charlemagne gave all twelve months names in his own tongue, to replace the jumble of Latin and 'barbarous' names his Franks had been using.

In which language is the month of January called 'gennaio'?

Italian: gennaio descends from the Latin Ianuarius, as does the Portuguese janeiro, the word explorers gave to Rio de Janeiro after sailing into its bay on 1 January 1502.

Which state joined the Union on 29 January 1861 after years of bloody border fighting over slavery?

Kansas came in as a free state, and the date is kept each year as Kansas Day, a custom begun in 1877 by a class of schoolchildren in the town of Paola.

In the United States, January is promoted as the national 'month' of which food?

Soup: National Soup Month fills the whole of January, a midwinter promotion that is credited to the Campbell Soup Company, which sells canned soup.

Where is 25 January celebrated as St Dwynwen's Day, after the local patron saint of lovers?

Wales: Dwynwen, the story goes, was a princess so unlucky in love that she became a nun and prayed that true lovers would fare better; her church stood on Llanddwyn, off Anglesey.

Which Pacific island nation, the world's third-smallest country, marks its Independence Day on 31 January?

Nauru left an Australian-run UN trusteeship on 31 January 1968; in 2026 the island of 21 square kilometres officially renamed itself Naoero, the name in its own language.

Which 16 January observance did columnist Harold Coffin propose in 1972 to mock the glut of commemorative days?

National Nothing Day: Coffin wanted one day when Americans could 'just sit without celebrating, observing or honoring anything', and Chase's Calendar of Events has listed it since 1973.

Which packaging material gets an appreciation day on the last Monday of January?

Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day began in 2001 at a radio station in Bloomington, Indiana, which unwrapped a delivery of equipment and sent the sound of the popping bubbles out on air.

Which Caribbean nation, independent since 1804, marks Independence Day on 1 January and Ancestry Day on 2 January?

Haiti: Jean-Jacques Dessalines proclaimed independence at Gonaïves on 1 January 1804 and restored the land's native name in place of the colonial Saint-Domingue; Ancestry Day honours the fighters.

Which country's Line Islands, on UTC+14, are the first inhabited places to welcome each New Year?

Kiribati struck a whole 31 December from the calendar of its eastern islands in the 1990s so that the country shared one date, which bent the date line east and put the Line Islands first.

Which bandleader's Royal Canadians were famed for their New York New Year's Eve broadcasts?

Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians began their New Year's Eve broadcasts from New York in 1929, and their recording of 'Auld Lang Syne', the band's theme, is the one traditionally played in Times Square once the ball has dropped.

At midnight on New Year's Eve, Spaniards eat twelve of which food, one for each chime of the clock?

Grapes: the custom is often credited to Alicante growers with a bumper harvest to sell in 1909, but old newspapers show Spaniards were already doing it decades earlier.

On New Year's Eve, Ecuadorians burn life-size effigies known by what name?

Año Viejo, 'old year': families stuff old clothes with paper or sawdust to make a figure of the year's troubles, often a politician or a cartoon character, and burn it at midnight.

As midnight strikes on New Year's Eve, the people of Stonehaven in Scotland parade swinging what around their heads?

Balls of fire: about forty locals whirl wire cages packed with burning rags and paper along the High Street as the bells ring, then fling them, still blazing, into the harbour.

Which Japanese broadcaster stages the Kōhaku Uta Gassen, the New Year's Eve song battle?

NHK first staged Kōhaku as a radio show on 3 January 1951 and moved it to New Year's Eve in December 1953, so that year heard the red and white teams' song battle twice.

Which orchestra's New Year's concert, broadcast around the world, is traditionally performed on the morning of 1 January?

The Vienna Philharmonic's New Year's Concert in the Musikverein's Golden Hall dates from 1939 and ends with the Radetzky March, which the audience claps along to.

New Year's resolutions are often traced to promises to the gods by which ancient people?

The Babylonians are said to have promised their gods some 4,000 years ago, at Akitu, a 12-day new year festival, to repay debts and return borrowed objects.

Since 1970, some countries celebrate Epiphany on which day instead of 6 January?

