January 31: The first primate in space (1961)

Ham was greeted by
the Commander of
the recovery ship.

Ham, a four-year old chimpanzee, was sent to the space on a Mercury Redstone 2 rocket into suborbital flight on January 31, 1961. Ham was the first primate in space and successfully returned to the earth. During his 16.5-minute flight, Ham experienced about seven minutes of weightlessness and reached an altitude of 108 mile and a speed of 13,000 mph. His flight was to experiment the ability for human, or primate, to perform missions in space. After Ham's successful flight, NASA was ready to launch the first Mercury astronaut, Alan Shepherd, into suborbital flight three months later. On November 29, 1961, another chimpanzee Enos sent to orbit in another Mercury capsule on an Atlas rocket.  After Ham's flight, other countries did similar experiments with animals: rats by France in February 1961; mice (later guinea pigs and frogs) by the Soviet Union in March 1961; and mice and rats by China in 1964. 

January 30: The Beatles' final live performance (1969)

The Beatles, the legendary English rock band, had its final live performance, so-called Let It Be rooftop concert, was filmed on the rooftop of the Apple Corps building at 3 Savile Row, London on January 30, 1969. Let It Be was their final album release. The members of the band when they broke up were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. The Beatles was the focal point of the British Invasion. Their albums include Please Please Me (1963), With The Beatles (1963), A Hard Day's Night (1964), Beatles for Sale (1964), Help! (1965), Rubber Soul (1965), Revolver (1966), Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), The Beatles (aka the White Album) (1968), Yellow Submarine (1969), Abbey Road (1969) and Let It Be (1970).

January 29: Karl Benz patented the first gasoline-driven automobile (1886)

Benz's Motorwagen

Karl Benz, a German car engineer, patented the first successful gasoline-driven automobile on January 29, 1886 as DRP-37435. Benz is generally regarded as the inventor of the gasoline-powered car along with Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach who worked on a similar type of inventions independently of Karl Benz. Benz patented all of the processes that made the internal combustion engine feasible for use in automobiles. Benz brought his third model of the car to the Paris Expo in 1887 and began to sell his cars to the public, which was the first commercially available automobile in history. 

January 28: Lego patented its brick design (1958)

The design of Lego brick, which is still being used and sold, was patented by the Lego Group at 1:58pm on January 28, 1958. The Lego Group began at the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen in Billund, Denmark and the name Lego came from the Danish phrase leg godt meaning play well. After the design was patented, it took five years to find the right material for Lego bricks, which is ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) polymer.  This was the start of the legendary construction set toy. The bricks produced then are still compatible with current bricks. Lego bricks are manufactured with great precision and sturdiness. Lego bricks are one of the most popular and enduring toys in the world over generations .  

January 27: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born (1756)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the musical genius, was born in Salzburg in 1756. Mozart was the most influential and most popular composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works including operas, symphonies, concertos, chamber music and choral music. He visited Vienna in 1781 and spent the rest of his life. He showed us what maturity and style of music can be. He was a hard worker and left numerous works. Mozart died young at his age of 35. Mozart's works were first cataloged by Ludwig von Köchel in 1862 and the catalogue has been repeatedly updated. The work is referenced by the abbreviation "K" (Köchel number). 

January 26: Lotus 1-2-3 was released (1983)

Lotus 1-2-3 for DOS

The Lotus Development Corporation released its first spreadsheet program 1-2-3. It outsold then-most-popular spreadsheet program VisiCalc in the same year and had been the market leading spreadsheet for DOS for years until Microsoft released it spreadsheet Excel. 1-2-3 became a killer application for DOS and had been a test application to evaluate the compatibility of clone PCs along with Microsoft Flight Simulator. The company later developed a groupware and email system Lotus Notes in collaboration with Ray Ozzie's Iris Associates and Lotus Notes became a big success. IBM purchased the company in 1995 for $3.5 billion, primarily to acquire Lotus Notes, and change the company name to Lotus Software. 

January 25: The League of Nations was founded (1919)

The League of Nations

The League of Nations was the first international organization whose mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded after the First World War as a result of Paris Peace Conference and was headquartered in Geneva. There are 42 founding members and 24 members were remained until the dissolution of the League in 1946. The United States never joined the League. When it was the largest, there were 58 member states. The League tried to disarm around the world and intervene international conflicts, but the League did not have armed forces and it became its critical limitation. The League kept failing to deal with international conflicts and it eventually became dissolved in 1946. After the Second World War, the United Nations took over its role and the principal allies became the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. Though the League of Nations was idealistic but it had done many activities promoting human rights and peace around the world and many of these sub-organizations were absorbed by the United Nations.

January 24: Modigliani passed away (1920)

Self-portrait (1919)

Amedeo Clemente Modigliani, an Italian painter and sculptor, passed away at his age of 35. His style is characterized by long mask-like faces. He was born into a Jewish family in Livorno, Italy and he was not healthy in his early age. He suffered pleuritis, a type of typhoid fever and tuberculosis. His mother taught him until age 11 and gave a great influence to him. He moved to Paris at age 22 when the avant-garde was dominating the city of art. His work was influenced by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Paul Cézanne, however, he developed his own style and it made his works very unique. He made a number of drawings but many of them were lost or destroyed by himself. He died in Paris at age 35 of tubercular meningitis in poverty. 

January 23: Men descended into the deepest point on earth (1960)

Location of Challenger Deep

On January 23, 1960, Trieste, the Swiss-designed and Italian-built bathyscaphe of the US Navy, descended to the deepest point known to exist on earth the Challenger Deep, with a depth of 10,902 m (35,786 ft) to 10,916 m (35,814 ft), in Mariana Trench near the Island of Guam. Trieste was manned by Jacques Piccard, one of the designers of the bathyscaphe, and Don Walsh, US Navy Lieutenant, and the descent took almost five hours and they spent about 20 minutes on the ocean floor before the three and a quarter hours of ascent. The measured depth from this experiment was 10,916 m (35,814 ft). This figure was known to be the most accurate measurement until the Japanese unmanned robotic deep-sea probe Kaiko made descents between 1995 and 1998. Kaiko's measured depth of the Challenger Deep was 10,911 m (35,797 ft). In 2009, the United States sent a hybrid remotely operated vehicle Nereus to the Challenger Deep. Nereus spent 10 hours at the bottom of the Challenger Deep and sent live video and data back to the mothership. Nereus measured a depth of 10,902 m (35,768 ft) at the bottom of the Challenger Deep.

January 22: Apple's 1984 commercial was aired (1984)

Apple Macintosh

Apple Macintosh computer was introduced during the Super Bowl XVIII with its legendary "1984" commercial directed by Ridley Scott. The commercial adopted a metaphoric situation of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four - Apple is liberating the world ruled by Big Brother (IBM). The commercial was not originally approved by the Board of the Directors of Apple and it was very controversial, however, it is now proven to be a big success and the commercial played a very important role in making Apple's corporate image of the cultural leader and technical innovator. Two days after the commercial, Macintosh was on sale and it became the first commercially successful personal computer equipped with a computer mouse and a graphic user interface. Both technologies were originally developed by Xerox at its Palo Alto Research Centre (PARC) and Apple improved the technology and made a commercial success. The introduction of these technical features to the market changed the computer industry forever. 

January 21: The first nuclear-powered submarine was launched (1954)

USS Nautilus

The first operational nuclear-powered submarine USS Nautilus was launched into the Thames River, Connecticut. She was commissioned on September 30, 1954. She was powered by a pressurized water reactor produced by Westinghouse Electric Corporation. Thanks to the nuclear propulsion, Nautilus could stay under water far longer than diesel-powered submarines. Nautilus was the first vessel to complete a submerged transit beneath the North Pole on August 3, 1958, which was named as Operation Sunshine. After over a quarter century of service and record-breaking operations, she was decommissioned on March 3, 1980. She was named as the official state ship of Connecticut in 1983.  

January 20: Hong Kong island was occupied by the British (1841)

Hong Kong island

Hong Kong island became a colony of the British Empire when it defeated the Chinese in the First Opium War. When it was occupied in 1841 by the British, the island was almost uninhabited; the populations then was a few thousands. The British had occupied the island until the handover to China in 1997 except the Japanese occupation of the island between December 1941 and August 1945 during the Second World War. During the British occupation, Hong Kong had grown rapidly from a small town to a highly populated modern city and has played a central role in the Asian financial market. Hong Kong has a good cultural mix of the East and the West. Currently, Hong Kong is a Special Administration Region in China and it benefits from the booming economy of China.

