Thursday 18 January 2024 Calendar with holidays, observances and special days

Holidays and observances

• Anniversary Day of the Pica Commune in Chile
• Lima Week in Peru (events commemorating its founding in 1535 by Francisco Pizarro)
• Maintenance Day in the USA (unofficially)
• Margaret of Hungary (Christian feast day)
• National Gourmet Coffee Day and Peking Duck Day in USA
• National Tulip Day in Netherlands (The third Saturday of January)
• Royal Thai Armed Forces Day in Thailand
• Thesaurus Day (It is celebrated every year on January 18th, which is the birthday of the author of Roget's Thesaurus, Peter Roget. Peter Roget was born on January 18th in 1779)
• Winnie the Pooh Day (This day was created to celebrate the birth of A.A .Milne in 1882)
• World Snowman Day

Events

• In 2018 - Medical researchers at the Gladstone Institutes discover a method of turning skin cells into stem cells, with the use of CRISPR.
• In 2017 researchers at Harvard develop a customisable "soft robot" that fits around a heart and helps it beat, potentially offering a new treatment option for patients with heart failure.
• 1993 – Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is officially observed for the first time in all 50 states.
• 1981 – Phil Smith and Phil Mayfield parachute off a Houston skyscraper, becoming the first two people to BASE jump from objects in all four categories: buildings, antennae, spans (bridges), and earth (cliffs).
• 1958 – Willie O'Ree, the first African Canadian National Hockey League player, makes his NHL debut with the Boston Bruins.
• 1943 – Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: The first uprising of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto.
• 1913 – First Balkan War: A Greek flotilla defeats the Ottoman Navy in the Naval Battle of Lemnos, securing the islands of the Northern Aegean Sea for Greece.
• 1911 – Eugene B. Ely lands on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania stationed in San Francisco Bay, the first time an aircraft landed on a ship.
• 1896 – An X-ray generating machine is exhibited for the first time by H. L. Smith.
• 1788 – The first elements of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from Great Britain to Australia arrive at Botany Bay.
• 1778 – James Cook is the first known European to discover the Hawaiian Islands, which he names the "Sandwich Islands".

