On This Day 2026
Hello, … Welcome to day 27 of the year.

Tuesday, January 27th

Today is National Chocolate Cake Day, National Geographic Day, Auschwitz Liberation Day and Holocaust Remembrance Day. Your star sign is Aquarius and your birthstone is Garnet.
2001 – The first Holocaust Memorial Day was held in Britain, on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet troops. The Holocaust resulted in the annihilation of 6 million European Jews and millions of others by the Nazi regime.
The first Holocaust Memorial Day was held in Britain on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet troops.
Famous deaths
2018 – Chas Hodges (b. 1943), English musician and singer. He was the lead vocalist, pianist and guitarist of the musical duo Chas & Dave.
Today’s birthdays
1944 – Nick Mason (82), English drummer and a founder member of the rock band Pink Floyd (“Another Brick in the Wall”), born in Edgbaston, Birmingham.
1951 – Brian Downey (75), Irish drummer and a founding member of Thin Lizzy (“Whisky In The Jar”, “The Boys Are Back in Town”), born in Dublin, Ireland.
1961 – Gillian Gilbert (65), English musician and member of the band New Order (“Blue Monday”, “Temptation”), born in Whalley Range, Manchester.
1964 – Bridget Fonda (62), American actress (The Godfather Part III, Single White Female, Jackie Brown), born in Los Angeles, California, United States.
1965 – Alan Cumming (61), Scottish actor (GoldenEye, The Good Wife) and TV presenter (Miriam and Alan: Lost In Scotland), born in Aberfeldy, Perth and Kinross, Scotland.
1972 – Mark Owen (54), English singer-songwriter and a member of the band Take That (“Back for Good”) and his solo hit (“Four Minute Warning”), born in Oldham, Greater Manchester.
1979 – Rosamund Pike (47), English actress (Jack Reacher, Die Another Day, The World’s End), born in Hammersmith, London.
Famous deaths
1880 – Edward Middleton Barry (b. 1830), English architect who co-designed the Halifax Town Hall and the Royal Opera House.
1993 – André the Giant (b. 1946), French professional wrestler (WWF) and actor, dubbed “the Eighth Wonder of the World” and famously drank 19.5 gallons of beer in one sitting.
The day today
1934 – British tennis player, Fred Perry won his sole Australian tennis title at the 1934 Australian Open, defeating Jack Crawford in the final in Sydney, a key victory that contributed to him becoming the first player to achieve the Career Grand Slam by winning all four major singles titles by 1935.

1945 – The Nazis’ biggest concentration camp at Auschwitz in south-western Poland was liberated. The millions killed during the Holocaust are remembered each year in services across the UK, as part of Holocaust Memorial Day.

1967 – The Outer Space Treaty was signed to prevent the use of nuclear weapons being utilized in space specifically by prohibiting placing nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in orbit, on celestial bodies, or stationing them in space, mandating that celestial bodies be used exclusively for peaceful purposes.
1967 – A devastating fire during a launch rehearsal killed Apollo 1 astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee when a spark ignited flammable materials in their pure oxygen environment, exacerbated by an unopenable inward-hatch, leading NASA to overhaul safety protocols and redesign the Command Module for future Apollo missions, enabling the eventual Moon landing.
1969 – Hard line Unionist Ian Paisley was jailed for three months along with Ronald Bunting for organising an illegal counter-demonstration against a Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association march in Armagh. He was released during a general amnesty for people convicted of political offences.
1973 – The Vietnam War officially ended, for the US at least, after the Paris Peace Accords were signed. While this was the last day of fighting for US troops in Vietnam, the peace between North and South Vietnam lasted less than one day. It took another two years of fighting before North Vietnam conquered South Vietnam.
1989 – Thomas Sopwith, British aircraft designer, died aged 101. Remembered for his Sopwith Camel and Sopwith Pup planes, he also won a £4,000 prize for the longest flight from England to the Continent in a British built aeroplane, flying 169 miles in 3 hours 40 minutes. His company produced more than 18,000 British World War I aircraft for the allied forces, including 5,747 of the famous Sopwith Camel single-seat fighters. Sopwith was awarded the CBE in 1918.
1992 – Heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson was convicted of rape in Indianapolis, Indiana, and sentenced to six years in prison, though he served three years before being released on parole in 1995, during which time he resumed his boxing career. Tyson was accused and later convicted of raping Desiree Washington, an 18-year-old Miss Black America contestant, in July 1991.
1993 – Veronica Bland became the first passive smoking worker in the UK to win compensation for damage to her health at work when she agreed to a settlement of £15,000 from Stockport Council in a personal injury claim.
1995 – Manchester United’s Eric Cantona was fined £20,000 and a football ban over his kung fu-style attack on a fan 2 days prior. Cantona was nicknamed ‘King Eric’ by Manchester United fans, and he was voted the club’s greatest ever player by the Inside United magazine.
2001 – The first Holocaust Memorial Day was held in Britain, on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet troops. The Holocaust resulted in the annihilation of 6 million European Jews and millions of others by the Nazi regime. A national ceremony was held in London, with different UK areas hosting annually since.
2017 – Donald Trump issues executive order banning travel to the US for seven mostly Muslim countries and suspending admission for refugees.
2018 – Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki beat Romanian Simona Halep to win her first Grand Slam title and regain the number one ranking at the Australian Open.
2024 – Icon of the Seas, the largest cruise ship in the world, embarked on its maiden voyage from Miami. With 20 decks and the ability to hold 7,600 passengers, the new supersized cruise ship was quickly christened the “Human Lasagne” by social media. At 1,198 feet (365 meters) long, it’s longer than the Eiffel Tower is tall!
2025 – Nvidia stocks fell by $588.8 billion after the release of Chinese AI model DeepSeek. DeepSeek surprised the world by announcing that they could perform at the level of ChatGPT but at a fraction of the cost, sending US tech stocks plummeting. Nvidia’s loss was the largest loss of any stock in a single day in history, over double the previous record loss of $240 billion set by Meta in 2022.
Today in music
1967 – The soundtrack of the film The Sound of Music was at No.1 on the UK album chart. With music and lyrics by Rodgers and Hammerstein the album was released in 1965 by RCA Victor and is one of the most successful soundtrack albums in history, having sold more than 20 million copies worldwide. It was the Best Selling Album in the UK in 1965, 1966 and 1968 and the second-best-selling of the decade, spending a total of 70 weeks at No.1 on the UK Chart.
1970 – John Lennon wrote, recorded and mixed his new single ‘Instant Karma!’ all in one day. It ranks as one of the fastest-released songs in pop music history, recorded at London’s Abbey Road Studios and arriving in stores only ten days later.
1973 – British Glam Rock group Sweet appeared at the Grand Hall in Kilmarnock, Scotland and were driven offstage by a barrage of bottles. The incident inspired their song ‘The Ballroom Blitz’ which went on to reach number one in Canada, number two in the UK and the Australian Chart, and number five on the US Billboard Hot 100.

