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JANUARY

 

1st January

 

New Year Day (Public Holiday/ Bank Holiday)

 

1987 The first "Lord Mayor of Westminster's Big Parade", as it was then known, took place on that day. London had never seen anything quite like it. The New Year’s Day Parade in London starts as Big Ben strikes 12 Noon.

In its 18 year history the New Year’s Day Parade has had just about everything: a marching elephant, a world-record attempt, a three-headed man and a fire-breathing dragon. It has also helped raise hundreds of thousands of pounds for charity, and has welcomed among its participants visitors from as far a field as the United States, Japan, South Africa and the Caribbean.

It provided a feast of free entertainment for all the family on what had probably become the dreariest day of the year. Featuring hundreds of dancers and musicians from home and abroad, it put real American style razzmatazz onto the streets of London. It received such an overwhelming ‘thumbs up’ from Londoners, tourists and indeed also from the authorities, that it looked like it was here to stay.

 

The New Year’s Day Parade in London is the biggest event of its kind in the world, boasts a street-side audience of more than a million, receives a huge amount of international media coverage, has a list of Patrons that represent the very highest levels of officialdom, and also enjoys the recognition and support of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Put simply, the event has grown from something that started big to something that is now colossal.

Among the more notable landmark events and important changes are the following:

 

The route has changed on a number of occasions – initially from one that incorporated North Carriage Drive in Hyde Park to the ‘commercial’ backdrop of Regent Street and Oxford Street, and thereafter to the most distinguished and indeed current route from Parliament Square to Piccadilly.

 

In 1994 the event was renamed the London Parade, and, in a bid to increase the local participation, London’s Boroughs were all invited to join the proceedings.

 

In 1996, in conjunction with the BBC, the parade made a world-record ‘biggest marching band‘ attempt.

 

In 1999 the event became known by its current name - The New Year's Day Parade-London, although the following year it temporarily took on the mantle of The Millennium Parade.

 

The New Year's Day Parade - London is now part of the London Parade Festival, which also comprises a series of concerts and other performances in and around London between Christmas and the New Year.

 

The Parade raises substantial funds each year for charity. Starting in the Millennium year we launched the Let's Help London Appeal and Challenge – an initiative whereby Londoners are encouraged to participate in the creation of a Borough Entry in order to enable the Borough’s charities to benefit as much as possible from the fund raising activities.

 

The Roll of Honour initiative also came hand in hand with increased involvement from London’s Boroughs. The scheme, now re-branded the New Year’s Day Parade Honours, identifies London’s unsung heroes and uses the parade as a forum from which to give them official recognition for their ‘heroics’.

 

2nd January

Poem: January

January opens

The box of the year

And brings out days

That are bright and clear.

And brings out days

That are cold and gray,

And shouts, "Come see

What I brought today!"

3rd January

 

1959 Alaska became the 59th and largest US state.

 

4th January

 

1643 Sir Isaac Newton, the culminating figure in the scientific revolution of the 17th century, was born (N.S.; Dec. 25, 1642, O.S.), in the manor house of Woolsthorpe, near Grantham, Lincolnshire, England. Perhaps the greatest scientific genius of all time, Newton made fundamental contributions to every major area of scientific and mathematical concern to his generation. In his Principia (1687) he explained the laws of motion and universal gravitation.

5th January

The evening and night of 5 January, the day preceeding Epiphany (Twelfth Day) is called Twelfth Night. It is the Twelfth Night after Christmas.

A Time for Parties and to play Tricks

In England, people used to have parties on Twelfth Night and it was traditional to play practical jokes. These included tricks such as hiding live birds in an empty pie case, so that they flew away when your startled guests cut open the crusts (as in the nursery rhyme "Sing A Song of Sixpence" goes, "…the pie was opened and the birds began to sing".

Twelfth Night Cake

In England, the Twelfth Night cake is a rich and dense fruitcake which traditionally contained a bean. If you got the bean then you were King or Queen of the Bean and everyone had to do what you told them to do.

