January 1
January 1 is the 1st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 364 days remaining (365 in leap years).
Events:
- 1801 - Legislative union of Great Britain and Ireland completed.
- 1863 - Abraham Lincoln delivers the Emancipation Proclamation during the second year of the American Civil War.
- 1892 - Ellis Island opens to begin accepting immigrants to the United States.
- 1901 - Establishment of the Commonwealth of Australia (Federation).
- 1970 - Unix epoch begins at 00:00:00 UTC.
- 1984 - Brunei becomes a fully independent state.
- 1999 - Euro currency introduced.
- 2002 - Euro banknotes and coins become legal tender.
Births:
- 1431 - Pope Alexander VI
- 1449 - Lorenzo de Medici, statesman (+ 1492)
- 1484 - Huldreich Zwingli, protestant leader (+ 1531)
- 1502 - Pope Gregor XIII (+ 1585)
- 1618 - Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, painter (+ 1682)
- 1735 - Paul Revere, silversmith, United States patriot
- 1752 - Betsy Ross, seamstress
- 1788 - The London Times
- 1857 - Wojciech Kossak, painter
- 1863 - Pierre de Coubertin, historian and pedagogue, initiator of modern Olympic Games (+1937)
- 1879 - E. M. Forster, novelist
- 1887 - Wilhelm Canaris, admiral (+ 1945)
- 1895 - J. Edgar Hoover, FBI director
- 1909 - Barry M. Goldwater, Arizona Senator
- 1911 - Hank Greenberg, baseball player
- 1919 - J. D. Salinger, novelist
- 1921 - Rocky Graziano, boxer, born "Rocky Barbella"
- 1940 - Frank Langella, actor
- 1940 - Helmut Jahn, architect
- 1942 - Country Joe McDonald, of Country Joe and the Fish fame
Deaths:
- 1953 - Hank Williams, heart failure
- 1972 - Maurice Chevalier, actor and singer
- 2001 - Ray Walston, 86, actor best known as the star of TV's My Favorite Martian, and later as a judge on Picket Fences.
Holidays and observances:
- Many countries around the world using Gregorian Calendar - New Year's Day
- United States - Copyright Expiration Day, celebrating the expiration of the copyright of a year's worth of works of authorship into the public domain. Not celebrated from 1978 to 2018 because of repeated copyright term extensions.
- Catholicism - Octave of Christmas Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God.
- World Day for Prayer for Peace
- Catholicism - National Migration Week begins (varying offical support by the office of U.S. President, not strictly religious)
- Last day of Kwanzaa
- Haiti Independence Day
- Sudan Independence Day
- Republic of China founding in Taiwan.
See Also:
December 31 - January 2 - December 1 - February 1 -- listing of all days
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December