Almanac: January

January 1

• The Church calendar identifies this date as the solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God, and the octave of Christmas.
   
• This date was regarded as the first day of the year as early as 158 B.C. when the Roman consuls began to inaugurate their office on January 1. The English word calendar comes from the name the Romans gave to this day, the Kalends of January. March 25, the traditional date of the spring equinox, continued to be regarded, both popularly and in many instances legally, as the beginning of the year, however, until Pope Gregory XIII confirmed this date as the head of the year in his reform instituted in 1582.
   
• On this date in 1974 Brother Norbert Henske died at age 73.  He served at the University from 1935 to 1943.
   
• J. D. Salinger, the author of Catcher in the Rye, was born in New York City on this day in 1919.

January 2

• This is the feast of St. Basil the Great, father of the eastern Church who died in 379, and of his friend and colleague, St. Gregory Nazianzen, called "the Theologian" because of his knowledge of Sacred Scripture. St. Gregory died in 390. Father Basil Moreau (1799-1873), founder of the Congregation of Holy Cross, looked upon St. Basil as his patron. Throughout his lifetime, friends sent Father Moreau greetings on this day.

January 3

• The University of Portland Almanac attempts to present for each day of the year information particular to that date from the history of the University and its constituent membership, or information, still particular to the date, regarding persons and topics connected with the University’s academic interests, or other matters of general interest and appropriate to this site. We presently offer no specific entry for this date. If you wish to suggest material that would appropriately be listed under this date, or corrections, please contact the editor.

January 4

• This is the feast of St. Elizabeth Ann Bailey Seton (1774-1820).  At her canonization in 1975 it was noted that she was the first canonized saint who had been a "charter citizen" of the United States of America.  Through her foundation of the Sisters of Charity she greatly influenced the development of parochial schools in North America and, consequently, of the remarkable system of Catholic primary and secondary schools that have contributed to the character of the Church in this country.
  
  
• On this date in 1988 Father Charles Harris, C.S.C., died at age 71. He was at the University of Portland from 1965 to 1969, serving as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in the last two years of his tenure. He came to the University to help prepare for the Northwest re-accreditation of 1970. He was instrumental in drawing up the Articles of Administration and in the decision to consolidate the College of Arts and Letters and the College of Science into a single administrative unit.
   
• This was the birthday, in 1643, of Sir Isaac Newton, English physicist and mathematician.  He was the discoverer of infinitesimal calculus, of the integration of colors into white light, and of the three basic laws of motion.  His Principia Mathematica, considered one of the fundamental works of modern science, was published in 1687.  He died in 1727. 
  
  
• And in 1785, in Hanau in the German state of Hesse-Kassel, this was the birthday of Jacob Grimm, the elder of the Brothers Grimm of fairytale fame.  In addition to the publication of their collection of folk tales, Jacob in particular was important as a philologist, among the first to examine systematically the relationship of various European languages to one another and to the ancient languages from which they came.

January 5

• Today the Church commemorates St. John Neumann, bishop of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, born in Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in 1811.  He is remembered for his development of parochial education in his diocese; through his support and encouragement enrollment in parish schools within the diocese increased twenty fold. He died in 1860, was beatified in 1963, and was canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1977, the first male citizen of the United States to be so honored.

January 6

• This is the traditional date of the feast of the Epiphany, "Twelfth Night," commemorating the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus and his mother, Mary, as narrated in St. Matthew's Gospel (2, 1-12).
  
  
• In 1937, this date saw the death in Montreal, Canada, of Brother André Bessette, C.S.C. Born in 1845, he entered the Congregation of Holy Cross in 1870 and served for many years as doorkeeper of the College de Notre Dame on Mount Royal. He was directly instrumental for the establishment and building there of the Oratory of Saint Joseph, now the largest church in North America. He was known as "the miracle worker of Montreal" and many cures and other favors have been attributed to his prayer and intercession. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1982 and canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010.  The Church in Canada and the United States now observe the feast of the Saint André Bessette on this date.
  
  
• In 1977, Father Roland Simonitsch, C.S.C., died at age 66.  He was professor of theology and chaired that department in the years before his death.

January 7

• This is the feast of St. Raymond of Peñafort, O.P., (1175-1275), an early canon lawyer whose work, The Decretals, provided a foundational organization of Church law.

January 8

• At Arcetri, outside the city of Florence, in 1642, the death of Galileo Galilei, the astronomer, natural philosopher (or physicist), and mathematician whose discoveries stirred controversy in his own day and established fundamental principles for later scientists.

January 9

• In 1964 the death, at the age of 78, of Father Thomas E. Burke, C.S.C., who served at the University from 1921 to 1930.

January 10

• The University of Portland Almanac presently offers no specific entry for this date. If you wish to suggest material that would appropriately be listed under this date, please contact the editor. 

January 11

• William James was born in New York City on this day in 1842.  A graduate of Harvard's medical school, he taught anatomy and physiology before moving in 1880 to the department of psychology and philosophy.  He published his Principles of Psychology in 1890 and his later writings made him a leader in the philosophical movement called Pragmatism.

