January 6 birthdays & history

Famous people born on January 6

• 1412Joan of Arc, French martyr and saint
• 1955Debbie Mathers, Mother of Eminem
• 1883Kahlil Gibran, Lebanese-American poet, painter, and philosopher
• 1955Rowan Atkinson, English actor, producer, and screenwriter
• 1878Carl Sandburg, American poet and historian
• 1938Adriano Celentano, Italian singer-songwriter, actor, and director
• 1832Gustave Doré, French painter and sculptor
• 1872Alexander Scriabin, Russian pianist and composer
• 1982Eddie Redmayne, English actor and model
• 1946Syd Barrett, English singer-songwriter and guitarist

What happened on January 6

• 1536The oldest European school of higher learning in the Americas, the Colegio de Santa Cruz, was founded in Tlatelolco, Mexico City.
• 1540King Henry VIII of England married his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves; the marriage was annulled six months later.
• 1725J. S. Bach led the first performance of Liebster Immanuel, Herzog der Frommen, a chorale cantata for Epiphany.
• 1838Alfred Vail and colleagues demonstrate a telegraph system using dots and dashes (this is the forerunner of Morse code).
• 1907Italian educator Maria Montessori opened her first school and day-care centre for working-class children in Rome, employing a philosophy of education that now bears her name.
• 1912German geophysicist Alfred Wegener presented his theory of continental drift, the precursor of plate tectonics, to the German Geological Society.
• 1912New Mexico is admitted to the Union as the 47th U.S. state.
• 1929Mother Teresa arrives by sea in Calcutta, India, to begin her work among India's poorest and sick people.
• 1941During his State of the Union address, U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt presented his Four Freedoms (composite poster depicted) as fundamental freedoms that all people ought to enjoy.
• 1953The inaugural Asian Socialist Conference, an organisation of socialist political parties, opened in Rangoon with 177 delegates, observers and fraternal guests.
• 1972A brawl broke out between players, fans, and police officers during an ice hockey game between the Philadelphia Flyers and the St. Louis Blues in Philadelphia.
• 2014The first episode of the documentary series Benefits Street aired on Channel 4, prompting discussion in the United Kingdom about welfare dependency.

Also observed on January 6

• Christmas: Christmas (Armenian Apostolic Church)
• Christmas: Christmas Eve (Russia)
• Christmas: Christmas Eve (Ukraine)