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forgot to add credit to the Quadrantid  Meteor Shower article; Thank you very much, Skeen!!

Start 2016 with a sky challenge.

Start 2016 with a sky challenge. The Quadrantid meteor shower peaks in moon-free skies, between midnight and dawn on January 4.

The annual Quadrantid shower is nominally active during the first week of January, and is best seen from northerly latitudes. However, peak activity lasts less than a day. So you need to be on the night side of Earth when this shower exhibits its relatively short peak to witness the Quadrantids. In 2016, we don’t expect the waning crescent moon to seriously obtrude on this meteor shower. So if you’re game, try watching between midnight and dawn on January 4.

This meteor shower favors the Northern Hemisphere. That’s because its radiant point – the point in the sky from which the meteors appear to radiate – is far to the north on the sky’s dome.

The Quadrantid meteor shower is capable of matching the meteor rates of the better known August Perseid and December Geminid showers. It has been known to produce up to 50-100 or more meteors per hour in a dark sky.

So why isn’t the Quadrantid shower as celebrated as the Perseid and Geminid showers? It’s because the Quadrantid shower has a narrow peak that lasts for only a few hours. If you miss the peak – which is easy to do – you won’t see many meteors.

If you’re thinking of watching the Quadrantids, do it. Meteor shower peaks are rarely certain, and sometimes a gamble on a shower will reward you with a good show. Just be aware you might not see a whole lot of meteors! No matter where you are in the Northern Hemisphere, the best time to watch is between midnight and dawn, local time. Fortunately, the waning crescent moon shouldn’t intrude too greatly on the January 2016 Quadrantid meteor shower!

The Quadrantid shower is named after the defunct 19th-century constellation Quadrans Muralis. If you trace the paths of the Quadrantids backward, they appear to radiate from a point where this constellation once reigned in the sky. If you wish, you can locate the Quadrantid radiant in reference to the Big Dipper and the bright star Arcturus. Use the chart at the top of this post.

But you don’t need to find the radiant to enjoy the Quadrantids. You need a dark, open sky, and you need to look in a general north-northeast direction for an hour or so before dawn. That’s the Quadrantid meteor shower – from late night January 3 to dawn January 4, 2016 – for the world’s northerly latitudes. Who knows? This shower can produce up to 50 or more meteors per hour, but its peak is rather short and sweet. Just before dawn on January 4, the waning crescent moon will be rather close to Mars, and you can use the moon and Mars to guide you to three more morning planets. Jupiter shines to the west of the moon and Jupiter, and the planets Venus and Saturn sit low in the southeast during the dark hour before dawn.

It’ll be worth getting up in the wee hours just to see the lineup of planets. The green line depicts the ecliptic – Earth’s orbital plane projected onto the dome of sky.

IOTD

Yemaya, The Goddess of the Ocean and of the New Year

Calendar day; January 1, 2016

Friday, the 1st of January, 2016. The day is the 1th day in 2016 and in the 53rd calendar week

LGBT History Month
January 1 to October 31, 2016 in USA, Canada

LGBT History Month is observed in January 2016. LGBT History Month is a month-long annual observance of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history, and the history of the gay rights and related civil rights movements.

October was chosen by Wilson as the month for the celebration because National Coming Out Day already was established as a widely known event, on October 11, and October commemorated the first March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation by LGBT people in 1979

Many gay and lesbian organizations supported the concept early on. In 1995, the National Education Association indicated support of LGBT History Month as well as other history months by resolution at its General Assembly.

National Mentoring Month
January 1 – 31, 2016 in the USA

National Mentoring Month is a campaign held each January to promote youth mentoring in the United States. It was inaugurated in 2002, and is spearheaded by the Harvard School of Public Health, MENTOR, and the Corporation for National and Community Service.

Each year since 2002, President George W. Bush has endorsed the campaign by proclaiming January as National Mentoring Month. The declaration has been endorsed by both chambers of the United States Congress. The campaign’s media partners have included ABC, CBS, Fox News, and NBC; Comcast; the National Association of Broadcasters; Time Warner; and Viacom.

