January 28
Activity of the day
Today is . . .
- Data Privacy Day
- Feast day of St Thomas Aquinas
On this day . . .
- Edward VI, aged nine, becomes King of England (1547)
- Pall Mall in London becomes the first street in the world to be lit by gaslight (1807)
- The book Pride and Prejudice is first published (1813)
- The first speeding fine is given in the U.K. (1896)
- Iceland becomes the first country to legalise abortion (1935)
- Elvis Presley makes his first appearance on national television (1956)
- The Lego company patents its design of Lego bricks (1958)
- The U.S. space shuttle Challenger breaks apart after lift-off, killing all seven astronauts (1986)
Births
- Henry Morton Stanley, British journalist and explorer (1841)
- Colette, French author (1873)
- Ernst Lubitsch, American film director (1892)
- Jackson Pollock, American abstract expressionist painter (1912)
- Alan Alda, American actor (1936)
- Mikhail Baryshnikov, Russian dancer (1948)
- Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France (1955)
- Nick Carter, American singer (1980)
- Elijah Wood, American actor (1981)
Deaths
- Charlemagne, Holy Roman emperor (814)
- Henry VIII, King of England 1509-47 (1547)
- Francis Drake, English buccaneer and explorer (1596)
- William Burke, Irish body-snatcher (1829)
- Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, Spanish writer and politician (1928)
- W B Yeats, Irish poet (1939)
- Billy Fury, British singer (1983)
- Klaus Fuchs, German spy (1988)