Holidays Calendar for January 7, 2019
7 January is Merelots, the Remembrance Day of the Dead that is observed in the Armenian Apostolic Church. This holiday is observed five times as far as it follows five major religious holidays.
January 7 is a very important holiday for Cambodia. This is Victory over Genocide Day (Cambodia Victory Day) that marks the end of the genocide that lasted from 1975 till 1979.
In December 2018, a new holiday was added on the list of Ghana’s public holidays. Constitution Day in Ghana is celebrated on January 7 to mark the day when the current Constitution of Ghana, also referred to as the Constitution of the Fourth Republic, came into force.
Religious Holidays →
Belarus,
Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Georgia,
Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan,
North Macedonia,
Moldova,
Montenegro,
Russia,
Serbia,
Sudan,
State of Palestine
Christmas in Eastern Christianity
Most Christian denominations, except for the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem, celebrate the Nativity of Jesus on December 25. However, some Eastern churches still use the old Julian calendar that falls 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar. This means that Christmas in Eastern Christianity is actually celebrated on January 7.
Most Orthodox churches celebrate Christmas on January 7 instead of December 25 since they’re using the old Julian calendar or similar calendars. Among those who celebrate Christmas in January are Ethiopian, Eritrean and Coptic Christians. Since the Ethiopian and Eritrean churches have split from the Coptic Orthodox Church, their Christmas celebrations are very similar to Coptic Christmas.
Jinjitsu, also known as Nanakusa no sekku (Feast of Seven Herbs), is one of the five seasonal festivals (gosekku) in Japan. It is associated with the custom of eating rice porridge seasoned with seven edible wild herbs to ward off evils spirits and ensure good health.
Tricolor Day (Festa del Tricolore), also known as National Flag Day (Giornata Nazionale della Bandiera), is an Italian observance held on January 7 every year. Although it is not a public holiday, special events dedicated to the national flag of Italy are held throughout the country.
January 7 is the perfect day to go out to your favorite Japanese or pan-Asian restaurant because it is National Tempura Day. This amazing holiday was created to remind people that Japanese cuisine has so much more to offer than just sushi and sashimi.
National Bobblehead Day is a fun holiday celebrated on January 7. It was created to recognize small collectible figurines with an oversized head that is connected to the body by a spring or hook, which causes it to “bobble” when tapped.
Festivals on January 7, 2019
- Kastoria Ragoutsaria Carnival in Kastoria, Greece
- International Kite Festival in Gujarat in Ahmedabad, India
- Carnival in Guadeloupe in Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe
- St. Louis Mardi Gras in St. Louis, USA
- Carnival in French Guiana in Cayenne, French Guiana
- New Orleans Mardi Gras in New Orleans, USA
- Hwacheon Sancheoneo Ice Festival in Hwacheon, South Korea
- Dolomiti Balloonfestival in Toblach, Italy
- Aruban Carnival in Oranjestad, Aruba
- Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival in Harbin, China
- Blacks and Whites’ Carnival in Pasto, Colombia
- Carnival of Putignano in Putignano, Italy
- Dubai Shopping Festival in Dubai, UAE
- TSB Festival of Lights in New Plymouth, New Zealand
- Vilnius Christmas Market in Vilnius, Lithuania
This Day in History
- 2015 The employees of the satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, France were targeted in a shooting attack. Two shooters murdered 12 people and injured 11 others.
- 2013 Died: David R. Ellis, American actor, stuntman, and director. His best-known works are The Final Destination and The Final Destination 2.
- 1998 Died: Vladimir Prelog, Croatian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1975 for his research into the stereochemistry of organic molecules and reaction.
- 1991 Born: Caster Semenya, South African middle-distance runner and winner of two Olympic gold medals and three World Championships in the women's 800 meters.
- 1988 Born: Robert Sheehan, Irish actor best known for his television roles such as Nathan Young in Misfits, Darren Treacy in Love/Hate, and Klaus Hargreeves in The Umbrella Academy.
