Celebrations Today – January 15

Holidays and observances

• Christian feast day:
  • Abeluzius (Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church)
  • Arnold Janssen
  • Francis Ferdinand de Capillas (one of Martyr Saints of China)
  • Ita
  • Macarius of Egypt (Western Christianity)
  • Paul the Hermit
  • January 15 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
• Earliest day on which International Fetish Day can fall, while January 21 is the latest; celebrated on the third Friday in January.
• Earliest day on which Martin Luther King Jr. Day can fall, while January 21 is the latest; celebrated on the third Monday in January. (United States)
• Earliest day on which Feast of the Santo Niño/Sinulog can fall, while January 21 is the latest; celebrated on the third Sunday in January. (Philippines)
• The second day of the sidereal winter solstice festivals in India (see January 14):
  • Thai Pongal, Tamil harvest festival
• Arbor Day (Egypt)
• Armed Forces Day (Nigeria)
• Indian Army Day (India)
• John Chilembwe Day (Malawi)
• Korean Alphabet Day (North Korea)
• Sagichō at Tsurugaoka Hachimangū. (Kamakura, Japan)
• Teacher’s Day (Venezuela)
• Wikipedia Day (International observance)

Celebrations Today – USA: January 15

National Hat Day
National Strawberry Ice Cream Day
National Humanitarian Day
National Fresh Squeezed Juice Day
National Wikipedia Day

Today in US History: January 15

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech
December 10, 1964.

Domestic Servants Waiting for Streetcar on Way to Work Early in the Morning,
Mitchell Street,
Atlanta, Georgia,
Marion Post Wolcott, photographer,
circa May 1939.
America from the Great Depression to World War II: Black-and-White Photographs from the FSA-OWI, 1935-1945

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., twentieth-century America’s most compelling and effective civil rights leader, was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. After entering Morehouse College at age fifteen, King followed his father and grandfather into the Baptist ministry. He received a bachelor of divinity from Crozer Theological Seminary in 1951 and a Ph.D from Boston University in 1955.

King entered the civil rights movement in 1955. A young, newly married pastor of a Montgomery, Alabama church, he was asked to lead a bus boycott aimed at ending segregation of public transport in Montgomery. The boycott, initiated by Rosa Parks‘ refusal to surrender her bus seat to a white passenger, lasted over a year and resulted in the desegregation of the city’s busses.

A founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, King advocated non-violent action as a means of lifting racial oppression. Sit-ins, marches, and peaceful demonstrations highlighted issues of inequality. The commitment and moral integrity of activists who remained calm in the face of violent opposition inspired national admiration. Jailed during an Alabama campaign to abolish segregated lunch counters, King delineated his philosophy of nonviolence in the now famous “Letter From the Birmingham Jail.”

Lincoln Memorial,
Washington, D.C.,
Theodor Horydczak, photographer,
circa 1920-1950.
Washington as It Was: Photographs by Theodor Horydczak, 1923-1959

On August 28, 1963, King participated in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, he delivered his famous “I Have A Dream (PDF)” speech, to a crowd of 250,000. An eloquent call to action, the speech emphasized his belief that the movement would create a society in which character, rather than color, prevailed.

In December 1964, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Labor leader A. Philip Randolph sent a congratulatory telegram praising King’s “brilliant and matchless leadership.” King responded with a letter emphasizing the prize as “an award for the whole civil rights movement and its dedicated leaders” and urging it “inspire all of us to work a little harder and with more determination to make the American Dream a reality.”

On April 4, 1968, while in Memphis, Tennessee supporting a strike by the city’s sanitation workers, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated as he stood on the balcony of his hotel. Just thirty-nine years old, he left a wife, Coretta Scott King, and four young children.

• Read the “Letter From Birmingham Jail (PDF),” the “Address at March on Washington (PDF),” as well as Dr. King’s “Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech” online at the The Martin Luther King Jr. Web Site. This site is maintained by The Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project at Stanford University and contains both primary and secondary sources relating to the life of the heroic civil rights leader.
  Negro Boy,
  near Cincinnati, Ohio,
  John Vachon, photographer,
  between 1939 and 1943.
  America from the Great Depression to World War I: Color Photographs from the FSA-OWI, 1935-1945
• A variety of American Memory collections provide insight into African-American history. African American Perspectives: Pamphlets from the Daniel A. P. Murry Collection, 1818-1907 makes available 351 pamphlets covering a broad spectrum of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century African-American life. The African-American Experience in Ohio, 1850-1920 holds manuscript, printed texts, and images from the Ohio Historical Society. This collection illuminates the history of black Ohio from 1850 to 1920.
• Tour the Library of Congress online exhibitions African-American Mosaic: African-American Culture and History and African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship.
• As the barriers of segregation fell, African Americans made new gains in their professional lives. Jackie Robinson was at the forefront of this movement. In 1947, he broke the color line in baseball. Learn more about his life in Baseball and Jackie Robinson: Jackie Robinson and Other Baseball Highlights, 1860s-1960s.
• Today in History features on the Fourteenth Amendment and Plessy V. Ferguson place the civil rights movement in context while additional pages showcase civil rights advocates Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Mary Church Terrell, Thurgood Marshall, Ralph Bunche, and John Lewis.

Today in History – January 15-External Links

Today’s Weather in History
Today in Earthquake History
This Day in Naval History
Today’s Document from the National Archives
Today’s Events, Births & Deaths –Wikipedia
Today in History by AP
On this Day -1950 to 2005 – Today’s Story–BBC
On This Day: The New York Times
This Day in History –History.com
Today in Canadian History – Canada Channel
History of Britain that took place On This Day
Russia in History –Russiapedia