Births

• 1995 – Bryce Alford, American basketball player. Bryce Michael Alford (born January 18, 1995) is an American professional basketball player for the Medi Bayreuth of the Basketball Bundesliga (BBL).
• 1988 – Ronnie Day, American singer-songwriter. Ronnie Day (born Ronald Guglielmone, Jr.) is an American songwriter from Redwood City, California.
• 1986 – Marya Roxx, Estonian-American singer-songwriter. She is a former member of Estonian girl band Vanilla Ninja.
• 1985 – Mark Briscoe, American wrestler. Mark Pugh (born January 18, 1985) is an American professional wrestler best known as Mark Briscoe.
• 1984 – Benji Schwimmer, American dancer and choreographer. He co-starred in the 2010 film Leading Ladies.
• 1984 – Kristy Lee Cook, American singer-songwriter, was the seventh place finalist on the seventh season of American Idol. In 2005, Cook released her first album called Devoted.
• 1984 – Michael Kearney, American biochemist and academic. Michael Kevin Kearney (born January 18, 1984) is known for setting several world records related to graduating at a young age, as well as teaching college while still a teenager.
• 1983 – Amir Blumenfeld, Israeli-American comedian, actor, director, and screenwriter. As well as contributing to its books and articles, he has written and starred in original videos for the comedy website—appearing in series such as Hardly Working and Very Mary-Kate—and was a cast member on its short-lived MTV program The CollegeHumor Show.
• 1982 – Quinn Allman, American guitarist and producer. Quinn Allman (born January 18, 1982) is an American musician and producer, best known as the founding member, guitarist and backing vocalist in the rock band The Used.
• 1980 – Jason Segel, American actor and screenwriter. He is best known for his role as Marshall Eriksen in the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, as well as for his work with producer Judd Apatow on the television series Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared, and for the critically and commercially successful comedies he has starred in, written, and produced.
• 1980 – Julius Peppers, American football player. He played college football at North Carolina, where he was recognized as a unanimous All-American, and was drafted by the Carolina Panthers second overall in the 2002 NFL Draft, and also played for the Chicago Bears from 2010 through 2013 and the Green Bay Packers from 2014 to 2016.
• 1979 – Brian Gionta, American ice hockey player. Brian Joseph Gionta (born January 18, 1979) is an American former professional ice hockey player who played 16 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL).
• 1979 – Kenyatta Jones, American football player, was an American football offensive tackle. He was drafted by the New England Patriots in the fourth round of the 2001 NFL Draft.
• 1978 – Brian Falkenborg, American baseball player, was pitching for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball.
• 1973 – Benjamin Jealous, American businessman. When he was selected to head the NAACP at age 35, he became the organization's youngest-ever national leader.
• 1973 – Burnie Burns, American actor, director, and producer, co-founded Rooster Teeth Productions. Michael Justin "Burnie" Burns (born January 18, 1973) is an American writer, actor, producer, comedian, host, and director living in Austin, Texas.
• 1972 – Mike Lieberthal, American baseball player. Michael Scott "Lieby" Lieberthal (born January 18, 1972) is a former Major League Baseball catcher.
• 1971 – Amy Barger, American astronomer. Barger (born January 18, 1971) is an American astronomer whose discoveries have most concerned quasars, black holes, and other far distant objects.
• 1971 – Jonathan Davis, American singer-songwriter. Jonathan Howsmon Davis (born January 18, 1971), also known as JD, JDevil, or J Devil, is an American singer and musician.
• 1969 – Dave Bautista, American wrestler, mixed martial artist, and actor. David Michael Bautista Jr. (born January 18, 1969) is an American actor, retired professional wrestler, former mixed martial artist and bodybuilder.
• 1969 – Jesse L. Martin, American actor and singer. He is best known for originating the role of Tom Collins on Broadway in the musical Rent and his television roles as NYPD Detective Ed Green on Law & Order and Captain Joe West on The Flash.
• 1964 – Brady Anderson, American baseball player. He spent the majority of his career as a center fielder and leadoff hitter for the Orioles in the 1990s, where he was a three-time All Star, and, in 1996, became the fifteenth player in major league history to hit 50 home runs in one season.
• 1964 – Virgil Hill, American boxer. Virgil Eugene Hill (born January 18, 1964) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1984 to 2007, and in 2015.
• 1963 – Martin O'Malley, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 61st Governor of Maryland. He previously served as Mayor of Baltimore from 1999 to 2007, and was a councilman from the Third Council District in the northeast section of the city on the Baltimore City Council from 1991 to 1999.
• 1962 – Alison Arngrim, Canadian-American actress. Beginning her television career at the age of twelve, Arngrim is a Young Artist Award–Former Child Star "Lifetime Achievement" Award honoree, best known for her portrayal of Nellie Oleson on the NBC television series Little House on the Prairie from 1974 to 1981.
• 1961 – Bob Hansen, American basketball player and sportscaster. Hansen is currently a commentator for Iowa Hawkeyes basketball broadcasts.
• 1961 – Jeff Yagher, American actor and sculptor. Jeffrey Brian "Jeff" Yagher (born January 18, 1961) is an American actor.
• 1955 – Kevin Costner, American actor, director, and producer. His accolades include two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, one Primetime Emmy Award, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.
• 1953 – Brett Hudson, American singer-songwriter and producer. He is now a TV producer and writer.
• 1952 – Michael Behe, American biochemist, author, and academic. Behe (/ˈbiːhiː/ BEE-hee; born January 18, 1952) is an American biochemist, author, and advocate of the pseudoscientific principle of intelligent design (ID).
• 1952 – R. Stevie Moore, American singer-songwriter and guitarist. Robert Steven Moore (born January 18, 1952), also known as R.
• 1949 – Bill Keller, American journalist. Previously, he was a columnist for The New York Times, and served as the paper's executive editor from July 2003 until September 2011.
• 1944 – Carl Morton, American baseball player (d. 1983), was a starting pitcher in Major League Baseball who played for the Montreal Expos (1969–72) and Atlanta Braves (1973–76). He threw (and batted) right-handed.
• 1943 – Kay Granger, American educator and politician. Norvell Kay Granger (née Mullendore; born January 18, 1943) is an American Republican politician from the U.S. state of Texas, representing its 12th congressional district in the U.S.
• 1941 – Bobby Goldsboro, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer. He had a string of pop and country hits in the 1960s and 1970s, including his signature No. 1 hit "Honey", which sold over one million copies in the United States.
• 1941 – David Ruffin, American singer (The Temptations) (d. 1991), was an American soul singer and musician most famous for his work as one of the lead singers of The Temptations (1964–68) during the group's "Classic Five" period as it was later known. He was the lead voice on such famous songs as "My Girl" and "Ain't Too Proud to Beg".