January 12

• On this date in 2010 a devastating earthquake struck the nation of Haiti on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean.  The center of the quake was a short distance from Port au Prince, the capital of the country and the center of population.  Damage was widespread and early estimates of deaths numbered above 50,000 (in a nation of about 9,000,000).  One graduate from the University's class of 2009, Molly Hightower, lost her life in the collapse of a building where she was working with orphans and disadvantaged children.  Rachel Prusynski, also a graduate of 2009, survived though she was in the same building as it collapsed.  There were other losses closely related to the University, especially the mother of Professor Genevieve Brassard of the department of English.  The Congregation of Holy Cross has served in Haiti since 1944 and had about 40 members, mostly native Haitians, in the country at the time of the earthquake.  Although there were few deaths among Holy Cross members, property damage was very significant among schools and other institutions.
  
  
• In France in 1665 Pierre de Fermat died on this date. He is often called the founder of the modern theory of numbers.  He was an inventor of analytic geometry and one of the inventors of calculus.  He is known among mathematicians for "Fermat's little theorem" and is also celebrated for his "last theorem," for which he claimed to have a proof that he did not provide in writing.  Subsequent mathematicians have struggled with the puzzle and in 1995 Andrew Wiles, an English mathematician, with the help of one of his students, published a proof in the journal Annals of Mathematics.
   
• In San Francisco in 1876 this was the birthday of John Griffith Chaney, who would become known to the world as Jack London, a writer of tales of adventure and survival.

January 13

• In the Church calendar this date has long been known as the feast of St. Hilary of Poitiers (died 368), bishop.  At Oxford, the academic term from January to Easter is known as Hilary Term because it usually begins around this date.
   
• In 1963 Paul E. Waldschmidt, C.S.C., was inaugurated as the fifteenth president of the University in a ceremony in Howard Hall.  Dr. Mortimer J. Adler addressed the assembly in this first presidential inauguration at the University and received an honorary degree.

January 14

• The University of Portland Almanac presently offers no specific entry for this date. If you wish to suggest material that would appropriately be listed under this date, please contact the editor.

January 15

• In 1939, Father John F. Farley, C.S.C., died on this date at age 62. He served at the University from 1919 to 1925.
  
  
• Civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on this day in 1929.  Shortly after his assassination on April 4, 1968, a movement began to observe his birthday as a public holiday.  Although a number of states adopted the date as a public holiday, resistance at the federal level held until 1983 when Congress established the third Monday in January as a federal holiday in his honor.  The first public observance of the holiday occurred in 1986.

January 16

• The University of Portland Almanac presently offers no specific entry for this date. If you wish to suggest material that would appropriately be listed under this date, please contact the editor.

January 17

• This is the feast of St. Anthony of the Desert (251-356), patriarch of monasticism, patron of Basil Anthony Moreau, the founder of the Congregation of Holy Cross.
  
  
• Father Joseph L. Powers, C.S.C., died on this date in 1980, at the age of 64. He had served at the University from 1951 until 1978.  He was a faculty member in the history department.  From 1962 until 1971 he was executive vice president of the University.  During the next year he served as resident director of the University's program in Salzburg, Austria, and upon his return to Portland he was appointed assistant dean of the College of Arts and Sciences; he became dean of the college the following year.  As executive vice president he oversaw the construction of Buckley Center and designed the peace garden in the plaza outside Buckley Center auditorium.  It contains a species of plant native to each of the continents of the world living together in harmony as a symbol for a longed-for, if unachieved, political and human harmony.  He also promoted the establishment of the Peace Studies Program at the University.
  
  
• Brother Vital Cahill, C.S.C., died on this date in 1938 at age 62. He had served at the University from 1918 to 1936. 
   
• And Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston on this day in 1706.

January 18

• Until the reform of the Church liturgical calendar under Paul VI following the Second Vatican Council, this date was observed as the feast of St. Peter's Chair at Rome, which in the twentieth century became the opening of the "Octave of Unity," a week of prayers and activities dedicated to seeking the re-unification of the Christian churches. The observance of the octave continues despite the disappearance of the feast from the liturgical calendar. 
   
• On this date in 1947 the University's central heating plant was destroyed by fire.
   
• It was on this day in 1803 that President Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter asking Congress to fund the expedition that would be named for its leaders, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.  The party of forty men that they were to assemble for the journey of "the corps of discovery" would depart from St. Louis on May 14, 1804.

January 19

• In Boston in 1809 this was the birthday of Edgar Allen Poe, whose tales and poems would make him one of the first Americans to gain a wide readership and admiration in Europe.

January 20

• Blessed Basil Anthony M. Moreau, Founder of the Congregation of Holy Cross died on this date at LeMans, France, in 1873. He was declared "blessed" by papal decree on September 15, 2007, in a ceremony at Le Mans attended by representatives of his religious communities from throughout the world. The declaration of beatification indicates the belief of the Church that he is among those in heaven who enjoy the presence of God and is now worthy of veneration as part of the public worship of the Church. This day is now observed in the liturgical calendar as a memorial in his honor.
  