Since the 1970 reform, countries without 6 January as a holy day of obligation keep Epiphany on the Sunday after New Year's Day, falling between 2 and 8 January.

Which four items does a priest bless on Epiphany in parts of central Europe?

Water, frankincense, gold and chalk are blessed; the chalk then marks door lintels with the year and C+M+B, also read as 'Christus mansionem benedicat', may Christ bless this house.

On the first Monday after Epiphany, English farm lads once hauled what from door to door, demanding money?

A plough, often decorated, was dragged round the village on Plough Monday, the old start of the farming year; in some places a household that refused to pay had its doorstep ploughed up.

Law students watched the first recorded performance of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night in 1602 in which London hall?

Middle Temple Hall, in one of London's Inns of Court, staged it on 2 February 1602; law student John Manningham's diary relished the trick played on the steward Malvolio.

Which singer's 1980 song 'Happy Birthday' campaigned for the MLK holiday?

Stevie Wonder put 'Happy Birthday' on his 1980 album Hotter than July and hosted the 1981 Rally for Peace to push the campaign; six million signatures were gathered for a petition to Congress.

Which president signed the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday into law?

Ronald Reagan had opposed the holiday, but signed it on 2 November 1983 after Congress passed it by veto-proof margins, 338-90 in the House and 78-22 in the Senate.

Which state lost the 1993 Super Bowl after its voters rejected a paid Martin Luther King holiday in 1990?

Arizona was due to host Super Bowl XXVII in Tempe, but the NFL moved it to Pasadena after the vote failed; voters approved the holiday in 1992 and Tempe got its Super Bowl in 1996.

Which fantasy author, born on 3 January 1892, do fans around the world toast each year on his birthday?

J. R. R. Tolkien is toasted at 9 pm local time every 3 January: the Tolkien Society asks fans everywhere to raise a glass and say simply 'The Professor'.

Which constitutional amendment brought Inauguration Day forward to January?

The Twentieth Amendment, nicknamed the Lame Duck Amendment, brought the swearing-in forward by about six weeks to shorten the time that defeated presidents and congressmen kept their seats.

Which poet recited 'The Gift Outright' at John F. Kennedy's January 1961 inauguration?

Robert Frost, then 86, could not read his new poem 'Dedication' in the glare of sun on snow, so he recited 'The Gift Outright' from memory on 20 January 1961.

Which legal status did Australians first gain on Australia Day 1949?

Citizenship of Australia began on 26 January 1949 under the Nationality and Citizenship Act; until then Australians had simply been British subjects.

Which award is presented on Australia Day Eve?

The Australian of the Year is named in Canberra on Australia Day Eve; from 1975 to 1979 rival Victorian and Canberra councils each named their own until a national body took over.

Some Indigenous Australians observe 26 January under what alternative names?

Invasion Day or Survival Day: on 26 January 1938, as Sydney celebrated 150 years of British settlement, Aboriginal protesters took to the city's streets and held a congress they called the Day of Mourning.

Robert Burns was born in which Ayrshire village?

Burns was born on 25 January 1759 in Alloway, in a cottage his father William built, now part of the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum.

Burns planned to emigrate to which island to work on a sugar plantation?

Burns planned to sail to Jamaica as a plantation bookkeeper in 1786 and published the Kilmarnock edition of his poems to pay for the passage; its success kept him in Scotland.

Which Robert Burns song, voiced as Robert the Bruce's speech before Bannockburn, long served as an unofficial national anthem?

Scots Wha Hae was set by Burns in 1793 to 'Hey Tuttie Tatie', the tune that tradition says Bruce's army played at Bannockburn; it later became the Scottish National Party's song.

Which Robert Burns poem follows a drunken farmer chased home by witches?

Tam o' Shanter has Tam flee on his mare Meg, who loses her tail to a witch at the bridge; the flat woollen bonnet called a tam o' shanter is named after the poem's hero.

Most garnet mined for industry ends up being used as what?

Industrial garnet is mostly crushed for abrasives, from garnet sandpaper to the grit in waterjet cutting, because it is hard and breaks into sharp-edged grains.

Anglo-Saxon garnet cloisonné jewellery was famously found at which burial site?