January 19: The first computer virus was released (1986)

Infected boot sector by (c)Brain

The first computer virus for DOS, so called (c)Brain or Brain, was released. It was created by brothers Basit and Amjad Iqbal lived in Chahmiran, Lahore, Pakistan and infected the boot sector of the storage media formatted with the DOS File Allocation Table (FAT) filesystem. When a IBM PC is infected by the virus, the boot sector is moved to another sector and gets marked as bad and the virus occupies the boot sector. The disk label is changed to (c)Brain. The virus slows down the floppy disk drive and make 7k bytes of memory unavailable to DOS.The intention of writing the virus was to protect the Iqbal brothers' heart monitoring software from piracy. Unlike other viruses, this virus was designed to avoid infect hard disks and the virus was not so destructive by design. The virus also included contact address and three phone numbers with a statement saying vaccine was available from them.

January 18: The Met hosted a jazz concert for the first time (1944)

The Metropolitan Opera House in New York city hosted a jazz concert for the first time in its history. The performance was named as Esquire Jazz Concert since Esquire magazine sponsored the concert and the concert featured jazz giants of the time: Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Artie Shaw, Roy Eldridge and Jack Teagarden - simply the best in jazz at the time. A symbolic recognition of jazz as a genre of quality music. 

January 17: UN Security Council held its first session (1946)

UN Security Council Chamber

The United Nation's Security Council held its first session at the Church House, Westminster, London, on January 17, 1946. The Security Council is the one of the principal organs of the United Nations and, in fact, it is the most powerful organ of the United Nations. The UN Legal Advisor interprets its power as "No Security Council resolutions can be described as unenforceable."  Its powers include the establishment of peacekeeping operations and international sanctions and the authorization of military action. There are 15 members of the Council, which consist of five veto-wielding permanent members (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) and 10 elected non-permanent members with two year terms.

January 16: Beginning of the Roman Empire (27 BC)

Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus is granted the honorific title Augustus (the revered one) by the Roman Senate and became the first emperor of the Roman Empire on January 16, 27 BC. Augustus reigned the Roman Empire until his death on August 19, AD 14 for 40 years and 215 days. Born Gaius Octavianus Thurinus, he was posthumously adopted by his great-uncle Gaius Julius Caesar via his last will and testament in 44 BC and was officially called Gaius Julius Caesar. The official title as the Emperor was Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus. After the assassination of Julius Caesar, Octavianus formed a military dictatorship, known as the Second Triumvirate, with Marcus Antonius and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and then defeated the the two: Lepidus was driven into exile and Antonius committed suicide after the defeat at the Battle of Actium by Agrippa in 31 BC. Octavianus then restore the appearance of the Roman Republic and spent four years to determine the framework by which a formally republican state can be ruled by a sole ruler, which resulted in the Roman Empire.  

January 15: Wikipedia went online (2001)

Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia, has been online since January 15, 2001. Wikipedia is run by the contributions of volunteers around the world and virtually anyone can contribute to the content creation, update and verification - the content creation process is very collaborative. Wikipedia has versions in multiple languages and there are currently 20 million articles - 3.8 million articles in English. Wikipedia is one of the most influential information source on the Internet. The authority of the content is often challenged due to the collaborative content creation process, however, it has been frequently referenced by the Internet users and the collaborative mass-sourcing is often regarded as more trustworthy approach than the conventional content creation. The service is supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation.

January 14: Tosca was premiered (1900)

Tosca, a three-act opera of Giacomo Puccini, was premiered at the Teatro Constanzi in Rome on January 14, 1900. The opera was based on the French dramatic play La Tosca of Victorien Sardou. The work is set in Rome threatened by invaded Napoleon's troops. Puccini adopted Wagnerian leitmotifs to identify characters and objects but did not develop or modify the motifs, which is different or innovative. Tosca is one of the most frequently performed opera in the world. Since the first recording was done by the Gramophone company conducted by Carlo Sabajno in 1919. Since then, it has been frequently recorded.

January 13: Henry Ford patented a plastic automobile (1942)

The first plastic car

Henry Ford, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, had a great interest in soybean-based plastics as a material for automobile, which were used in Ford automobiles throughout 1930s. In 1942, Ford patented the chassis of the car almost entirely made of plastic (patent number 2,269,452), which weighed 30% less than a steel car and could withstand blows 10 times greater than a steel car. The car ran on grain alcohol (ethanol) derived from corn, instead of gasoline. The prototype of the Soybean-car (also known as a Hemp car) was introduced to the public on August 13, 1941. The design never be in mass-production, however, it was a pioneering move in building environmentally friendly automobiles.

