January 29

President William McKinley born (1843); Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" first published (1845); Baseball Hall of Fame announces first inductees (1936); HBD Oprah Winfrey (1954); RIP Robert Frost (1963).

January 28

Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” is published (1813); Painter Jackson Pollock born (1912); Modern US Coast Guard is founded (1915); HBD Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim (1940); Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrates after launch, killing all seven astronauts on board (1986).

January 27

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart born (1756); Auschwitz concentration camp is liberated (1945); Paris Peace Accords brings end to Vietnam War (1973); RIP Andre the Giant (1993); RIP American author JD Salinger (2010).

January 26

Actor Paul Newman born (1925); HBD Ellen DeGeneres (1958); RIP football coaching great Bear Bryant (1983); Condoleezza Rice becomes first Black woman appointed US secretary of state (2005); Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna among nine deaths in California helicopter crash (2020).

January 25

First Winter Olympics take place in Chamonix, France (1924); Battle of the Bulge comes to an end (1945); Al Capone dies (1947); HBD Alicia Keys (1981); RIP Mary Tyler Moore (2017).

January 22

English polymath Francis Bacon born (1561); HBD actress Diane Lane (1965); RIP President Lyndon B. Johnson (1973); Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision (1973); RIP Heath Ledger (2008).

January 21

Louis XVI of France is executed by guillotine (1793); Fashion designer Christian Dior born (1905); HBD golf great Jack Nicklaus (1940); Founding father of American cinema Cecil B. DeMille dies (1959); First Women’s March sees large-scale protests in more than 160 countries (2017).

January 20

HBD astronaut Buzz Aldrin (1930); Iran hostage crisis ends as 52 Americans are released after 444 days (1981); Martin Luther King Jr. Day is observed for first time (1986); RIP actress Audrey Hepburn (1993); Barack Obama becomes first Black president of the US (2009).

Edgar Allan Poe

 (/poʊ/; born Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and of American literature as a whole, and he was one of the country's earliest practitioners of the short story. He is also generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre and is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction.Poe was the first well-known American writer to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.

Poe was born in Boston, the second child of actors David and Elizabeth "Eliza" Poe.^[3] His father abandoned the family in 1810, and his mother died the following year. Thus orphaned, Poe was taken in by John and Frances Allan of Richmond, Virginia. They never formally adopted him, but he was with them well into young adulthood. Tension developed later as Poe and John Allan repeatedly clashed over Poe's debts, including those incurred by gambling, and the cost of Poe's education. Poe attended the University of Virginia but left after a year due to lack of money. He quarreled with Allan over the funds for his education and enlisted in the United States Army in 1827 under an assumed name. It was at this time that his publishing career began with the anonymous collection Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), credited only to "a Bostonian". Poe and Allan reached a temporary rapprochement after the death of Allan's wife in 1829. Poe later failed as an officer cadet at West Point, declaring a firm wish to be a poet and writer, and he ultimately parted ways with Allan.

Poe switched his focus to prose and spent the next several years working for literary journals and periodicals, becoming known for his own style of literary criticism. His work forced him to move among several cities, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. He married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm, in 1836, but Virginia died of tuberculosis in 1847. In January 1845, Poe published his poem "The Raven" to instant success. He planned for years to produce his own journal The Penn (later renamed The Stylus), but before it could be produced, he died in Baltimore on October 7, 1849, at age 40. The cause of his death is unknown and has been variously attributed to disease, alcoholism, substance abuse, suicide, and other causes.

Poe and his works influenced literature around the world, as well as specialized fields such as cosmology and cryptography. He and his work appear throughout popular culture in literature, music, films, and television. A number of his homes are dedicated museums today. The Mystery Writers of America present an annual award known as the Edgar Award for distinguished work in the mystery genre.

Edgar Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 19, 1809, the second child of English-born actress Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe and actor David Poe Jr. He had an elder brother named William Henry Leonard Poe and a younger sister named Rosalie Poe. Their grandfather, David Poe Sr., emigrated from County Cavan, Ireland around 1750. Edgar may have been named after a character in William Shakespeare's King Lear, which the couple were performing in 1809. His father abandoned the family in 1810, and his mother died a year later from consumption (pulmonary tuberculosis). Poe was then taken into the home of John Allan, a successful merchant in Richmond, Virginia who dealt in a variety of goods, including cloth, wheat, tombstones, tobacco, and slaves. The Allans served as a foster family and gave him the name "Edgar Allan Poe", though they never formally adopted him.