Sutton Hoo's ship burial was uncovered in 1939 by Basil Brown, a self-taught local excavator working for landowner Edith Pretty; its gold shoulder clasps and purse lid are set with garnets.

Which state adopted the red carnation as its flower to honour assassinated President McKinley?

Ohio adopted the scarlet carnation in 1904 in memory of McKinley, an Ohioan who wore one as a lucky charm and reportedly gave his away moments before he was shot in 1901.

Oxford students wear a white carnation to their first exam and which colour to their last?

Red marks the final paper, with pink worn for the exams in between; by custom friends or college 'family' buy the carnations for the candidate.

Which rock star, born in London on 8 January 1947, shared his birthday with Elvis Presley?

David Bowie released his final album, Blackstar, on his 69th birthday, 8 January 2016, and died two days later; his producer called it a parting gift to fans.

Galantamine, a compound found in snowdrop bulbs, is prescribed to treat which condition?

Alzheimer's leaves the brain short of the messenger acetylcholine, and galantamine slows its breakdown; the compound is also extracted from daffodils.

Soldiers returning from which war brought snowdrop bulbs home to Britain?

The Crimean War: returning soldiers carried home bulbs of Galanthus plicatus, the Crimean snowdrop, which crossed with snowdrops already in English gardens and spurred Victorian breeding.

Aquarius is one of the three air signs, alongside which two?

Gemini and Libra share the air element with Aquarius, which, despite being the Water Bearer, is not a water sign.

For decades, a mystery visitor left roses and cognac every 19 January at the Baltimore grave of which writer?

Edgar Allan Poe was born on 19 January 1809; the unidentified 'Poe Toaster' drank to him at the grave each birthday and left three roses, a ritual last seen in 2009.

The word 'wassail' comes from an Old Norse salutation meaning what?

Wassail comes from Old Norse ves heill, 'be in good health'; the toast's traditional reply was 'drinkhail', drink good health.

Which Punjabi festival in mid-January marks the end of winter with bonfires?

Lohri falls around 13 January, the eve of Makar Sankranti: children go door to door singing folk songs about the hero Dulla Bhatti, and sweets and popcorn are fed to the bonfire.

Makar Sankranti, India's mid-January harvest festival, marks the sun's transition into which zodiac sign?

Capricorn is Makara in Sanskrit, and sankranti means the sun's passage into a new sign; because the date follows the sun, not the moon, it falls on 14 or 15 January every year.

Which mythical beast, said to eat villagers, is central to Chinese New Year legend?

The Nian, in the legend, preyed on villagers each New Year's Eve until they found it feared loud noise, fire and the colour red, the story told to explain firecrackers and red decorations.

Chunyun, the 40-day season around Chinese New Year, is often called the world's largest annual what?

Human migration on this scale happens because students and migrant workers all head home at once for the reunion dinner on New Year's Eve; chunyun literally means 'spring transport'.

Which upheaval led China to ban official Chinese New Year celebrations in 1967?

The Cultural Revolution branded the Spring Festival an 'old custom': workers were told to stay at their posts with no days off, and the holiday was only restored in 1980.

Japan's adulthood age fell from 20 to 18 in 2022, but what still requires being 20?

Drinking, like smoking and betting on horse races, stayed at 20 when the Civil Code change took effect on 1 April 2022; the government kept those limits over health concerns.

Which Japanese city is credited with inspiring the national Coming of Age Day?

Warabi, in Saitama Prefecture, held a 'Youth Festival' in November 1946 to encourage young people after the war; it inspired the Coming of Age Day created by the 1948 National Holidays Law.

Sukarno, chief guest at India's first Republic Day in 1950, was the founding president of which country?

Indonesia's Sukarno was a fitting first guest: the Dutch had handed over sovereignty only at the end of 1949, and Nehru had rallied other nations behind the independence struggle.

When would something happen if a Roman said it would occur 'at the Greek calends'?

Greeks had no calends, so the day never came.

Roman prayers named January's namesake god first and which hearth goddess last?

Vesta, Rome's counterpart of the Greek Hestia, closed every prayer and sacrifice because, as Cicero put it, her power extended over altars and hearths; her Vestal Virgins kept Rome's sacred flame alight.