1973 – ‘Superstition’ the lead single from Stevie Wonder’s Talking Book album became his second No.1 single in the US, 10 years after his first No.1 hit. Jeff Beck created the original drum beat while in the studio with Wonder. After writing the song, Wonder offered it to Beck to record, but at the insistence of Berry Gordy, Wonder himself recorded it first. Beck was instead offered ‘Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers’, which he recorded on his Blow by Blow album in 1975.

1979 – Ian Dury And The Blockheads were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick’, their only UK chart topper.
1984 – Madonna made her first appearance in the UK when she appeared on C4 TV music program The Tube performing ‘Holiday’. The show was broadcast live from the Hacienda Club in Manchester.
1984 – Michael Jackson was severely burned when pyrotechnics malfunctioned during the filming of a Pepsi commercial, setting his hair on fire and causing second and third-degree burns to his scalp and face, an event that led to chronic pain and a donation of $1.5 million from Pepsi to fund a burn center in his name.
1990 – Kylie Minogue had her third UK No.1 single with ‘Tears On My Pillow’, the song was originally a US hit for Little Anthony and The Imperials in 1958.
1996 – Babylon Zoo started a five-week run at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Spaceman’, the fastest selling single by a debut artist in the UK, (420,000 copies in 6 days). The song was used for a Levi Jeans TV commercial. The single also went to Number 1 in twenty-three other countries.
2015 – Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne were given a song writing credit on Sam Smith’s hit ‘Stay With Me’, because of the similarities to his 1989 track ‘I Won’t Back Down’. ‘Stay With Me’ had been nominated for three Grammys, including song of the year – which honours the writers of the track. Petty’s publisher had contacted Smiths publisher who made an out of court settlement.
Today in history
1591 – The death of Dr. John Fian, a Scottish schoolmaster and purported sorcerer from Prestonpans. He and other witches were arrested and extensively tortured (including having his fingernails removed with wooden splints placed into the wounds). The events became known as the North Berwick witch trials. ‘On This Day’ he was finally taken to Castlehill in Edinburgh, placed in a cart, strangled, and burnt.
1606 – The trial of Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators began. They were charged with treason for attempting to blow up the Houses of Parliament in November 1605.
1671 – Welsh pirate Henry Morgan lands at the gates of Panama City.
1757 – The birth, in Richmond, of Henry Greathead, the pioneering lifeboat builder from South Shields. It took some years before his lifeboat became well known to the public. The first was purchased in 1798 by Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland, for North Shields. By 1802 Greathead’s work was “deemed a fit subject for national munificence” and, over a period of years, 30 more lifeboats followed. Greathead never took out a patent on his invention, and was always willing to share his plans with others for the public good.
1820 – Russian Antarctic expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev discover the continent of Antarctica.
1867 – Royal Navy Lieutenant E.D. Young led an expedition to Africa to investigate reports of the death of Dr. David Livingstone. After conducting a thorough search and collecting evidence along the Zambezi and Shire rivers and Lake Nyasa, Young determined that the reports of Livingstone’s murder were false. He subsequently returned to England and reported to the Royal Geographical Society in 1868 that Livingstone was alive and continuing his explorations.