On this day in history

January 1

13 births · 4 deaths · 2 events

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Anniversary highlights

Event anniversary

2026 Crans-Montana bar fire

0 years ago

Born this day

1919

J. D. Salinger

Would be 107

Oldest record

595th

Alexander VI

birth anniversary

Famous births13

1431 · 595 yrs

Alexander VI

Pope Alexander VI (born Roderic de Borja y Llançol; c. 1431 – 18 August 1503) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Papal States from 11 August 1492 until his death in 1503.

ReligionWould be 595

Photo: Attributed to Pedro Berruguete · Public domain

1449 · 577 yrs

Lorenzo de' Medici

Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici (Italian:), known as Lorenzo the Magnificent (Italian: Lorenzo il Magnifico; 1 January 1449 – 8 April 1492), was an Italian statesman, de facto ruler of the Florentine Republic, and the most powerful patron of Renaissance culture in Italy.

PoliticsWould be 577

Photo: After Andrea del Verrocchio / After Orsino Benintendi · Public domain

1484 · 542 yrs

Huldrych Zwingli

Huldrych Zwingli (born Ulrich Zwingli; 1 January 1484 – 11 October 1531) was a Swiss Christian theologian, musician, and leader of the Reformation in Switzerland.

ReligionWould be 542

Photo: Hans Asper · Public domain

1501 · 525 yrs

Gregory XIII

Pope Gregory XIII (Latin: Gregorius XIII, Italian: Gregorio XIII, born Ugo Boncompagni; 7 January 1502 – 10 April 1585) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 13 May 1572 to his death in April 1585.

ReligionWould be 525

Photo: Lavinia Fontana · Public domain

1640 · 386 yrs

Aphra Behn

Aphra Behn (bapt. 14 December 1640 – 16 April 1689) was an English playwright, poet, prose writer and translator from the Restoration era.

LiteratureWould be 386

Photo: Peter Lely · Public domain

1863 · 163 yrs

Pierre de Coubertin

Charles Pierre de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin (French:; born Pierre de Frédy; 1 January 1863 – 2 September 1937), also known as Pierre de Coubertin and Baron de Coubertin, was a French educator and historian, co-founder of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and its second president.

ScholarshipWould be 163

Photo: Photograph from Bain News Service. · Public domain

1879 · 147 yrs

E. M. Forster

Edward Morgan Forster (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970) was an English author. He is best known for his novels, particularly A Room with a View (1908), Howards End (1910) and A Passage to India (1924).

LiteratureWould be 147

Photo: Dora Carrington (1893–1932) · Public domain

1894 · 132 yrs

Satyendra Nath Bose

Satyendra Nath Bose (1 January 1894 – 4 February 1974) was an Indian theoretical physicist and mathematician. He is best known for his work on quantum mechanics in the early 1920s, in developing the foundation for Bose–Einstein statistics, and the theory of the Bose–Einstein condensate.

ScienceWould be 132

Photo: Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domain

1909 · 117 yrs

Stepan Bandera

Stepan Andriiovych Bandera (1 January 1909 – 15 October 1959) was a Ukrainian far-right leader of the radical militant faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, the OUN-B.

PoliticsWould be 117

Photo: Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domain

1919 · 107 yrs

J. D. Salinger

Jerome David Salinger ( SAL-in-jər; January 1, 1919 – January 27, 2010) was an American writer best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye. Salinger published several short stories in Story magazine in 1940, before serving in World War II.

LiteratureWould be 107

Photo: Lotte Jacobi · Public domain

1942 · 84 yrs

Alassane Ouattara

Alassane Dramane Ouattara (French pronunciation:; born 1 January 1942) is an Ivorian politician and economist who has been President of Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire) since 2010.

PoliticsAge 84

Photo: Dario Pignatelli / European Union · Attribution

1944 · 82 yrs

Omar al-Bashir

Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir (born 1 January 1944) is a Sudanese former military officer and politician who served as head of state of Sudan under various titles from 1989 until 2019, when he was deposed in a coup d'état. He was subsequently imprisoned, tried and convicted on multiple corruption charges.

PoliticsAge 82

Photo: U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jesse B. Awalt · Public domain

1956 · 70 yrs

Christine Lagarde

Christine Madeleine Odette Lagarde (French:; née Lallouette, IPA:; born 1 January 1956) is a French politician and lawyer who has been the president of the European Central Bank since 2019. She previously served as the 11th Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from 2011 to 2019.

PoliticsAge 70

Photo: European Parliament from EU · CC BY 2.0

Famous deaths4

1515 · 511 yrs

Louis XII of France

Louis XII (27 June 1462 – 1 January 1515), also known as Louis of Orléans, was King of France from 1498 to 1515 and King of Naples (as Louis III) from 1501 to 1504.

RoyaltyWould be 564

Photo: Workshop of Jean Perréal · Public domain

1894 · 132 yrs

Heinrich Hertz

Heinrich Rudolf Hertz ( hurts; German:; 22 February 1857 – 1 January 1894) was a German physicist who first conclusively proved the existence of the electromagnetic waves proposed by James Clerk Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism.

ScienceWould be 169

Photo: Robert Krewaldt, Kaiserplatz 16, Bonn · Public domain

1992 · 34 yrs

Grace Hopper

Grace Brewster Hopper (née Murray; December 9, 1906 – January 1, 1992) was an American computer scientist, mathematician, and United States Navy rear admiral. She was a pioneer of computer programming.

ScienceWould be 119

Photo: James S. Davis · Public domain

1995 · 31 yrs

Eugene Paul Wigner

Eugene Paul Wigner (Hungarian: Wigner Jenő Pál, pronounced; November 17, 1902 – January 1, 1995) was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist who also contributed to mathematical physics.

ScienceWould be 123

Photo: Nobel foundation · Public domain

Events2

1942 · 84 yrs

Declaration by United Nations

The Declaration by United Nations was the main treaty that formalized the Allies of World War II and was signed by 47 national governments between 1942 and 1945.

Politics

2026 · 0 yrs

2026 Crans-Montana bar fire

On 1 January 2026 at 01:26 (CET), during New Year celebrations, a fire broke out at Le Constellation bar in the ski-resort town of Crans-Montana, Valais, Switzerland. Forty-one people died in the fire, and 115 others were injured, with 83 initially being treated for severe burns.

Disaster

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