January 22
Activity of the day
Today is . . .
- Answer your cat's question day
- Feast day of St Vincent of Saragossa, patron saint of Portugal and the wine trade
On this day . . .
- The Falkland Islands are ceded to Britain by Spain (1771)
- The umbrella is introduced in Europe (1775)
- Bloody Sunday in St. Petersburg, beginning the 1905 revolution (1905)
- Ramsay MacDonald takes office as Britain's first Labour prime minister (1924)
- Thornton Wilder's play Our Town is first performed (1938)
- Anne Winter becomes British Rail's first woman engine driver (1983)
- Actor Heath Ledger, 28, is found dead in New York City (2008)
Births
- Francis Bacon, English politician and philosopher (1561)
- André Ampère, French physicist who gave us the term amp (1775)
- Lord Byron, English romantic poet (1778)
- August Strindberg, Swedish playwright (1849)
- D.W. Griffith, US film director (1875)
- John Hurt, English actor (1940)
- George Foreman, American boxer (1948)
- Jim Jarmusch, American film director (1953)
- Michael Hutchence, Australian singer (1960)
- Balthazar Getty, American actor (1976)
Deaths
- Victoria, Queen of Great Britain (1901)
- Abe Kobo, Japanese novelist and playwright (1993)
- Jean-Louis Barrault, French actor and stage director (1994)
- Telly Savalas, American actor (1994)
- Heath Ledger, Australian actor (2008)