The Allan family had Poe baptized into the Episcopal Church in 1812. John Allan alternately spoiled and aggressively disciplined his foster son. The family sailed to the United Kingdom in 1815, and Poe attended the grammar school for a short period in Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland (where Allan was born) before rejoining the family in London in 1816. There he studied at a boarding school in Chelsea until summer 1817. He was subsequently entered at the Reverend John Bransby's Manor House School at Stoke Newington, then a suburb 4 miles (6 km) north of London.^[12]

Poe moved with the Allans back to Richmond in 1820. In 1824, he served as the lieutenant of the Richmond youth honor guard as the city celebrated the visit of the Marquis de Lafayette. In March 1825, Allan's uncle and business benefactor William Galt died, who was said to be one of the wealthiest men in Richmond,leaving Allan several acres of real estate. The inheritance was estimated at $750,000 (equivalent to $17,000,000 in 2019). By summer 1825, Allan celebrated his expansive wealth by purchasing a two-story brick house called Moldavia.

Poe may have become engaged to Sarah Elmira Royster before he registered at the University of Virginia in February 1826 to study ancient and modern languages. The university was in its infancy, established on the ideals of its founder Thomas Jefferson. It had strict rules against gambling, horses, guns, tobacco, and alcohol, but these rules were mostly ignored. Jefferson had enacted a system of student self-government, allowing students to choose their own studies, make their own arrangements for boarding, and report all wrongdoing to the faculty. The unique system was still in chaos, and there was a high dropout rate. During his time there, Poe lost touch with Royster and also became estranged from his foster father over gambling debts. He claimed that Allan had not given him sufficient money to register for classes, purchase texts, and procure and furnish a dormitory. Allan did send additional money and clothes, but Poe's debts increased. Poe gave up on the university after a year but did not feel welcome returning to Richmond, especially when he learned that his sweetheart Royster had married another man, Alexander Shelton. He traveled to Boston in April 1827, sustaining himself with odd jobs as a clerk and newspaper writer, and he started using the pseudonym Henri Le Rennet during this period.

January 19

Author Edgar Allan Poe born (1809); HBD musician Dolly Parton (1946); Indira Gandhi becomes first female Prime Minister of India (1966); RIP actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr (2000).

January 18

President John Tyler dies (1862); Actor Cary Grant born (1904); WWI Paris Peace Conference begins (1919); RIP Rudyard Kipling (1936); Willie O’Ree becomes first Black player in the National Hockey League (1958).

January 15

Coca-Cola Co. is incorporated (1889); Martin Luther King Jr. born (1929); First Super Bowl is played (1967); Wikipedia is launched (2001); RIP Cranberries lead singer Dolores O’Riordan (2018).

January 14

RIP astronomer Edmond Halley (1742); RIP “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” author Lewis Carroll (1898); HBD actress Faye Dunaway (1941); Franklin D. Roosevelt is first president to travel on official business by airplane in office (1943); NBC’s “Today” debuts (1952).

January 13

RIP author James Joyce (1941); HBD actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus (1961); Robert C. Weaver becomes first Black US cabinet member (1966); Douglas Wilder becomes first elected Black US governor (1990); 32 die as cruise ship Costa Concordia sinks off coast of Italy (2012).

January 12

Author Jack London born (1876); Boxer Joe Frazier born (1944); HBD Howard Stern (1954); RIP mystery novelist Agatha Christie (1976); Earthquake in Haiti kills more than 100,000 (2010).

January 11

Alexander Hamilton born (1755 or 1757); Grand Canyon becomes a national monument (1908); First use of insulin to treat diabetes in humans (1922); HBD Mary J. Blige (1971); RIP Edmund Hillary, one of first two people to reach summit of Mount Everest (2008).

January 8

George Washington delivers first State of the Union address (1790); Elvis Presley born (1935); HBD fashion designer Carolina Herrera (1939); Stephen Hawking born (1942); David Bowie born (1947).

January 7

Galileo Galilei discovers first three Jupiter moons (1610); First US presidential election held (1789); Author Zora Neale Hurston born (1891); RIP Nikola Tesla (1943); HBD Katie Couric (1957).

January 6

Joan of Arc born (1412); Telegraph publicly demonstrated for first time (1838); RIP geneticist and botanist Gregor Mendel (1884); First Montessori school is opened (1907); RIP President Teddy Roosevelt (1919).

January 5

Actress Jane Wyman born (1917); Dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey born (1931); Construction of Golden Gate Bridge begins (1933); RIP scientist and inventor George Washington Carver (1943); Singer and congressman Sonny Bono dies in skiing accident (1998).

January 4

Boxer Floyd Patterson born (1935); HBD biographer and journalist Doris Kearns Goodwin (1943); Luna 1 is first spacecraft to reach vicinity of the moon (1959); RIP poet T.S. Eliot (1965); Burj Khalifa, tallest building in the world, opens in Dubai (2010).