January 12: Haruki Murakami was born (1949)

Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami, a Japanese writer, was born in 1949. Murakami novels are mostly postmodern. His novels include Hear the wind sing, Pinball 1973, A wild sheep chase, Hard-boiled wonderland and the end of the world, Norwegian wood, Dance dance dance, South of border, west of the sun, The wind-up bird chronicle, Kafka on the shore, After dark, and 1Q84. He was awarded the Franz Kafka Prize and Jerusalem Prize.

January 11: The first use of insulin to treat diabetes in a human patient (1922)

Insulin vial

Leonard Thompson, a 14 year-old diabetes patient, was given the first injection of insulin by Dr. John Macleod at the Toronto General Hospital on January 11, 1922. Dr. Macleod invited the biochemist James Collip to purify the extracted insulin from fetal calf pancreas. After the first injection, Thompson suffered a severe allergic reaction and the further injections were cancelled. Collip worked for improving the ox-pancreas extract over the next 12 days. The second inject was given to Thompson on January 23 and it was a complete success without any side effect and it eliminated the glycosuria sign of diabetes. It was a significant breakthrough to the cure of diabetes.  

January 10: Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon (49 BC)

Gaius Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar and only one legion crossed the Rubicon river on January 10, 49 BC and ignite the civil war, which was the beginning of accomplishing Caesar vision of the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. At the time, Caesar was supposed to have quoted the Athenian playwright Menander, "alea icta esto" (let the die be cast), however, more commonly known quote of him at the time was "alea iacta est" (the die has been cast).  After crossing the river, Caesar defeated rivals and became the unrivaled leader of the Roman world. In 44 BC, a group of senators led by Marcus Brutus assassinated Julius Caesar on the Ides of March (March 15, 44 BC) with the hope of restring the government of the Republic. Octavianus, the heir of Caesar, eventually accomplished the vision of Julius Caesar and Octavianus became the first emperor of the Roman Empire. So the crossing of the Rubicon was really the point of no-return. 

January 9: Photograhy begins (1839)

Boulevard du Temple, Paris, 1838,
by Daguerre - the first photograph
of a person ever made.

The French Academy of Sciences announced the daguerreotype process on January 9, 1839, which was the first commercially successful photographic process. The image of the daguerreotype is a direct positive made in the camera on a silvered copper plate. This process was developed by Louis Daguerre with Joseph Nicéphore Niépce who had developed the first photographic image in the camera but the exposure process required as long as eight hours. Later the year, William Talbot announced his silver chloride sensitive paper process. These two inventions made photography practical.

January 8: Breakup of AT&T (1982)

The Bell System's logo

In 1974, the US Department of Justice launched an anti-trust lawsuit against AT&T (formerly the Bell System) and the case led to a settlement finalized on January 8, 1982, under which AT&T agreed to divest to its local exchange service operating companies, in return for a chance to go into the computer business. Effective January 1, 1984, AT&T's local operations were divided into seven independent regional holding companies, also known as Baby Bells. AT&T has kept the long-distance services but lost the market share gradually to competitors such as MCI and Sprint. The seven Baby Bells were independently operated until 1996, when the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was passed. After that, the Baby Bells started consolidating among themselves. Southern Bell Corporation (SBC) acquired Pacific Telesis, SNET, Ameritech, and AT&T Corporation, then changed its name to AT&T and acquired BellSouth. Qwest also acquired several Baby Bells' operations. 

January 7: The Galilean moons were first observed (1610)

Io, Europa, Ganymede,
and Callisto
(from top to bottom)

Galileo Galilei discovered four moons of Jupiter with his telescope and they are the largest of many moons of Jupiter and are called the Galilean moons. The moons were named after the lovers of Zeus (also known as Jupiter): Ganymede, Callisto, Io and Europa, by Simon Marius who claimed to have discovered them at the same time as Galileo. This discovery showed how important a telescope could be for astronomers. Galileo improved the magnifying capability of the telescope by 20 times and it enabled him to discover these moons. As a note, a Chinese historian claimed that the Ganymede was first observed in China  in 362 BC, which is two millennia earlier than Galileo's. In fact, all four moons are visible without a telescope if they are far away from Jupiter. Anyway, it was a good proof of the usefulness of the telescope in astronomy and important scientific discovery.

January 6: Wegener presented a theory of continental drift (1912)

The tectonic plates of the world

German geophysicist Alfred Lothar Wegener first presented his theory of continental drift, which hypothesized that the continents were slowly drifting around the Earth. Wegener noticed significant consistency of large landmasses of the Earth based on the study of rock types, geological structures and fossils and believed that the continents could fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. However, his theory was not accepted until 1950 when a number of discoveries supporting his theory were made. In 1950s and 1960s, researchers at Cambridge University and Imperial College in the UK pioneered the science of paleomagnetism, which provided evidence for Wegener's theory. Based on several developments in geology in 1960s, the theory of plate tectonics was developed and the theory of Wegener provided the foundation of the theory of plate tectonics.

January 5: Nixon announced that NASA would develop a space shuttle program (1972)

Space Shuttle Discovery

US President Richard Nixon announced that NASA would develop a space shuttle program to reduce the space exploration cost by using a reusable spacecraft. Since 1969, Nixon had supported proceeding with space shuttle development. Fundamental research about space shuttle had been performed and a program for the development of a space shuttle was announced on January 5, 1972.  Three months later, the US Congress approved the funding for the space shuttle program. As a result, five space shuttles were built: Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour. Apart from these five, a mockup (Inspiration) and a test shuttle (Enterprise) were built. The first space-worthy Space Shuttle Columbia's flight happened from April 12 to April 14 in 1981. Columbia broke apart during re-entry in 2003. Another space shuttle Challenger was destroyed in 73 second after launch and all seven crew members were died in 1986. Though there were some disasters and failures, the Space Shuttle had accomplished a number of successful space missions. NASA retired the Space Shuttle in 2011 after 30 years of great service.

January 4: Edison electrocuted an elephant to prove his point (1903)

Topsy (The image from WIRED)

Thomas Edison electrocuted Topsy, an elephant, to demonstrate the danger of AC (alternating current), which was suggested by George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla. To promote his DC (direct current) as the standard for electric power distribution, Edison had fought against AC of Westinghouse, so-called the War of the Currents. Edison had electrocuted a series of animals with AC to demonstrate the danger of AC. Though the electrocution of Topsy was sensational, his demonstration did not leave positive impression. AC demonstrated its superiority in a better way to become the standard for electric power distribution.

January 3: The March of Dimes Foundation was founded (1938)

The March of Dimes Foundation, a non-profit organization that works to improve the health of mothers and babies by preventing birth defects and infant mortality, was founded by then-US President Franklin D. Roosevelt to fight polio in 1938. The organization was originally named as the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis and the current name has been officially used since 2007 while the name has been used for the foundation's fundraisers since 1930s. The organization provided enormous support for the goal of eliminating polio including the approval of the Salk vaccine and the goal was significantly achieved. In 1958, the organization changed its mission to the prevention of birth defects and infant mortality and has kept working for the mission. 

January 2: The Institute of Civil Engineers was founded (1818)

ICE's headquarters in London

The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), a self-governing professional association representing civil engineers, was founded at the Kendal Coffee House in Fleet Street, London in 1818 by three young engineers, Henry Robinson Palmer, James Jones and Joshua Field. ICE is the first professional body for civilian engineers. (There has been the Corps of Royal Engineers for military engineers, which was founded in 1717.) Thomas Telford, a renowned civil engineer, was appointed as the first president and he became instrumental in obtaining a Royal Charter for ICE in 1828. The majority of its current members are British engineers but it has members in more than 150 countries around the world. Currently, ICE has more than 85,000 members.

January 1: The Julian calendar took effect for the first time (45 BC)

Julius Caesar

The Julian calendar took effect for the first time. It was the basis of the Gregorian calendar, which is the current western calendar and internationally accepted civil calendar. The Julian calendar was a reform of the Roman calendar by Julius Caesar, which has a regular year of 365 days divided into 12 months with a leap day added to February every four years. It was very close to the modern calendar, however, its solar year has 11 minutes more than the actual year. To be precise, the Gregorian calendar replaced the Julian calendar in 1582.