  
• Every four years, beginning in 1937, this has been the date of the inauguration of the President and Vice President of the United States.  It is also the anniversary, therefore, of events connected with these inaugurations, as, for example, the freeing of the American hostages in Teheran on January 20, 1981.

January 21

• This is the feast of St. Agnes, a Roman martyr of the fourth century. Her feast day has been observed on this date for centuries. The first stanza of John Keats's poem, "The Eve of St. Agnes," is said to be the coldest stanza in English verse.
  
  
• Father Matthew A. Coyle, C.S.C., died on this date in 1957. 

January 22

• The University of Portland Almanac presently offers no specific entry for this date. If you wish to suggest material that would appropriately be listed under this date, please contact the editor.

January 23

• The University of Portland Almanac presently offers no specific entry for this date. If you wish to suggest material that would appropriately be listed under this date, please contact the editor. 

January 24

• This is the feast of St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622), bishop, doctor of the Church and patron of the Catholic press.
   
• On this date in 1951 the University changed its policy so that women could be admitted to all its programs.  From its foundation in 1901 the University had admitted only male students as degree candidates until in 1934 the nursing program at St. Vincent's Hospital was incorporated into its undergraduate program.
  
  
• Brother Frederick Kräling, C.S.C., died on this date in 1917 at age 67. He had come to the University in 1903.

January 25

• This is the feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, commemorating the events recorded three times in the Acts of the Apostles (9, 1-22; 22, 3-16; and 26, 2-18). In the twentieth century this has been noted as the end of the octave of prayer for the unity of the Church.
  
  
• This is also the birthday, in 1759, of Robert Burns, the Scottish poet.  His poetry, though critical of contemporary political and religious ideas, became so popular that some of it survives in the memories of those who seldom turn to poetry.  The English-speaking world sings his lyric, "Auld Lang Syne," on New Year's eve and day, and he is remembered as well for poems like "To a Field Mouse," which combines the sentiments of the era of literary romanticism with a more modern ecological sympathy.

January 26

• Today the Church commemorates Saints Timothy and Titus, bishops of the early Church and martyrs , disciples of the Apostle Paul, who addressed to them the letters incorporated into the New Testament under their names, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus.
   
• The death in 1947 of Father Francis T. Maher, C.S.C., who served at the University from 1913 to 1924.

January 27

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria, on this date in 1756.  Although today he is recognized as one of the great geniuses in the history of music, he struggled to find financial support in his later life.  He died in poverty at the age of 35.
  
  
• And in 1832 this was the birthday of Charles Dodgson, known as Lewis Carroll, who introduced the world to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in 1865.  He was a lecturer in mathematics at Oxford.
  
  
• On this day in 2001 Mauro Potestio, golf coach at the University and its former sports information director, attended his 1000th Pilot basketball game.  The event also marked the 759th consecutive home game Potestio had attended. 
  
  
• The Church today commemorates St. Angela Merici, the foundress, in the sixteenth century, of the Ursulines, the first teaching order of women approved by the Church.

January 28

• This is the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Dominican friar who, in the thirteenth century, brought the insight of Aristotle to bear on Christian theology. He studied under St. Albert the Great at Cologne and taught in the university there before moving on to the University of Paris, where he was admitted to the degree doctor of theology. He was a professor at Paris and at other universities before his death, at the age of 49, in 1274. His writings greatly influenced scholarship in his own and later periods. He is honored as a doctor of the Church.

January 29

• The University of Portland Almanac presently offers no specific entry for this date. If you wish to suggest material that would appropriately be listed under this date, please contact the editor.

January 30

• This date in 1882 saw the birth of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the thirty-second President of the United States and the only person to hold the office for more than eight years.  In 1940 he ran for a controversial third term, ignoring the precedent set by George Washington, and easily won re-election running against Wendell Wilkie.  He was elected again in 1944 but died a few months after his fourth inauguration.
  
  
• In 1912 this was the birthday of Barbara Wertheim, to become famous later as Barbara Tuchman, the author of The Guns of August, an examination of the beginnings of World War I.

January 31

• Today is the feast of St. John Bosco, a nineteenth-century Italian priest who founded the Society of St. Francis de Sales, a religious community dedicated to the education and care of youth. The Salesians have founded schools throughout the world.
  
  
• Corretta Scott King, widow of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, died on this date in 2006 at the age of 78.  After her husband's assassination, she became noted as a leader in the movement herself and founded the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change.  She had graduated from Antioch College in Ohio and was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music when she met and married King, then a graduate student in theology at Harvard.
  
  
• Normal Mailer was born on this date in 1923.  He published The Naked and the Dead, his novel about the Second World War, in 1948. 
  
  
• On this date in 1797, Franz Schubert was born near Vienna.  In his brief life, just over thirty years, he composed songs, quartets, symphonies, masses, and numerous pieces for piano.