• 1938 – Curt Flood, American baseball player and sportscaster (d. 1997). He was a center fielder who played 15 seasons in the major leagues for the Cincinnati Redlegs, St.
• 1938 – Hargus "Pig" Robbins, American Country Music Hall of Fame session keyboard and piano player. He is blind, having lost his sight at age four due to an accident involving his father's knife.
• 1933 – Ray Dolby, American engineer and businessman, founded Dolby Laboratories (d. 2013), was an American engineer and inventor of the noise reduction system known as Dolby NR. He helped develop the video tape recorder while at Ampex and was the founder of Dolby Laboratories.
• 1932 – Robert Anton Wilson, American psychologist, author, poet, and playwright (d. 2007), was an American author, novelist, essayist, editor, playwright, poet, futurist, and self-described agnostic mystic. Recognized by Discordianism as an Episkopos, Pope, and saint, Wilson helped publicize the group through his writings and interviews.
• 1926 – Randolph Bromery, American geologist and academic (d. 2013), was an African American educator and geologist, and a former Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Amherst (1971–79). While Chancellor, Bromery established the W.E.B.
• 1925 – John V. Evans, American soldier and politician, 27th Governor of Idaho (d. 2014), was an American politician from Idaho. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the state's 27th governor and was in office for nearly ten years, from 1977 to 1987.
• 1925 – Sol Yurick, American soldier and author (d. 2013), was an American novelist. He was known for his book The Warriors which became a major motion picture.
• 1921 – Yoichiro Nambu, Japanese-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2015), was a Japanese-American physicist and professor at the University of Chicago. Known for his contributions to the field of theoretical physics, he was awarded half of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2008 for the discovery in 1960 of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics, related at first to the strong interaction's chiral symmetry and later to the electroweak interaction and Higgs mechanism.
• 1918 – Nicholas Oresko, American sergeant, Medal of Honor recipient (d. 2013), was an American combat veteran of World War II who had received the Medal of Honor for his valorous actions in Germany on January 23, 1945.
• 1917 – Wang Yung-ching, Taiwanese-American businessman (d. 2008), was an entrepreneur who founded a large business empire in Taiwan. According to the 2008 Forbes survey, he was the 178th richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of US$5.5 billion.
• 1911 – Danny Kaye, American actor, singer, and dancer (d. 1987), was an American actor, singer, dancer, comedian, musician, and philanthropist. His performances featured physical comedy, idiosyncratic pantomimes, and rapid-fire novelty songs.
• 1904 – Anthony Galla-Rini, American accordion player and composer (d. 2006), was a celebrated American accordionist, arranger, composer, conductor, author, and teacher, and is considered by many to be the first American accordionist to promote the accordion as a "legitimate" concert instrument.
• 1904 – Cary Grant, English-American actor (d. 1986), was an English-born American actor, known as one of classic Hollywood's definitive leading men. He was known for his transatlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing.
• 1896 – C. M. Eddy Jr., American author (d. 1967). Clifford Martin Eddy Jr. (C.
• 1896 – Ville Ritola, Finnish-American runner (d. 1982), was a Finnish long-distance runner. Known as one of the "Flying Finns", he won five Olympic gold medals and three Olympic silver medals in the 1920s.
• 1894 – Toots Mondt, American wrestler and promoter (d. 1976), was an American professional wrestler and promoter who revolutionized the wrestling industry in the early to mid-1920s and co-promoted the World Wide Wrestling Federation. Some of the stars Mondt helped create from the 1920s through the 1960s included Wayne Munn, Jim Londos, Antonino Rocca, Bruno Sammartino, Stu Hart and Cowboy Bill Watts.
• 1892 – Bill Meanix, American hurdler and coach (d. 1957), was an American track and field athlete. He held the world record in the 440 yd hurdles from 1915 to 1920, and he won the event the first two times it was contested at the United States championships.
• 1892 – Oliver Hardy, American actor and comedian (d. 1957), was an American comic actor and one half of Laurel and Hardy, the double act that began in the era of silent films and lasted from 1927 to 1955. He appeared with his comedy partner Stan Laurel in 107 short films, feature films, and cameo roles.
• 1884 – Elena Arizmendi Mejia, Mexican journalist and activist, founded the Neutral White Cross (d. 1949), was a Mexican feminist who established the Neutral White Cross organisation during the Mexican Revolution. She was a part of the first wave of Mexican feminism and established the "Mujeres de la raza" (Women of the Race) and the International League of Iberian and Latin American Women in co-operation with G.
• 1881 – Gaston Gallimard, French publisher, founded Éditions Gallimard (d. 1975). He founded La Nouvelle Revue Française in 1908, together with André Gide and Jean Schlumberger.
• 1877 – Sam Zemurray, Russian-American businessman, founded the Cuyamel Fruit Company (d. 1961), was a businessman who made his fortune in the banana trade. He founded the Cuyamel Fruit Company, and later became head of the United Fruit Company, the world's most influential fruit company at the time.
• 1856 – Daniel Hale Williams, American surgeon and cardiologist (d. 1931), was an American general surgeon, who in 1893 performed the first documented, successful pericardium surgery in the United States to repair a wound. He founded Chicago's Provident Hospital, the first non-segregated hospital in the United States and also founded an associated nursing school for African Americans.
• 1854 – Thomas A. Watson, American assistant to Alexander Graham Bell (d. 1934), was an assistant to Alexander Graham Bell, notably in the invention of the telephone in 1876.
• 1850 – Seth Low, American academic and politician, 92nd Mayor of New York City (d. 1916), was an American educator and political figure who served as the 23rd Mayor of Brooklyn, President of Columbia University, diplomatic representative of the United States, and was the 92nd Mayor of New York City. He was a leading municipal reformer fighting for efficiency during the Progressive Era.
• 1842 – A. A. Ames, American physician and politician, Mayor of Minneapolis (d. 1911), was a doctor and politician who held four non-consecutive terms as mayor of Minneapolis, Minnesota. His fourth term was marked by allegations of widespread corruption which were popularized by muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens in a 1903 article in McClure's Magazine titled The Shame of Minneapolis.
• 1782 – Daniel Webster, American lawyer and politician, 14th United States Secretary of State (d. 1852), was an American statesman who represented New Hampshire and Massachusetts in the United States Congress and served as the United States Secretary of State under Presidents William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, and Millard Fillmore. He was also a prominent attorney, especially during the period of the Marshall Court.