There were also other items in the cake:

If you got a clove you were a villain.

If you got a twig you were a fool.

If you got a rag you were a tarty girl.

Plays
Twelfth Night itself was a traditional day for plays or "mummings," and it is thought that Shakespeare's play took its name from the fact that it was first performed as part of Twelfth Night celebrations about 1601.

 

The Yule Log
The Yule log, lit on Christmas day, remained burning until Twelfth Night in order to bring good fortune to the house for the coming year. Its charred remains were kept, both to kindle the next year's Yule log, as well as to protect the house from fire and lightning.

Traditional Foods

Traditional Twelfth Night foods served in England include anything spicy or hot, like ginger snaps and spiced ale.

Twelfth Day

Twelfth Day is the last day of Christmas. It marks the end of the Christian festivals and is the traditional time to take down the decorations. As its name tells us, it is the sixth of January – just twelve days after Christmas Day.

This day is the feast of Epiphany. On this day we remember the visit of the Wise Men to Jesus.

January sparkles.

January's bold.

January huffs and puffs.

January's cold.

6th January

 

Epiphany (Christian Festival) The Epiphany honours the arrival of the Magi (three wise men) and the first public presentation of the Baby Jesus.

 

It is also Sherlock Holmes Day. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created the famous detective in 1854.

The Sherlock Holmes Museum, 221b Baker Street. London NW1 6XE. По этому адресу можно отправить письмо мистеру Холмсу – вам обязательно ответят.

 

7th January

 

1450 Glasgow University, Scotland, was founded.

1536 Catherine of Aragon, the 1st wife of Henry VIII, died.

1540 King Henry VIII married ‘the Flanders Mare”, Anne of Cleves, his 4th wife.

 

8th January

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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1935 was born Elvis (Aaron) Presley, US singer, guitarist, songwriter, film actor and world’s rock ‘n’ roll idol with record sales of over 500 million.

 

9th January

 

1806 Admiral Horatio Nelson, British naval hero, was buried at St. Paul’s Cathedral, London.

 

For he was a merry good fellow,

For he was a merry good fellow,

For he was a merry good fellow,

Which nobody can deny.

Which nobody can deny.

Which nobody can deny.

For he was a merry good fellow,

Which nobody can deny.

 

10th January

 

1863 The London Underground railway was opened by Prime Minister Gladstone. The first route of the Metropolitan Railway went from Paddington to Farrington Street stopping at seven stations.

 

11th January

 

1864 London’s Charing Cross station was opened. Next to it is the pub called “Sherlock Holmes”.

 

12th January

 

1876 John Griffith Chaney, better known as Jack London, was born in San Francisco, in the USA. His father was a roving astrologer. Jack London lived with his mother and stepfather, whose surname, London, he took. His first book “The Son of the Wolf” was written in 1900. He died on the 22nd of November 1916 in Glen Ellen, in California.

 

1976 died Agatha Christie, the world’s most successful detective storywriter, and author of the world’s longest running play, The Mousetrap. Her last book, Curtains, was also Hercule Poirot’s last case.

 

The first Monday after the twelve days of Christmas (Twelfth Night) is Plough Monday, a day when ploughmen traditionally blackened their faces and wore white shirts. They would decorate their ploughs and go around collecting money, accompanied by someone acting the Fool. This character would dress in skins and a tail, and carry a pig's bladder on the end of a stick.

Farmers resume their work on this day after the 12 days of Christmas. Plough Monday plays were popular in parts of Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and the East Midlands.

 

13th January

1964 The Beatles’ first record in the USA “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” was released and became their fastest selling single.

