Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/January 26
This is a list of selected January 26 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.
Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.
To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
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Staging area
Images
Use only ONE image at a time
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Audie Murphy -
Palomar Observatory -
Siad Barre -
Ambrose Burnside -
Arthur Phillip -
Bill Clinton's press conference
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William Bligh
Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| * 661 – Ali, the fourth Islamic caliph, was assassinated, effectively ending the Rashidun Caliphate. | Date unclear |
| ; Liberation Day in Uganda (1986) | refimprove |
| 1500 – Spanish navigator, explorer, and conquistador Vicente Yáñez Pinzón reached the north coast of what today is Brazil. | lots of CN tags (4), especially in "Career" section |
| 1531 – A strong earthquake in Lisbon, Portugal, and subsequent tsunami caused approximately 30,000 deaths. | doubts about sourcing for the 30,000 deaths figure and possibly the date. See [1] |
| 1856 – Puget Sound War: United States Marines from the USS Decatur defeated Native American forces after an all-day battle with settlers in Seattle, Washington. | refimprove section |
| 1863 – American Civil War: After the disastrous result of the Battle of Fredericksburg and a failed offensive against Robert E. Lee, Union Army General Ambrose Burnside was relieved from command of the Army of the Potomac. | refimprove section |
| 1907 – The Short Magazine Lee-Enfield Mk III, the second oldest military rifle still in official use, was introduced into British military service. | unreferenced section |
| 1934 – Nazi Germany and the Second Polish Republic signed the German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact, pledging to resolve their problems through bilateral negotiations and to forgo armed conflict for a period of ten years. | refimprove section |
| 1934 – Hurtig & Seamon's New Burlesque Theater in New York City reopened as the Apollo Theater, becoming one of the nation's premier venues for African-American performers. | unreferenced section |
| multiple issues | |
| 1983 – The spreadsheet program Lotus 1-2-3 was first released, becoming the IBM Personal Computer's first "killer application". | refimprove section |
| 2005 – A man left his vehicle on railroad tracks in Glendale, California, after an aborted suicide attempt, causing a Metrolink train to derail, resulting in 11 deaths and at least 100 injuries. | needs more footnotes |
| Lady Zhen |b|183 | popular culture |
| Henry Briggs |d|1630 | refimprove |
| Walter Krueger |b|1881 | refimprove section |
| Khorloogiin Choibalsan |d|1952 | unreferenced section |
Eligible
- 1564 – Livonian War: A Lithuanian surprise attack resulted in a decisive defeat of numerically superior Russian forces.
- 1699 – The signing of the Treaty of Karlowitz, concluding the Great Turkish War, marked the end of Ottoman control in much of Central Europe and the rise of the Habsburg Monarchy as the region's dominant power.
- 1788 – Captain Arthur Phillip and the British First Fleet landed at Sydney Cove on the shore of Port Jackson in present-day Sydney, establishing the first permanent European settlement in Australia.
- 1808 – William Bligh, the governor of New South Wales, was deposed by the New South Wales Corps in the only military coup in Australian history.
- 1918 – A group of Red Guards hung a red lantern atop the tower of the Helsinki Workers' House, symbolically marking the start of the Finnish Civil War.
- 1949 – The Hale Telescope at Palomar Observatory in California, the largest aperture optical telescope in the world for 28 years, saw first light.
- 1950 – Indian independence movement: India became a republic under a new constitution, with Rajendra Prasad as president and Jawaharlal Nehru as prime minister.
- 1952 – Spontaneous anti-British riots erupted in Cairo following the killings of 50 Egyptian auxiliary police officers the previous day.
- 1966 – The three Beaumont children disappeared from a beach in Glenelg, South Australia, resulting in one of the country's largest-ever police investigations.
- 1972 – JAT Flight 367 exploded in mid-air over Czechoslovakia; the only survivor of the 28 on board, flight attendant Vesna Vulović, fell 10,160 m (33,330 ft), setting the record for surviving the highest fall without a parachute.
- 1991 – Somali Rebellion: Factions led by the warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid and his rebel group, the United Somali Congress, ousted President Siad Barre.
- 1998 – In a nationally televised press conference, U.S. president Bill Clinton denied having "sexual relations" with intern Monica Lewinsky.
- 2001 – An earthquake in the Indian state of Gujarat killed at least 13,000 people, injured 167,000 others and destroyed nearly 400,000 homes.
- 2009 – Rioting broke out in Antananarivo, Madagascar, sparking a political crisis that led to the deposal of President Marc Ravalomanana.
- Born/died: | Lady Katherine Grey |d|1568| Georg Mohr |d|1697| Manuel do Cenáculo |d|1814| Charles George Gordon |d|1885| Harry Ricardo |b|1885| Bessie Coleman |b|1892| Seán MacBride |b|1904| Olga Tufnell |b|1905| Athanase David |d|1953| Wayne Gretzky |b|1961| Suleman octuplets |b|2009| Lindy Delapenha |d|2017| Peter Thorburn |d|2021| Bob McCallister |d|2021
Notes
- Lick Observatory appears on January 3, so Hale telescope should not appear in the same year
- Drudge Report appears on January 17, so Clinton/Lewinski should not appear in the same year
- Botany Bay appears on January 18, so First Fleet should not appear in the same year
January 26: Australia Day (1788); Republic Day in India (1950)
Cullinan Diamond
- 1700 – An earthquake with a moment magnitude of around 9.0 occurred off the Pacific Northwest coast of North America, as evidenced by Japanese records of tsunamis.
- 1841 – Commodore Gordon Bremer took formal possession of Hong Kong Island for the United Kingdom at Possession Point.
- 1905 – The 3,106-carat (621 g) Cullinan Diamond (pictured), the largest gem-quality rough diamond ever found, was discovered at the Premier Mine in Gauteng, South Africa.
- 1945 – Audie Murphy engaged in action at the Colmar Pocket that won him a Medal of Honor and made him one of the most famous and decorated U.S. soldiers of World War II.
- Giuseppe Genco Russo (b. 1893)
- Angela Davis (b. 1944)
- David Kato (d. 2011)
More anniversaries: