• January 1 New Year's Day "New Year" is celebrated at different times throughout the world. The festival of the New Year greets a new beginning and re-enacts the creation of the earth. Ancients believed that making noise would help to expel harmful spirits of the "Old Year," and they greeted the "New Year" with singing, dancing, feasting and merrymaking.

• January 1 Festival of many deities, including Hera, Greek Queen of Heaven, and a day to honor Anna Perenna, Grandmother of Time.

• January 1, 1992 Death of Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, credited with development of the COBOL system of computer language.

• January 3, 1793 Birth of Lucretia Mott, Quaker minister who, with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, organized the first women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. "Any great change should expect opposition because it shakes the very foundation of privilege."

• January 3, 1987 Aretha Franklin, American singer, songwriter, pianist, and civil rights activist, became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

• January 3, 2019 A record-breaking 127 women, including two Native Americans and two Muslims, were sworn in as members of the U.S. House of Representatives, with Democrat Nancy Pelosi elected Majority Leader. Women then held nearly one-quarter of seats in the U.S. Congress.
• January 5, 1925 Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming became the first woman Governor in U.S. history.

• January 6 Birth of Jesus celebrated on the Julian Calendar, and still observed in some parts of the world.

• January 6 Greek Feast of Persephone/Kore, the Divine Maiden.

• January 6 Feast of Epiphany, Twelfth Night, ending the Twelve Days of Christmas. The Epiphany commemorates the baptism of Jesus and the visit of the Three Wise Men. In Spain and Italy, gifts are exchanged on this day instead of December 25 to honor the coming of the Magi. In France, England and Mexico, women bake special cakes to celebrate the day. Often, a bean, pea or tiny doll is hidden in the twelfth piece of cake to designate the king or queen of the celebration.

• January 6, 1412 Birth of Jeanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc), heroine of the siege of Orleans who saved the French crown of Charles VII. Later convicted in an English court for challenging male authority and wearing men's clothes, she was burned as a heretic in 1431. She was 19. To her English accusers who condemned her for wearing men's clothing, Jeanne responded that she feared rape from her captors and that it was "more lawful and suitable for me to . . . wear man's dress, being with men, than to have a woman's dress." A French law prohibiting women from "dressing as men" without official permission remained on the books until 2013.

• January 7, 1891 Birth of Zora Neal Hurston, African-American novelist, "Grab the broom of anger and drive off the beast of fear." folklorist, who was exonerated for running a red light after she explained, "I had seen white folks pass on green so I assumed the red light was for me."

• January 7, 1896 Publication of Fanny Farmer's first cookbook which standardized cooking measurements.

• January 7, 1955 Marian Anderson became the first African-American to sing with the Metropolitan Opera.

• January 8 Midwives Day, ancient Greek celebration of Saint Domenika, when midwives are honored with gifts of food and wine, and bawdy jokes exchanged.

• January 8, 1859 Birth of world traveler and adventurer Fannie Bullock Workman, who carried a "Votes for Women" banner into the Himalayas on one of her many climbing expeditions. At age 53, Bullock Workman was still clambering around the Himalayas at 20,000 feet with her husband. "It should be known . . . and stated in print that a woman was the initiator and special leader of this expedition. . . . Later, . . . no such emphasis of her work will be needed, . . . but that day has not yet fully arrived, and at present it behooves women, for the benefit of their sex, to put what they do . . . on record."

• January 8, 1867 Birth of Emily Greene Balch, co-founder of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and Nobel Peace Prize winner. In her 1948 speech accepting the Nobel Prize for Peace, she said, "[N]ationalism has proved excessively dangerous in its divisiveness and its self-adulation. It has given us an anarchic world of powerful armed bodies, with traditions steeped in conquest and military glory, and of competing commercial peoples as ruthless in their economic self-seeking as in their wars."

• January 8, 1977 Anna Pauline "Pauli" Murray became the first African-American ordained in the Episcopal Church.

• January 9, 1859 Birth of Carrie Chapman Catt, who, as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, was instrumental in winning women's right to vote in 1920. "It is doubtful if any man . . . ever realized what the suffrage struggle came to mean to women before the end was allowed in America. How much work, energy and aspiration, how much faith, how much hope, how much despair went into it. It leaves its mark on one, such a struggle. It fills the days and it rides the nights. Working, eating, drinking, sleeping, it is there. . . ."

• January 9, 1941 Birth of Joan Baez, folk singer, song writer, peace activist, and founder of Humanitas International Human Rights Committee."Action is the antidote to despair."

• January 10, 1917 - June 4, 1919 The women known as the Silent Sentinels began to protest inaction by President Wilson and the Congress in advancing women's right to vote. The Sentinels held attention-getting signs such as "Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?" Many of the women were thrown in jail and force-fed during the 2 1/2 years of protest, organized by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns and other members of the militant National Woman's Party.

• January 11, 1885 Birth of Alice Paul, shy young radical leader of the National Woman's Party, which in 1913 revitalized the campaign for national woman suffrage in the U.S., and Alice Paul wrote and proposed the Equal Rights Amendment in 1923. "There will never be a new world order until women are a part of it."

• January 12, 1932 Hattie Wyatt Caraway (D-Arkansas) became the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate.

• January 13, 1887 Birth of Sophie Tucker, the big singer with the big voice whose rendition of the song "My Yiddische Momme" both comforted and bothered many during the 1930s and '40s. Adolf Hitler was so bothered by Tucker's version of the song that he banned it. "I was hopping mad," Tucker remembered. "I sat right down and wrote a letter to Herr Hitler which was a masterpiece. To date, I have never had an answer."

• January 14, 1893 Queen Liliuokalani, the last reigning monarch of Hawaii, nullified the US-authorized legislature and proclaimed a pro-Hawaiian constitution, leading to her house arrest and dethronement.

• January 15, 1929 Birth of Martin Luther King Jr., Civil Rights activist. His "I Have A Dream" speech inspired many young women as well as young men in the push for equal rights.

• January 15, 1559 Elizabeth Tudor was crowned queen of England. The daughter of the notorious Henry VIII, Elizabeth I succeeded her sister, Queen Mary, and reigned until she died in 1603. Queen Elizabeth I, one of the most successful and respected of England's monarchs, was known as the "Virgin Queen" because she refused to marry so that no man would steal her power or position through marriage.

• January 16, 1932 Birth of Dian Fossey, naturalist who pioneered the study of gorillas in Rwanda. Fossey's 1983 book Gorrilas in the Mist was a plea for the gorillas' protection from poachers and neglect. She was murdered in 1985 while studying and attempting to protect her forest friends. "When you realize the value of all life, you dwell less on what is past and concentrate more on the preservation of the future."

• January 16, 2006 Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became the first woman president of Liberia, and the first woman elected president of an African country. Johnson Sirleaf was named Liberia's president in 2006 after the woman-led peace movement led to ending the Liberian civil war in 2003. Johnson Sirleaf served as Liberia's president until 2018. She received the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, along with Leymah Gbowee, who led the women's peace movement, and Tawakkul Karman of Yemen.

• January 17, 1910 Birth of Edith Green, Oregon Democratic Congresswoman who promoted women's rights and was instrumental in enacting Title IX legislation, which mandated educational equality. "It was perfectly legal to discriminate in any education program against girls or women."

• January 17, 1964 Birth of Michelle Obama, best-selling author of Becoming and first African American First Lady of the United States. "We learned about honesty and integrity - that the truth matters . . . that you don't take shortcuts or play by your own set of rules . . . and success doesn't count unless you earn it fair and square."

• January 18, 1777 Baltimore newspaper publisher and postmaster Mary Katherine Goddard produced the first printed copy of the Declaration of Independence.

• January 19, 1905 Birth of Ovetta Culp Hobby, first director of the Women's Army Corps and the first Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, under President Eisenhower. "A purpose gives meaning to life. It is like the hub in a wheel -- with every spoke fitted into it to make a strong and perfect circle."

• January 19, 1946 Birth of Dolly Parton, singer, songwriter, and actor in the film Nine to Five, dealing with sexism in the workplace. "Find out who you are and do it on purpose."

• January 19, 2017 At the 2017 World Economic Forum, an all-female orchestra from Afghanistan performed, despite cultural opposition and death threats from the Taliban.

• January 20, 1872 Birth of Julia Morgan, architect of more than 700 buildings including Hearst Castle. "Every great architect is - necessarily - a great poet."

• January 20, 1920 Montana Congresswoman Jeanette Rankin helped to found the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

• Third Monday in January, Martin Luther King Day.

• January 21, 1975 The U.S. Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional for a state to deny women equal rights to serve on juries.

• January 21, 2017 The First Women's March, the largest coordinated protest in U.S. history. On the day after the inauguration of Donald J. Trump, five million people across the country and overseas marched for human rights, dignity and equality.

• January 22, 1973 The U.S. Supreme Court legalized a women's right to abortion in the Roe vs. Wade decision.

• January 23, 1921 Birth of Lithuanian anthropologist Marija Gimbutas, researcher of Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures, and author of many books, including The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe and The Civilization of the Goddess. Disdained by many male scholars, Gimbutas' theories about the origins of Indo-European cultures have been vindicated with leading critic Colin Renfrew's concession that Gimbutas was right. "The images [of the Goddess] that existed for so long did not vanish. They are still there with us."

• January 25, 1851 Abolitionist and reformer Sojourner Truth addressed the first Black Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio.