Participants in the National Mentoring Month campaign include leading nonprofit organizations and numerous governors and mayors. Designated nonprofit and governmental agencies are responsible for coordinating local campaign activities in communities across the country, including media outreach and volunteer recruitment.

General Events:

 

New Year’s Day
January 1, 2016 in the World

New Year’s Day is the first day of the year. On the modern Gregorian calendar, it is celebrated on January 1, as it was also in ancient Rome (though other dates were also used in Rome). In all countries using the Gregorian calendar as their main calendar with the exception of Israel, it is a public holiday, often celebrated with fireworks at the stroke of midnight as the new year starts.  In present day, with most countries now using the Gregorian calendar as their de facto calendar, New Year’s Day is probably the most celebrated public holiday, often observed with fireworks at the stroke of midnight as the new year starts in each time zone.

In cultures which traditionally or currently use calendars other than the Gregorian, New Year’s Day is often also an important celebration. Some countries concurrently use the Gregorian and another calendar. New Year’s Day in the alternative calendar attracts alternative celebrations of that new year. January 1 on the Julian calendar corresponds to January 14 on the Gregorian calendar, and it is on that date that followers of some of the Eastern Orthodox churches celebrate the New Year. In Western Christianity New Year’s Day, January 1, is the eighth day of Christmas.

January 1 marks the end of a period of remembrance of a particular passing year, especially on radio, television and in newspapers, which usually starts right after thanksgiving. Publications often have year-end articles that review the changes during the previous year. Common topics include politics, natural disasters, music and the arts and the listing of significant individuals who died during the past year. Often there are also articles on planned or expected changes in the coming year, such as the description of new laws that often take effect onJanuary 1.

This day is traditionally a religious feast, but since the 1900s has become an occasion to celebrate the night of December 31, called New Year’s Eve. It is also customary to make New Year’s resolutions, which individuals hope to fulfil in the coming year. The most popular resolutions in the Western world include to quit tobacco smoking, stop excessive drinking of alcohol, lose weight, get physically fit, and save money.

Where is New Year’s Day?
Worldwide

Japanese New Year
January 1, 2016 in Japan

Japanese New Year takes place on January 01, 2016. The Japanese New Year is an annual festival with its own customs. The preceding days are quite busy, particularly the day before, known as Omisoka. Since 1873, the Japanese New Year has been celebrated according to the Gregorian calendar, on January 1 of each year, New Year’s Day. However, the original celebration of the Japanese New Year is still marked, in Okinawa for instance, on the same day as the contemporary Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese New Years. Japanese people eat a special selection of dishes during the New Year celebration called osechi-ryori, typically shortened to osechi. This consists of boiled seaweed, fish cakes, mashed sweet potato with chestnut, simmered burdock root, and sweetened black soybeans. Another custom is creating rice cakes. Boiled sticky rice is put into a wooden shallow bucket-like container and patted with water by one person while another person hits it with a large wooden mallet. Mashing the rice, it forms a sticky white dumpling. This is made before New Year’s Day and eaten during the beginning of January.

Where is Japanese New Year?
Nationwide Japan

Jump-up Day 2016
January 1, 2016 in Montserrat

Jump-up Day is observed on January 01, 2016. Jump-up Day is a holiday celebrated in Montserrat. It commemorates the emancipation of the slaves of Montserrat, and is the last day of Carnival on the island. Jump-up Day incorporates steelbands and masquerades, as well as male dancers chosen for their large size, who dance encumbered by chains to represent slavery.

Where is Jump-up Day 2016?
Nationwide Montserrat

Triumph of the Revolution
January 1, 2016 in Cuba

Triumph of the Revolution is celebrated on January 01, 2016. Triumph of the Revolution (Triunfo de la Revolución) is a celebration in Cuba of the anniversary of the victory of the revolution led by Fidel Castro in 1959 which established the present government in Cuba. It is celebrated on January 1st every year.