Which awards show began in 1944 as an informal ceremony at the 20th Century-Fox studios?

The Golden Globes began when Hollywood's foreign correspondents handed the winners scrolls rather than trophies; The Song of Bernadette took the top film prize.

Robert Redford named his Utah ski resort after his role in which film?

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) gave the resort its name; the film festival began in Salt Lake City in 1978 as the Utah/US Film Festival, set up to draw filmmakers to Utah.

Which star scored the shootout winner in falling snow at the NHL's first Winter Classic in 2008?

Sidney Crosby's shootout goal gave Pittsburgh a 2-1 win over Buffalo; with snow and wind sweeping the rink, play was stopped midway through the third period so the teams could swap ends.

The 2014 Winter Classic set an NHL attendance record of 105,491 at which college football stadium?

Michigan Stadium, the 'Big House', saw Toronto beat Detroit in a shootout a year late: the game had been set for 1 January 2013 until the NHL lockout wiped it out.

The Australian Open has twice been played outside Australia, in 1906 and 1912, in which country?

New Zealand shared the event, then the Australasian Championships, through a joint tennis body with Australia; Christchurch hosted in 1906 and Hastings in 1912, and the split came in 1922.

Which court surface did the Australian Open use before switching to hard courts in 1988?

Grass at Kooyong was the surface until 1987; the Open had outgrown the club, so in 1988 it moved to hard courts at the newly built Flinders Park, now Melbourne Park.

The Dakar Rally moved to which country in 2020?

The Dakar moved to Saudi Arabia in 2020 after a decade in South America (2009-2019), itself a move forced when the 2008 African edition was cancelled over terror threats.

The first Dakar Rally set off on 26 December 1978 from which European city?

Paris: 182 vehicles left the Place du Trocadéro that day; Thierry Sabine had dreamed up the race after getting lost in the desert on his motorbike during an Abidjan-Nice rally.

Which MP asked Tony Blair in 1999 to create a UK Holocaust memorial day?

Andrew Dismore, Labour MP for Hendon, put the case to Blair in 1999; the first UK Holocaust Memorial Day followed on 27 January 2001 at Westminster Central Hall.

Which Jane Austen novel was first published, anonymously, on 28 January 1813?

Pride and Prejudice appeared as 'by the Author of Sense and Sensibility'; Austen had sold the copyright outright for £110, so the profits of her most famous book went to her publisher.

Which nationwide ban took effect across the United States on 17 January 1920?

Selling alcohol, along with making and transporting it, became illegal under the Eighteenth Amendment; drinking it was not outlawed, and the ban was repealed in December 1933.

Dry January founder Emily Robinson first gave up alcohol in January 2011 to train for what?

Emily Robinson quit drinking for January 2011 while training for a half marathon, then joined Alcohol Concern, which turned her idea into the first Dry January in 2013.

Stephen Hawking was born on 8 January 1942, exactly 300 years after the death of which astronomer?

Galileo Galilei died on 8 January 1642 at Arcetri, near Florence, having spent his last years under house arrest for arguing that the Earth moves round the Sun.

The California gold rush began with a find on 24 January 1848 at whose sawmill?

John Sutter told his workers to keep the find quiet, but word got out; neither he nor James Marshall, who spotted the gold, profited, and Sutter lost most of his land.

Which Pasadena street hosts most of the Rose Parade route?

Colorado Boulevard carries most of the route; the parade is not held on a Sunday, moving to 2 January under an 1893 rule made so it would not disturb horses hitched outside churches.

Which broadcaster nicknamed the Rose Bowl 'The Granddaddy of Them All'?

Keith Jackson, ABC's longtime voice of college football, is credited with the nickname; the Rose Bowl earned it as the oldest bowl game, first played in 1902.

Which physicist dropped an O-ring sample into ice water at the Challenger inquiry?

Richard Feynman, a member of the Rogers Commission, clamped an O-ring sample and dunked it in ice water at a televised hearing to show the rubber lost its spring when cold.

Which teacher was aboard Challenger under the Teacher in Space Project?

Christa McAuliffe's presence meant many schools watched the Challenger launch live on 28 January 1986.

Which UN body proclaimed World Braille Day, first marked on 4 January 2019?

