Geeky events to celebrate on January 21:
1968 – Apollo 5 lifts off carrying the first Lunar module into space.
1984 – The Apple Macintosh, the first consumer computer to utilize the computer mouse and a window-based graphical user interface, is introduced during Super Bowl XVIII with its famous “1984” television commercial.
January 22 birthdays of geeky note:
1970 – Alex Ross, American comic book artist
Holiday: National Hug Day
I… am not sure what to say about this. Perhaps it was made so that all those naive, attention-depraved teenage girls and creepy-looking old men don’t have to reserve their “free hugs” signs just for cosplay and comic conventions. Don’t get me wrong. Hugs are great… when they are between two consenting parties. At appropriate times.
Though its origins may have been innocent, I feel like “National Hug Day” could also be called “Inappropriate and/or Unwanted Touching Day.” Call me jaded. Why is it included on the Geeky Holidays site, then, you ask? Because I do see its value to geeks who may otherwise be wary of human contact. If it helps one person get a date that he/she may not otherwise get, then I think it’s worth it.
Please note: more touchy-feely geeks should remember to celebrate National Hug Day in moderation!
Geek Events to Celebrate on January 21
1960 – Miss Sam, a female rhesus monkey, lifts off from Wallops Island, Virginia, aboard Little Joe 1B – an unmanned test of the Mercury spacecraft.
January 21 birthdays of geeky note:
1953 – Paul Allen, American entrepreneur, co-founder of Microsoft
Geek Events to celebrate on January 20:
1885 – L.A. Thompson patents the roller coaster.
January 20 birthdays of geeky note:
1930 – Buzz Aldrin, American astronaut
1960 – Will Wright, American computer game designer and co-founder of the game development company Maxis, now part of Electronic Arts. He’s best known as the mastermind behind SimCity, The Sims, and Spore.
January 19 Birthdays of Geeky Note:
1809 – Edgar Allan Poe, American writer and poet (d. October 7, 1849). He inspired the macabre in many and literary tattoos in some.
January 18 Birthdays of Geeky Note:
1854 – Thomas Watson, American telephone pioneer (d. December 13, 1934). He was Alexander Graham Bell’s assistant.
January 17 birthdays of geeky note:
1560 – Gaspard Bauhin, Swiss botanist (d. December 5, 1624) who wrote Pinax theatri botanici (1596), which described thousands of plants and classified them in a manner that draws comparisons to the later binomial nomenclature of Linnaeus.
1961 – Maia Chiburdanidze, Russian women’s Chess grandmaster. In Russia, chessmasters are celebrated like movie stars.
Geek Events to celebrate on January 16:
1492 – The first grammar of the Spanish language (Gramática de la lengua castellana) is presented by Elio Antonio de Nebrija to Queen Queen Isabella I of Spain. This was the first book to focus on the study of the rules of a Western European language besides Latin.
1909 – Ernest Shackleton‘s expedition finds the magnetic South Pole.
1986 – First meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force.
Geek Holiday: : Korean Alphabet Day
Also called Hangul Day or Hangul Proclamation Day, this Korean national day of commemoration (unfortunately no longer a legal holiday) celebrates the invention and the proclamation of hangul (한글), the native alphabet of the Korean language, by King Sejong the Great. It is observed on January 15 in North Korea and October 9 in South Korea. Every country needs an alphabet day!
Geek events to celebrate on January 9:
1759 – The British Museum opens, allowing geeks to develop their brain-stash of useless trivia.
2001 – Wikipedia goes online. The world changes forever.
Geek events to celebrate on January 14:
1998 – Researchers in Dallas, Texas present findings about an enzyme that slows aging and cell death (apoptosis). Time to celebrate the prospect of a fountain of youth that could lead to an unlimited lifetime of acquiring useless knowledge and perfecting your Cthulhu characters.
Geek events to celebrate on January 13:
1942 – Henry Ford patents a plastic automobile, also known as a soybean car, that is 30% lighter than a regular car. The concept was halted during World War II and afterwards it was abandoned.
January 13 birthdays of geeky note:
1906 – Zhou Youguang, a Chinese linguist who is often credited as the “father of Hanyu Pinyin“, the official romanization for Mandarin in the People’s Republic of China. What began as a hobby turned into an interesting and commendable linguistics career in in 1955 and made it possible for us Western hobos to be able to learn Mandarin more efficiently. Another example of a game-changing social advancement by a geek that would affect the whole world.