Deaths

• 2017 – David P. Buckson, American lawyer and politician, Governor of Delaware (1960–1961) (b. 1920)
• 2017 – Roberta Peters, American coloratura soprano (b. 1930)
• 2016 – Glenn Frey, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor (b. 1948)
• 2016 – Johnny Bach, American basketball player and coach (b. 1924)
• 2015 – Cynthia Layne, American singer-songwriter (b. 1963)
• 2015 – Dallas Taylor, American drummer (b. 1948)
• 2015 – Tony Verna, American director and producer, invented instant replay (b. 1933)
• 2014 – Dennis Frederiksen, American singer-songwriter (b. 1951)
• 2014 – Kathryn Abbe, American photographer and author (b. 1919)
• 2013 – Jim Horning, American computer scientist and academic (b. 1942)
• 2012 – Yuri Rasovsky, American playwright and producer, founded The National Radio Theater of Chicago (b. 1944)
• 2011 – Sargent Shriver, American politician and diplomat, 21st United States Ambassador to France (b. 1915)
• 2010 – Robert B. Parker, American author and academic (b. 1932)
• 2009 – Nora Kovach, Hungarian-American ballerina (b. 1931)
• 2008 – Frank Lewin, American composer and theorist (b. 1925)
• 2008 – Georgia Frontiere, American businesswoman and philanthropist (b. 1927)
• 2008 – John Stroger, American politician (b. 1929)
• 2008 – Lois Nettleton, American actress (b. 1927)
• 2007 – Brent Liles, American bass player (b. 1963)
• 2005 – Lamont Bentley, American actor and rapper (b. 1973)
• 2003 – Ed Farhat, American wrestler and trainer (b. 1924)
• 1997 – Paul Tsongas, American lawyer and politician (b. 1941)
• 1995 – Ron Luciano, American baseball player and umpire (b. 1937)
• 1975 – Gertrude Olmstead, American actress (b. 1897)
• 1971 – Virgil Finlay, American illustrator (b. 1914)
• 1970 – David O. McKay, American religious leader, 9th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (b. 1873)
• 1967 – Goose Tatum, American basketball player and soldier (b. 1921)
• 1966 – Kathleen Norris, American journalist and author (b. 1880)
• 1954 – Sydney Greenstreet, English-American actor (b. 1879)
• 1952 – Curly Howard, American actor (b. 1903)
• 1923 – Wallace Reid, American actor, director, and screenwriter (b. 1891)
• 1862 – John Tyler, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 10th President of the United States (b. 1790)
• 1677 – Jan van Riebeeck, Dutch politician, founded Cape Town (b. 1619)