- 1988 Died: Trevor Howard, English actor, winner of a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for The Key. He is also known for his roles in Mutiny on the Bounty, Father Goose, Morituri, Seperman, Gandhi, The Dawning.
- 1985 Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launched Sakigake. That interplanetary spacecraft and deep space probe was the first one launched by any country other than the U.S. or the Soviet Union.
- 1984 Died: Alfred Kastler, French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate. He received a Nobel Prize for the discovery and development of optical methods for studying Hertzian resonances in atoms.
- 1982 Born: Ruth Negga, Irish actress known for her roles in the AMC television series Preacher and the film Loving. For the latter, she received an Academy Award nomination.
- 1980 Died: Larry Williams, American rhythm and blues singer, songwriter, pianist, and producer. John Lennon was his fan, and the Beatles as well as several other groups covered his songs.
- 1971 Born: Jeremy Renner, American actor. He is best known for his role as Hawkeye in the MCU. His other credits include Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, American Hustle, and more.
- 1964 Born: Nicolas Cage, American actor, producer, and director. He is known for his leading roles in a variety of films: romantic comedies and dramas, science fiction and action films.
- 1955 Contralto Marian Anderson became the first person of color who performed Giuseppe Verdi's Un ballo in maschera at the Metropolitan Opera.
- 1954 The first public demonstration of a machine translation system (known as Georgetown-IBM experiment) was held in New York at the head office of IBM.
- 1946 Born: Jann Wenner, American publisher. He is known as the co-founder of Rolling Stone and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
- 1943 Died: Nikola Tesla, Serbian-American physicist and engineer. He is best known for his contribution to the modern AC electricity supply system.
- 1943 Born: Sadako Sasaki, Japanese victim of the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She is remembered through the story Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes and is a symbol of innocent victims of war.
- 1931 Guy Menzies flied the first solo flight from Australia to New Zealand. The flight took 11 hours and 45 minutes and ended with crash-landing on New Zealand's west coast. Menzies survived that crash.
- 1927 Transatlantic telephone service was established. This very first service connected New York and London.
- 1925 Born: Gerald Durrell, Indian-English zookeeper, conservationist, and author. He founded Durrell Wildlife Park (now Jersey Zoo) on the island of Jersey, which is concentrated on rare and endangered species of mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians.
- 1922 Born: Jean-Pierre Rampal, French flute player. He is known as one of the most famous flautists.
- 1919 Died: Henry Ware Eliot, American businessman and philanthropist, the co-founder of the private research university Washington University in St. Louis.
- 1904 The "CQD", a distress signal, was established. It was replaced by "SOS" two years later.
- 1894 William Kennedy Dickson received a patent for motion picture film.
- 1878 Died: François-Vincent Raspail, French chemist. He was one of the founders of the cell theory in biology. He is also known as an early advocate of the use of antisepsis and better sanitation.
- 1873 Born: Thomas Henry Ismay, English businessman, the founder of White Star Line, a prominent British shipping company. Its most famous vessels were Oceanic, Titanic, and Britannic.
- 1873 Born: Adolph Zukor, Hungarian film producer, the founder of Paramount Pictures.
- 1834 Born: Johann Philipp Reis, German physicist and inventor. He invented and constructed the first make-and-brake telephone that today is called Reis telephone.
- 1830 Died: Thomas Lawrence, English painter, a leading English portrait painter and president of the Royal Academy.
- 1827 Born: Sandford Fleming, Scottish-Canadian engineer. He divided the world into 24 time zones each covering 15 degrees of longitude, thus creating Universal Standard Time.
- 1785 Jean-Pierre Blanchard (Frenchman) and John Jeffries (American) traveled from Dover, England, to Calais, France in a gas balloon.
- 1782 The Bank of North America, the first American bank, was opened.
- 1619 Galileo Galilei made his first observation of the four Galilean moons: Ganymede, Callisto, Io and Europa. He couldn't distinguish the last two moons until the following day.
- 1451 Died: Amadeus VIII, known as Antipope Felix V. He was the last antipope in world history.