The General Assembly proclaimed the day in 2018 for the birthday of Louis Braille, who lost his sight after an accident at three with an awl in his father's workshop; he devised his code at fifteen.

Up Helly Aa in Lerwick, Shetland, ends each January with a torchlit procession burning what?

A replica Viking galley is burned, yet the Viking pageantry is a Victorian addition to the festival: the first galley went up in flames only in 1889.

Timkat, when priests parade replicas of the Ark of the Covenant each 19 January, is which country's Epiphany festival?

Ethiopia's Timkat marks the baptism of Jesus: each church's Tabot, its model of the Ark, is wrapped in cloth and carried on a priest's head to water, which is blessed towards dawn.

At Þorrablót, Iceland's midwinter feast, diners brave which notorious national delicacy?

Fermented shark, hákarl, is eaten that way from necessity: Greenland shark flesh is poisonous fresh, so it is left to ferment for weeks and then hung to dry for months.

Edmund Barton became the first holder of which Australian office on 1 January 1901?

Prime Minister Barton was second choice: the Governor-General first asked New South Wales premier William Lyne, but leading politicians refused to serve under him, a slip known as the Hopetoun Blunder.

Lerwick's Up Helly Aa torch procession grew out of which rowdier custom?

Dragging burning tar barrels on sledges through the streets of Lerwick was a dangerous sport that drew complaints about public safety; when it ended in the 1870s, the torchlit procession took its place.

What powered the trains when the world's first underground railway opened in London on 10 January 1863?

Steam locomotives hauled gas-lit wooden carriages through the tunnels of the Metropolitan Railway. Electric trains did not take over until 1905.

Holocaust Remembrance Day on 27 January marks the liberation of which Nazi camp by Soviet troops in 1945?

Auschwitz was reached by Soviet soldiers on 27 January 1945, and sixty years later the United Nations made that anniversary its day of remembrance.

Which product did Steve Jobs unveil at the Macworld expo in San Francisco on 9 January 2007?

The iPhone had been developed in secrecy since 2005, and buyers had to wait until 29 June 2007 before they could get one.

Captain Chesley Sullenberger ditched US Airways Flight 1549 in which waterway on 15 January 2009 after a bird strike?

The Hudson River ditching came less than four minutes after a flock of geese knocked out both engines, and nearby boats rescued all 155 people on board.

Which supersonic airliner began carrying passengers on 21 January 1976 with flights from both London and Paris?

Concorde entered service with two national airlines on the same day, cruising at twice the speed of sound.

Which Edgar Allan Poe poem, first printed under his name on 29 January 1845, made him a household name?

The Raven made Poe famous almost overnight but not rich: the magazine that bought the poem paid him just nine dollars for it.

Actress January Jones is best known for playing suburban housewife Betty Draper in which American television drama?

Mad Men kept Jones on screen for seven seasons. Her own first name comes from January Wayne, a character in the Jacqueline Susann novel Once Is Not Enough.

Which miniseries based on Alex Haley's family saga did ABC air over eight consecutive nights in January 1977?

Roots ran on consecutive nights because nervous ABC executives wanted it over quickly. Instead, 85 percent of American television homes saw at least part of it.

Which king was beheaded outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall, London, on 30 January 1649?

Charles I asked for an extra shirt before the execution, so that the crowd would not see him shiver in the cold and take it for fear.

What did carpenter James W. Marshall find at Sutter's Mill in California on 24 January 1848?

Gold flecks in the sawmill's drainage ditch set off the California rush, which drew about 300,000 people from across America and abroad.

The Old English name for January, Æfterra Gēola, means "after" which ancient seasonal feast?

Yule named two Anglo-Saxon months, the monk Bede wrote, because one comes before the day the sun turns back and the other follows it.

Which Swiss ski resort is known for hosting the World Economic Forum's meeting of leaders, usually held each January?

Davos first drew visitors for its mountain air: its sanatoriums for lung patients inspired the clinic in Thomas Mann's novel The Magic Mountain.

Which meteor shower peaking in early January is named after a constellation that astronomers no longer recognise?

