January 28 in History
1754 — Horace Walpole, youngest son of British Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole, coins the word “serendipity” in a letter to his friend Horace Mann. Walpole explains his unexpected discovery about a lost painting of Bianca Cappello by Giorgio Vasari by reference to a Persian fairytale, “The Three Princes of Serendip”, who were “always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of”.
1813 — Jane Austen’s second novel, “Pride and Prejudice”, is first published in the UK.
1855 — A locomotive runs on the Panama Canal Railway from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean for the first time.
1896 — Walter Arnold of the Arnold (automobile) company of East Peckham, Kent, becomes the first person to be caught speeding. He is fined one shilling, plus costs, for doing 13km/h in his modified Benz through the village of Paddock Wood, well over the speed limit of 3.2km/h. He is caught by a policeman who chased him for 8km on a bicycle. 1919 — The Order of the White Rose of Finland is established by Baron Gustaf Mannerheim, the regent of the (short-lived) Kingdom of Finland. 1922 — Knickerbocker Storm: In Washington, D.C.’s largest snowstorm on record, the roof of the Knickerbocker Theatre collapses under heavy snow from a two-day blizzard, killing 98 patrons and injuring 133 during the screening of a still comedy. 1933 — The name Pakistan is coined by
Choudhry Rahmat Ali Khan, one of the earliest proponents of the creation of a separate Muslim state. He explains: “It is composed of letters taken from the names of all our homelands, Indian and Asian, Panjab, Afghania, Kashmir, Sindh and Baluchistan.” By the end of 1933, “Pakistan” becomes common vocabulary with an “I” added to ease pronunciation (as in Afghan-i-stan).
1941 — Franco-Thai War: A Japan-mediated armistice goes into effect between Thailand and Vichy France. The disputed territories of French Indochina are ceded to Thailand.
1957 — Nick Price, Zimbabwean-South African golfer (winner of the PGA Championship in 1992 and 1994 and The Open Championship in 1994), is born in Durban.
1958 — Lego patents the design of its bricks, still compatible with those produced today.
2006 — The roof of one of the buildings at the Katowice International Fair in Poland collapses due to the weight of snow, killing 65 and injuring more than 170 others.