I Want To Hold Your Hand
Oh yeh, I'll tell you something
I think you'll understand
When I'll say that something
I wanna hold your hand
I wanna hold your hand
I wanna hold your hand

Oh please, say to me
You'll let me be your man
And please, say to me
You'll let me hold your hand
You'll let me hold your hand
I wanna hold your hand

And when I touch you I feel happy inside
It's such a feeling that my love
I can't hide, I can't hide, I can't hide

Yeh, you've got that something
I think you'll understand
When I'll say that something
I wanna hold your hand
I wanna hold your hand
I wanna hold your hand

And when I touch you I feel happy inside
It's such a feeling that my love
I can't hide, I can't hide, I can't hide

Yeh, you've got that something
I think you'll understand
When I'll feel that something
I wanna hold your hand
I wanna hold your hand
I wanna hold your hand
I wanna hold your hand

14th January

 

The telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. On that day in 1878 Alexander Bell’s telephone was demonstrated by W.H. Preece to Queen Victoria at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. A. Bell also invented a cylinder recording machine.

 

15th January

 

1559 Queen Elizabeth I was crowned.

 

1759 The British Museum was opened at Montague House, London. The parliament voted funds to buy and house the scientific collections of Sir Hans Sloane, a former president of the Royal Society. The museum’s collections have been built up by purchases with public money and gifts.

 

16th January

 

1957 The Cavern Club was opened in Liverpool. It would be famous by young rock ‘n’ roll talent including the Beatles.

2001 UNESCO announced this day as The Day of Beatles

 

17th January

 

3rd Monday of January

 

Martin Luther King’s Birthday.

1929 Martin Luther King was an important black leader who wanted equal rights for black people. He was murdered in 1968. Because of his work, Congress made his birthday a public holiday in 1986.

18th January

 

Sandwich Islands Day

In 1778, on this day, Captain James Cook, of the British Navy, thought he was the first to find a group of islands in the Pacific. He named them the Sandwich Islands in honor of England’s Earl of Sandwich, the first lord of the British Admiralty. Little did he know that the islands already had a name. The people who lived on them called the islands, Hawaii (known to us now as the 50th of the United States).

Actually, these islands had been discovered long before this day by the Polynesians. Other explorers before Cook probably stopped at the Hawaiian Islands as early as the 1500s. However, it was Cook who spread the word of the existence of this group of tropical isles to the rest of the world.

1882 Alan Alexander Milne, English author of Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and The House at Pooh Corner (1928), was born this day.

 

1936 Rudyard Kipling, English author of the Jungle Books (1894-5) and The Elephant’s Child.

 

19th January

 

1485 The houses of Lancaster and York were united by the marriage of Henry VII to Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Edward IV.

 

1736 James Watt, the Scottish engineer who developed the steam engine, was born.

 

20th January

 

1265 The first English Parliament met at Westminster Hall.

 

Inauguration Day (once every four years) recognizes the swearing in to office a newly elected President of the United States. It follows the presidential elections held in November of the preceding year. Until 1933, inaugurations were held on March 4th, but the date has since been changed to January 20th.

 

21st January

 

1907 Taxi cabs were officially recognized in Britain.

 

1935 Snowdonia in Wales became a national forest park.

 

22nd January

 

1788 Lord George Gordon Byron, English poet who wrote Childe Harold (1812-17) and Don Juan (1819-24), was born. He was involved in revolutionary struggles in Greece and Italy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1901 Queen Victoria died at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, aged 81, after a reign of 64 years. Victoria succeeded William IV, becoming the last sovereign of the house of Hanover. In February 1840 she married her cousin Albert. They had nine children. After Albert’s death she was wearing mourning (for over 30 years). She was succeeded by the Prince of Wales, Edward VII.

 

24th January

 

1965 Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, former Prime Minister of England, died in London, aged 90. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, leader of the Conservative party, died the same day in 1895.

Sir Winston Churchill was a war correspondent in south Africa in 1899-1902, home secretary in 1910-11, the first lord of the Admiralty in 1911-15, wartime prime minister, and also a writer who published several histories and biographies.

 

25th January

 

 

1533 King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn (wife number two of six), were married secretly by the Bishop Lichfield.