• January 25, 1890 Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman), journalist and muckraker, beat Jules Verne's fictional Phineas Foggs' record of Around the World in 80 Days, disproving Nellie's own editor's initial pronouncement that "No one but a man could do this." During her 72-day journey, she met Verne himself in Amiens, France.

• January 27, 1916 Birth of Ruth Hendricks Greffenius, educator, poet, and mother of Susan G. Butruille. "I go forward into unknown territory, Beyond doubt and fear, To accept life with enthusiasm and joy."

• January 28, 1813 Jane Austen's beloved book Pride and Prejudice first published in England. Austen's writings were published anonymously and she received no public recognition of her authorship until after her death, when her brother revealed her identity. A public television series based on Austen's uncompleted novel Sanditon debuted in 2020.

• January 30 Roman Festival of Peace, honoring the Roman Goddess Pax.

• January 30, 1890 Birth of Angie Debo, author of And Still the Waters Run, which described the "criminal conspiracy" that in effect stole the lands of the Five Civilized Tribes of Oklahoma. "I am sometimes asked to state my 'goals and ambitions in writing.' I suppose I have only one: to discover truth and publish it."

• January 30, 1912 Birth of Barbara Tuchman, historian and author of the pulitzer Prize-winning The Guns of August (1962) and many other books including The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam (1984). "Theology being the work of males, original sin was traced to the female."

With another turn of the wheel of time, we look forward to the New Year as we look back on the Old Year.

Anna Perenna, “Giver of Life, Health, and Abundance” was the most ancient of deities. Romans knew her as Anna Perenna, the goddess of two faces who looked both forward to the future and backward to the past. Anna Purna, the famous mountain of the Himalayas, bears her name. Anna Perenna, Alpha and Omega, was replaced by the Roman god Janus, god of gateways, also depicted as looking forward and backward.

The forward- and backward-looking Jana or Janus figure has been with us throughout history. We see her in images as far apart as the double-headed eagle of the Anatolian Seljuks, and a small two-faced stone figure carved by ancient people of the Columbia River.

A good resolution for this New Year is to remember our past while taking action to dream our own future as individuals and as citizens of the universe. There is no finer individual to remember than Grace Hopper, a woman of our past who changed our way of life now and for the future. For Dr. Hopper made it possible for ordinary people like us to communicate via computer.

Born in 1906, Grace Murray Hopper was teaching mathematics and physics at Vassar by the time she was 22. When she earned her Ph.D. from Yale at age 28, she was used to being a pioneer among women.

Dr. Hopper was both thinker and tinkerer. In service to the US Navy in the reserves and on active duty, and as a university teacher and business consultant, she delved into this thing called a computer and wondered what made it tick and how it could be of use to ordinary people. At the dawn of the computer age, most computer scientists believed that no one outside their field would ever understand computers. But Grace Hopper stubbornly clung to her belief that a computer programming language could be developed that ordinary people could understand and use.

And so, Grace Hopper led the research that would form the foundation for what we now know as Common Business Oriented Language (COBOL). Through COBOL, we are now able to process words, ideas and numbers through the computer. Much of the information for this article came from the internet that Grace Hopper worked to make accessible. Who knows what the future of Grace Hopper's people-friendly computer langauge will bring?

Throughout her military and private industry career, Grace Murray Hopper won wide recognition. The Data Processing Management Association gave her the first ever Computer Science "Man"-of-the-Year Award in 1969. She became the first North American and first woman to be named a Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society. When she retired from the US Navy at the age of 80, Grace Hopper was a Rear Admiral. In September, 2000, she was honored at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. Though she had no children of her own, Admiral Hopper regarded as her greatest contribution "all the young people I've trained."

In 1992 on January 1, feast day of Anna Perenna, the Grandmother of Time whose gaze encircles future and past, Grace Murray Hopper died. The woman known as the Mother of the Computer was 86 years old.

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QUEEN LILIUOKALANI
(1838-1917)
by Susan G. Butruille

Liliuokalani became the first queen and last monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1891, following a power grab engineered by Dole Fruit Company and other U.S. corporations. The queen fought to restore power to the monarchy after two-thirds of the native population lost the right to vote, while white wealthy non-citizens gained voting rights. In 1893, the moneyed interests overthrew the obstructionist queen, assisted by the landing of U.S. marines.

As often happens to powerful women, opponents slandered Queen Liliuokalani, accusing her of threatening her political opponents and hiding arms on the palace grounds. At her trial for treason, many of her statements were stricken from the record and Liliuokalani was sentenced to house arrest. After her release, she continued to work for social reform and established children's centers, still in operation. Liliuokalani wrote more than 160 songs, including the well-known "Aloha Oe."

In 1993, the U.S. Congress apologized to Hawaii's native people for the overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani.

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