Quadrantids keep the name of Quadrans Muralis, a constellation drawn in 1795 and left off the official list that astronomers adopted in 1930.

Which Romantic poet wrote The Eve of St. Agnes, set on the evening of 20 January?

John Keats built the poem on a folk belief: a girl who went to bed without supper that evening would see her future husband in a dream.

In which of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales does an elderly knight named January marry a young woman called May?

The Merchant's Tale plays the ages as seasons: wintry January is sixty, his bride May about twenty, and she soon takes up with his squire.

Which Cuban dictator fled the country on 1 January 1959 as Fidel Castro's rebels closed in?

Fulgencio Batista told his cabinet around midnight that he was resigning, fled to the Dominican Republic and spent the rest of his life in exile.

Which country peacefully split in two on 1 January 1993 in a break-up nicknamed the Velvet Divorce?

Czechoslovakia became two republics without a shot fired, and the nickname echoes the bloodless 1989 protests that had ended communist rule there.

Which dwarf planet, the first object found in the asteroid belt, did Giuseppe Piazzi discover on 1 January 1801?

Ceres was announced as a new planet and stayed in the astronomy books as one for more than fifty years before being reclassified.

Which Londoner began a diary on 1 January 1660 and kept it for almost a decade, writing in shorthand?

Samuel Pepys gave up in 1669, fearing for his eyesight, but left eyewitness accounts of the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London.

The Beatles gave their final public performance on 30 January 1969 on the London rooftop of which company?

Apple Corps was the band's own company, and the 42-minute lunchtime set above its Savile Row offices ended after police arrived to complain about the volume.

Which everyday food did American officials ban from sale on 18 January 1943 to save resources during the war?

Sliced bread needed heavier wrapping than a whole loaf, officials explained. The ban lasted only until 8 March, when they admitted the savings were smaller than expected.

Captain James Cook, reaching Hawaii on 18 January 1778, named the islands after which English earl?

Sandwich, the same earl whose title went to the snack, ran the Admiralty and had approved the money for the ships of Cook's later voyages.

Which word-lover, born on 18 January 1779, published his famous thesaurus only after retiring from medicine?

Peter Mark Roget gave up his medical practice in 1840, was at work on the book by 1846 and published it in 1852, when he was in his seventies.

Which Hollywood leading man was born Archibald Leach in Bristol, England, on 18 January 1904?

Cary Grant reached America at 16 as a stage performer, touring with a troupe of acrobatic dancers who had trained him as a stilt walker.

Oliver Hardy, born 18 January 1892, and Stan Laurel haul what up a long staircase in their Oscar-winning 1932 short?

A piano keeps sliding back to the bottom in The Music Box, which won the first Academy Award ever given to a live-action comedy short.

Which Nobel-winning author of the Just So Stories died on 18 January 1936, two days before King George V?

Rudyard Kipling was 41 when he won in 1907, the first English-language writer to take the literature prize, and his ashes lie in Poets' Corner.

Which double-deck airliner, the world's largest passenger jet, was unveiled in Toulouse on 18 January 2005?

Airbus A380 sections were too big for normal transport, so they reached the Toulouse factory by barge and in oversize road convoys.

On 18 January 1911, pilot Eugene Ely became the first person to land an aeroplane on what?

A warship, the cruiser USS Pennsylvania, carried a platform for him in San Francisco Bay, and hooks under the plane caught ropes stretched across it.

Which All in the Family spin-off about a dry-cleaning boss moving up to Manhattan premiered on 18 January 1975?

The Jeffersons had been the Bunkers' neighbours in Queens, and their own sitcom went on to run for eleven seasons and 253 episodes.

Which science-fiction novelist taught the young A. A. Milne, the Winnie-the-Pooh author born on 18 January 1882?

H. G. Wells taught in 1889 and 1890 at Henley House, the small London school that Milne's family ran, before The Time Machine made his name in 1895.

In which palace's Hall of Mirrors was Wilhelm I proclaimed German Emperor on 18 January 1871?

Versailles was a pointed choice: Paris was under siege nearby, and the date matched the 1701 crowning of Prussia's first king.

Henry VII's marriage to Elizabeth of York on 18 January 1486 united the two sides in which dynastic conflict?

Wars of the Roses enemies Lancaster and York were united by the wedding, held five months after Henry's victory at Bosworth, and it gave England the Tudor rose as a royal symbol.

The IOC restored the Olympic medals of which American athlete on 18 January 1983, seventy years after stripping them?

Jim Thorpe lost his 1912 pentathlon and decathlon titles because he had been paid to play semi-professional baseball, which broke the amateur rules of the day.

Danny Kaye, the entertainer born on 18 January 1911, became the first ambassador-at-large of which UN agency?

UNICEF once sent Kaye on a 50,000-mile tour of ten countries, which he turned into a television programme mixing the trip with music and humour.

In which 1989 film does Kevin Costner, born on 18 January 1955, build a baseball diamond on his Iowa farm?

Field of Dreams was shot on a real farm near Dyersville, Iowa, and its ballpark fills with the ghosts of the disgraced 1919 Chicago Black Sox.

Glenn Frey, who died on 18 January 2016, co-founded which rock band after backing Linda Ronstadt on tour?

Eagles drummer Don Henley was brought into Ronstadt's backing group by Frey himself, and the pair went on to write most of the band's material together.

Curly Howard, who died on 18 January 1952, was the high-voiced clown of which slapstick comedy team?

The Three Stooges also included his elder brothers Moe and Shemp Howard, and a stroke in May 1946 ended Curly's show-business career.

Which former US president died on 18 January 1862 soon after winning a seat in the Confederate Congress?

John Tyler is the only president whose death went officially unrecognised in Washington, and his coffin was draped in a Confederate flag.

The first ships of Britain's First Fleet of convicts reached which Australian bay on 18 January 1788?

Botany Bay was rejected by the fleet's commander within days, and the convicts were landed instead at a better harbour a short sail to the north.

National Trivia Day, marked each 4 January since 1980, was created by Robert L. Birch, who worked as what?

A librarian by profession, Birch also invented Lumpy Rug Day and Swap Ideas Day, and founded the Puns Corp to help people have fun with words.

The word trivia comes from the Latin trivium, which first described what kind of public place?

A three-way crossroads, from tri for three and via for road, came to mean any open public place, and from there anything commonplace or ordinary.

Most accounts of how two Canadians invented Trivial Pursuit in Montreal in 1979 involve which other board game?

Scrabble turns up in most of the origin stories told about Chris Haney, a newspaper photo editor, and Scott Abbott, a sports editor, who created their game on 15 December 1979.

Which software engineer won 74 Jeopardy! games in a row in 2004 and later became a host of the programme?

Ken Jennings appeared on 75 shows in a row, losing only the last, and left as the highest-earning American game show contestant up to that time.

At which Ivy League university did Ed Goodgold and Dan Carlinsky stage the first organised trivia contests in 1965?

Columbia gave the pastime its name too: Goodgold first called the old parlour game Trivia in a column for the campus newspaper in February 1965.

John Carpenter, the first Who Wants to Be a Millionaire top-prize winner, used a lifeline to phone whom?

His father picked up only to be told that John needed no help and was about to win the million. It was the one lifeline he used in the whole game.

Which British television contest drew its famous black chair from its creator's interrogation by the Gestapo?

Mastermind gave its original black chair to host Magnus Magnusson as a souvenir when he retired, and his daughter Sally later inherited it.

In the classic edition of Trivial Pursuit, a blue wedge is won by answering a question in which category?

Geography is the blue category, and a player needs a wedge in each of the six colours before heading back to the hub at the centre of the board.

On which 1950s NBC game show was champion Herb Stempel instructed to answer a question wrongly on purpose?

Twenty-One was abruptly cancelled in October 1958, and the scandal over fixed contests nearly killed off the whole genre on American television.

Which talk-show host created Jeopardy! after his wife suggested handing contestants the answers instead?

Merv Griffin credited the idea to his wife Julann, who thought of it on a plane journey, and he went on to create Wheel of Fortune as well.

Which German engineer filed a patent on 29 January 1886 for the Motorwagen, often called the first practical car?

Karl Benz learned what to fix when his wife Bertha drove a Motorwagen to Pforzheim in August 1888 and found that it struggled on hills.