 

Burns Night.

1759 The birthday of Scotland’s most famous poet, Robert Burns (died 1796), celebrated with great festivity by the Scots. He used the Scottish dialect in his poems and songs.

 

 Address To A Haggis

 

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the pudding-race! Aboon them a' yet tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm: Weel are ye wordy o'a grace
As lang's my arm.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin was help to mend a mill
In time o'need,
While thro' your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.

 

ОДА ШОТЛАНДСКОМУ ПУДИНГУ "ХАГГИС"

В тебе я славлю командира

Всех пудингов горячих мира, -

Могучий Хаггис, полный жира и требухи.

Строчу, пока мне служит лира,

тебе стихи.

Дородный, плотный, крутобокий,

Ты высишься, как холм далекий,

А под тобой поднос широкий

Чуть не трещит.

Но как твои ласкают соки

Наш аппетит!

 

My heart's in the Highlands

 

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,

My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer -

A-chasing the wild deer, and following the roe;

My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go.

Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North
The birth place of Valour, the country of Worth;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.

Farewell to the mountains high cover'd with snow;
Farewell to the straths and green valleys below;
Farewell to the forrests and wild-hanging woods;
Farwell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer
Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe;
My heart's in the Highlands, whereever I go.

 

1874 William Somerset Maugham, English novelist and playwright, was born in Paris. He is best remembered for his short stories and novels The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Theatre, Cakes and Ale.

 

 

26th January

 

1788

Australia Day – День Австралии - национальный праздник, официальный выходной день; отмечается ежегодно в этот день или первый понедельник после него в честь 26 января 1788 – дня официального объявления восточной части Австралийского материка и острова Тасмания владением Великобритании после прибытия на материк партии ссыльных.

 

 

1837 Michigan became the 26th US state.

 

27th January

 

 

 

1832 Lewis Carroll (Charles LutwidgeDodgson), author of Alice in Wonderland (1865), Through the Looking Glass (1872), was born.

He invented his pen name by translating his first two names into the Latin "Carolus Lodovicus" and then anglicizing it into "Lewis Carroll":

Lutwidge Ludovicus Lewis

Charles Carolus Carroll

 

 

28th January

 

1457 Henry VII, son of Edmund Tudor, was born during the War of Roses. He founded the Tudor dynasty. In January 1486 he married Elizabeth of York, thus uniting the houses of Lancaster and York. He also established peace with Scotland (1499), subsequently marrying his daughter Margaret to James IV in 1503. He was succeeded by his second son Henry VIII.

 

 

 

Portrait of Henry VIII after Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/8-1543)

1547 Henry VIII, King of England (1491-1547) and Ireland (1509-47), died in London.

 

 

 

1807 London’s Pall Mall was illuminated by gaslight.

 

29th January

 

1801 Horatia Nelson was born. Admiral Nelson and Emma Hamilton’s daughter Horatia lived to 80, having enjoyed a happy marriage to a clergyman, the Revd Philip Ward, that produced 10 children. She never acknowledged that Emma was her mother. She bore a marked resemblance to Nelson and passed on his very distinctive nose to her descendants.

 

                                                                         

 

 

 

 

 

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                                                                          George III, portrait by Johann Zoffany (1733/4-1810)

1820 George III, King of England, died at Windsor, aged 81. He had both lived longer and reigned longer (over 59 years) than any previous monarch.

 

1861 Kansas became the 34th US state.

 

30th January

 

1965 The state funeral of Sir Winston Churchill, former Prime Minister of England, took place in London.

 

31st January

 

1606 Guy Fawkes, the leader of Gunpowder Plot, and the other surviving plotters were executed as traitors. The main result of the plot was greatly intensified repression of Catholicism.

 

"Remember, remember,

the fifth of November,

Gunpowder, treason and plot.

We see no reason why

Gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot!"

(Words to Guy Fawkes rhyme)

 

1933 John Galsworthy, English author of The Forsyte Saga, died.

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