Birthday Paper › What happened on …? › January 1

Events on January 1

• 1502 The Portuguese seafarer Gaspar de Lemos discovers Guanabara Bay in South America, mistaking it for a river mouth and christening it the “January River.” The settlement later established at this location therefore takes the name Rio de Janeiro.
• 1806 The duchies of Bavaria and Württemberg are elevated to kingdoms on the basis of the Peace of Pressburg.
• 1903 The revised German orthography is introduced in the authorities of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Switzerland. The results of the Second Orthographic Conference are thereby put into effect. The correction of the “th” spelling is one of its key features.
• 1942 26 states of the anti-Hitler coalition sign the Declaration by the United Nations in Washington D. C. on the basis of the Atlantic Charter. This lays the foundation for the establishment of the United Nations.
• 1959 The Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista flees to the Dominican Republic before the advancing rebel army of the M-26-7. Fidel Castro is on the verge of taking power in the Cuban Revolution.
• 1960 the Atomic Energy Act for the peaceful use of nuclear energy in Germany.
• 1972 the agreement between Poland and the GDR on passport- and visa-free border traffic.
• 1977 Charter 77, a petition against the communist regime’s human rights violations in Czechoslovakia, is published with 242 signatures. The immediate trigger is the arrest of the underground band The Plastic People of the Universe.
• 2005 the Fourth Act on Modern Services in the Labour Market, better known as “Hartz IV”.
• 2016 the law on regional reform in France. Instead of the previous 22 regions, there will henceforth be only 13 in metropolitan France.
• 2023 Croatia joins the eurozone as its 20th country.
• 2025 The Ukraine stops the transit of natural gas from Russia to Europe at 6 a.m. At that point, the transit agreement, which was not extended because of the Russian-Ukrainian gas dispute, expires.

Born on January 1

• 1863 Pierre de Coubertin, French educator, historian and sports official
• 1880 Ernst Gennat, German criminal police officer
• 1901 Willibald Pschyrembel, German physician and author
• 1930 Klaus Kindler, German actor and voice actor
• 1941 Martin Evans, British geneticist and Nobel laureate
• 1951 Ulrike Flach, German politician
• 1980 Maike Billitis, German actress
• 1990 Marian Lösch, German actor and voice actor
• 2000 Nicolas Kühn, German footballer
• 2000 Ice Spice, American rapper

Is your birthday on January 1?

Then there is a newspaper that tells only the story of your day: what was going on in the world on January 1 of your birth year, which song was at the top, what the weather was like at your birthplace, plus birthday twins and a personal greeting.

• For every birth year from 1946
• 4 to 10 pages, always €14.90, as a PDF to print
• With a greeting page for voice and video messages

Create the paper for January 1 · €14.90

Day and month are already filled in, you only choose the birth year.

Source of events and birthdays: German Wikipedia article „1. Januar“, licence CC BY-SA 4.0, selected, shortened and translated by Birthday Paper.

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