Where is Triumph of the Revolution?
Nationwide Cuba

World Day of Peace
January 1, 2016 in the World

World Day of Peace takes place on January 01, 2016. The World Day of Peace, sometimes unofficially known as World Peace Day, is a feast day of the Roman Catholic Church dedicated to peace, held on 1 January, on the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. It was introduced in 1967 by Paul VI, inspired by the encyclical Pacem in Terris of John XXIII and with reference to his own encyclical Populorum Progressio. The day was first observed on 1 January 1968. The World Day of Peace has often been a time when popes make magisterial declarations relevant to the social doctrine of the Church.

Where is the event?
Worldwide

Public Domain Day
January 1, 2016 in the World

Public Domain Day is celebrated on January 01, 2016. Public Domain Day is an observance of when copyrights expire and works enter into the public domain. This legal transition of copyright works into the public domain usually happens every year on 1 January based on the individual copyright laws of each country.

Where is the event?
Worldwide

Natural Events:

Quadrantids 2016
January 1 – 5, 2016 in the World

The Quadrantids are an easily visible January meteor shower. The entire activity period of the Quadrantids runs from January 1 to 5, 2016.

The radiant of this shower is an area inside the constellation Boötes. The name comes from Quadrans Muralis, an obsolete constellation that is now part of Boötes. It lies between the end of the handle of the Big Dipper and the quadrilateral of stars marking the head of the constellation Draco.

Adolphe Quetelet of the Brussels Observatory discovered the shower in the 1830s, and shortly afterward it was noted by several other astronomers in Europe and America.

Where is Quadrantids?
The sky World

Historical Events on 1st January:

45 BC – The Julian calendar takes effect for the first time.

1 – Origin of Christian Era

404 – Last gladiator competition in Rome

630 – The Prophet Muhammad sets out toward Mecca with the army that captures it bloodlessly

1502 – Portuguese navigators discover Rio de Janeiro

1600 – Scotland begins its numbered year on January 1 instead of 25 March.

1610 – German astronomer Simon Marius 1st discovers the Jupiter moons, but does not officially report it, Galileo does on July 1 1610

1758 – The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature establish the “starting point” for standardized species names across the animal kingdom. This naming system is based on the binomial nomenclature laid out in Carolus Linnaeus 10th edition of Systema Naturae

1788 – Quakers in Pennsylvania emancipate their slaves

1801 – The Irish Parliament votes to join the Kingdom of Great Britain, forming the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

1804 – Haiti gains independence from France (National Day)

1808 – Congress prohibits importation of slaves

1818 – Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus” is published anonymously by the small London publishing house of Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones

1846 – Yucatan declares independence from Mexico

1861 – Porfirio Diaz conquers Mexico City

1863 – Emancipation Proclamation issued by Lincoln to free slaves in confederate states

1873 – Origin of Japanese Era

1896 – Wilhelm Röntgen announces his discovery of x-rays

1901 – Australia declares independence from federation of UK colonies

1909 – In Great Britain, the Old Age Pension Law is finally instituted, providing pensions for every British subject over 70 with low income

1912 – Sun Yat-sen forms Chinese Republic

1922 – Coal miners in the Transvaal, South Africa, embark on a strike in response to a wage cut, which quickly escalated into a large-scale revolt against the government, known as the Rand Rebellion

1925 – Norway’s capital Christiania changes name to Oslo

1946 – Emperor Hirohito of Japan announces he is not a god

1948 – General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade effective

1950 – Ho Chi Minh begins offensive against French troops in Indo China

1958 – European Economic Community (Common Market) starts operation

1960 – Montserrat adopts constitution

1973 – West African Economic Community formed (Benin, Ivory Coast, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Upper Volta)

1980 – Sweden changes order of succession to throne

1987 – China’s rudimentary civil code in effect

1992 – The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic is renamed the Russian Federation, becoming the successor state to the Soviet Union

1993 – Czechoslovakia separates into Czech Republic (Bohemia) & Slovakia

1995 – The Draupner wave in the North Sea in Norway is detected, confirming the existence of freak waves

1996 – After 27 years, Betty Rubble debuts as a Flintstone vitamin

2000 – Gisbourne, New Zealand population 32,754 is first city in the world to welcome in the new millennium

2002 – The Open Skies mutual surveillance treaty, initially signed in 1992, officially comes into force