January 4, 1999: The Finger Poke of Doom
**January 6, 1786 **: The East Indiaman *Halsewell * is destroyed on the cliffs of the south coast of England at Dorsetshire during a blizzard. Approximately 170 are killed. The wreck of the *Halsewell * inspired Charles Dickens to write “The Long Voyage.”
January 6, 1839: The Night of the Big Wind, the most damaging storm in 300 years, sweeps across Ireland, damaging or destroying more than 20% of the houses in Dublin.
January 7, 1892: An explosion at the Osage Coal and Coke Mine #11 in Krebs, Oklahoma kills approximately 100.
January 7, 1955: Contralto Marian Anderson becomes the first person of color to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in Giuseppe Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera. Thanks to the senseless prejudice of Rudolf Bing, white women born in the United States, such as Beverly Sills, would have to wait until 1975.
January 8, 1962: The Harmelen train disaster occurs when two speeding trains collide head-on. 93 die in this, the deadliest rail accident ever in the Netherlands.
January 8, 1297: François Grimaldi, disguised as a monk, leads his men to capture the fortress protecting the Rock of Monaco, establishing his family as the rulers of Monaco. Today, 721 years later, the House of Grimaldi still reigns in Monaco.
January 9, 1857: The strongest earthquake in California’s recorded history, The Fort Tejon earthquake, occurs in southern California on the San Andreas fault. The quake is estimated as a 7.9 on the Richter Scale.
January 9, 1349: The entire Jewish population of Basel, believed by the residents to be the cause of the ongoing Black Death, is rounded up and incinerated.
Jan 9, 1793: Jean Pierre Blanchard makes the first (balloon) flight in North America, flying from Philadelphia, PA to Deptford, NJ.
January 10, 1883: The Newhall House Hotel fire in Milwaukee, Wisconsin kills at least 74.
January 11, 1866: The SS London sinks during a violent storm in the Bay of Biscay. 220 are lost.
January 12, 2010: A 7.0 earthquake in Haiti kills over 100,000 and injures 300,000 more.
January 13, 1917: The Ciurea Train Disaster in Romania kills between 800 and 1000 people. It is the third deadliest rail accident in history.
January 14, 1878: The Tariffville Train Accident:
The Tariffville Bridge in Connecticut collapses sending three passenger rail cars into the frigid waters of the Farmington River. 13 die and more than 70 are injured.
January 16, 1862: The Hartley Colliery Disaster in Northumberland, England kills 204. The accident leads to laws requiring a second exit for coal mines.
January 17, 1718 The entire town of Leukerbad, Switzerland is destroyed in an avalanche. At least 55 are killed.
January 17, 1929: Popeye the Sailor Man, a cartoon character created by E. C. Segar, first appears in the Thimble Theatre comic strip.
January 18, 1988 - Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera starts previews at Broadway’s Majestic Theatre, with an advertising budget of zero. Thirty years later, it’s still up and running.
January 19, 1917 The Sivertown Explosion in London.
A munitions factory catches fire and 50 tons of TNT explode. 73 are killed and hundreds more injured. At least 900 nearby homes and other structures are destroyed and thousands more are damaged.