On a recent grey January afternoon, I sought refuge in an exercise that always cheers me – research. Armed with a search engine and Wi-Fi, I did some digital digging through some history, connections, and coincidences in this dreary month. 

January was named after Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, endings, gates, and doors. Robby Krieger, guitarist for the iconic rock band The Doors, was born in January. Many other cultural and historical figures have birthdays in January. Benjamin Franklin, Betsy Ross, Joan of Arc, Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali, Dian Fossey, Alexander Hamilton, Douglas MacArthur, Janis Joplin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Elvis Presley, Edgar Allen Poe, and Jackie Robinson were a few. Presidents Millard Fillmore, William McKinley, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Richard Nixon were all born in January. Franklin Roosevelt was the first and last president to assume a fourth term in January 1945. January birthday boy Richard Nixon authorized funding to develop a space shuttle in January 1972, and fourteen years later, in January 1986, one of these shuttles exploded on liftoff, killing all the astronauts on board. 

Elvis appeared on the Ed Sullivan show for the last time in 1957, and his live worldwide satellite broadcast from Hawaii took place in 1973. Both were in January. Viewers in the United States had to wait until April to see it because of a conflict with the Super Bowl, which in those days made its appearance in January. The big game's tradition of a solo halftime performer began in January 1993 with Michael Jackson. Almost ten years before, Jackson's hair caught fire on a January day while filming a Pepsi commercial. Jackson was married to Presley's daughter Lisa Marie from 1994 to 1996. In a dark twist, Lisa Marie died this month, January, and will be buried alongside her father, grandparents, and son at Graceland, her father’s iconic Memphis mansion. 

Edgar Allen Poe was born in this month in 1809, and thirty-six years later, in January 1845, his dark masterpiece, The Raven, appeared for the first time in The New York Evening Mirror. This January saw the Netflix streaming premier of the movie, The Pale Blue Eye, in which a young Edgar Allen Poe appears as a West Point cadet. Although Poe attended the academy, the story, although engrossing, is fictitious.     

Hill Street Blues premiered in January of 1981 and made television history with its ensemble cast and intertwining storylines weaving their way through multiple episodes. Another ensemble cast with a series-long story arc premiered in a January. This time in 1999. The saga of The Sopranos takes place on the other side of the crime story tracks and created the bad guy as good guy protagonist in James Gandolfini’s portrayal of mob boss, Tony. 

Famous real-life mob boss Big Al “Scarface” Capone died in January 1947. Of all the criminal enterprises the notorious gangster was involved in, he was prosecuted for tax evasion. He spent part of his sentence incarcerated on Alcatraz Island. A prison that opened, you guessed it, in a January. One of Capone's criminal enterprises was bootlegging, which prospered during the country's dry period brought about by prohibition, which was signed into law in January 1919. Famous crime fighter Elliot Ness's pursuit of Capone’s bootlegging operation was fictionalized in the 1987 movie, The Untouchables, which starred Kevin Costner. Costner was born in 1955…in January. 

January figures prominently in United States history. The states of Georgia, Connecticut, Michigan, Kansas, Utah, New Mexico, and Alaska all came under the stars and stripes in Januarys.   Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863, and Congress passed the 13th amendment abolishing slavery in January 1865.  Lyndon Johnson appointed the first black cabinet member, Robert C Weaver, to oversee the Department of Housing and Urban Development in January 1966. 

During the first month of 1961 President Dwight Eisenhower severed ties with Cuba, leaving newly elected President John F. Kennedy holding the bag containing the plans that led to the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Lyndon Johnson unveiled his vision for a Great Society in January 1965. In January 1968, the Tet offensive, one of the most extensive offensive campaigns of the Vietnam war, was launched by the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army and caused more Americans to begin questioning the war's continuation. Three months later, Johnson said he would not seek re-election to focus on ending the war. The official end of the war didn't occur until January 1973 with the signing of The Paris Peace Accords. 

In January 1991 Congress authorized President George Bush to invade Iraq, which he did, and during one late January night the world watched the war unfold on their television screens through the cameras of CNN and the eyes of their reporters.  In January 1998 President Bill Clinton emphatically told the world he did not have sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, and the following January his impeachment trial for telling this lie under oath began before the US Senate. 

In January 1964 the US Surgeon General published the first government report stating cigarettes were hazardous to smokers’ health. Two years later, in January 1966, the government forced manufacturers to begin placing warning labels on cigarette packages. In January 1971, the last cigarette ad aired on television. 

This research could have kept me occupied for the remainder of the month. But I got distracted when I learned the first canned beer was sold in January 1935. This got me thinking about having a cold one myself. Beer drinking is a joy I share with one of my favorite actors, Paul Newman. Born in…January. My January isn’t dry and now it’s no longer dreary. 

Cheers to a fascinating month.