January Curriculum Calendar - Lesson Plan Ideas by Date

Enhance your current curriculum with this fun reference calendar. Whether you want to highlight historic events, honor birthdays of significant people, or celebrate holidays, this is a valuable tool for every teacher. Click on any event to find a breadth of related teaching resources that will spark new ideas to spice up your daily lessons. There's something worth celebrating every day!

Curriculum Calendar

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thur Fri Sat
31
Henri Matisse born (1869)
1
National Thank You Month begins
Also try: gratitude, appreciation
President Abraham Lincoln signs Emancipation Proclamation (1863)
Ellis Island opens for immigration (1892)
Also try: immigration
2
Mahatma Gandhi begins march for peace in East Bengali (1947)
USSR launches Mechta for first solar orbit (1959)
3
Alaska named 49th state (1959)
Also try: US expansion, statehood
Israeli ground forces invade Gaza (2009)
4
National Trivia Day
Also try: Jeopardy
Louis Braille born (1809)
Spirit, a NASA Mars rover, successfully lands on Mars (2004)
5
National Bird Day
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde published (1886)
6
Joan of Arc born (1412)
Also try: Hundred Years' War
Alfred Wegener first presents the theory of continental drift (1912)
Also try: Alfred Wegener, Pangaea
7
President Millard Fillmore born (1800)
Zora Neale Hurston born (1891)
Also try: Harlem Renaissance
Jupiter's moons discovered (1610)
8
Elvis Presley born (1935)
George Washington delivers first State of the Union Address (1790)
Also try: George Washington
9
President Richard Nixon born (1913)
Jean-Pierre Blanchard takes first hot air balloon flight in the US (1793)
10
Common Sense by Thomas Paine published (1776)
League of Nations formed (1920)
11
Amelia Earhart flies solo from Honolulu to California (1935)
12
Charles Perrault born (1628)
Also try: fairy tales
Earthquake in Haiti kills 230,000 (2010)
13
First public radio broadcast (1910)
Also try: mass media
Publication of first "Mickey Mouse" comic strip (1930)
14
Clarinet invented in Nuremberg, Germany (1690)
First Model T automobile is built on an assembly line (1914)
15
Elizabeth I crowned Queen of England (1559)
Wikipedia goes online (2001)
16
National Appreciate a Dragon Day
First publication of Don Quixote (1605)
Operation Desert Storm announced (1991)
17
Captain James Cook is the first to cross the Antarctic Circle (1773)
Prohibition begins (1920)
18
National Thesaurus Day
Also try: synonyms, antonyms
A.A. Milne born (1882)
Also try: Winnie-the-Pooh
19
James Watt born (1736)
20
Penguin Awareness Day
John Marshall appointed Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court (1801)
21
King Louis XVI executed for treason (1793)
Also try: French Revolution
Neptune becomes outermost planet (1979)
Also try: solar system, planets
22
The uranium atom split at Columbia University (1939)
23
National Handwriting Day
Also try: cursive, penmanship
Madeleine Albright sworn in as US Secretary of State (1997)
24
Edith Wharton born (1862)
Gold discovered at Sutter's Mill (1848)
Also try: Gold Rush
25
Alexander Graham Bell inaugurates US transcontinental telephone service (1915)
26
Michigan becomes the 26th state in the United States (1837)
Also try: statehood, Great Lakes
Rocky Mountain National Park established in Colorado (1915)
Condoleezza Rice becomes first African American woman US Secretary of State (2005)
Also try: Secretary of State
27
International Holocaust Remembrance Day
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart born (1756)
Lewis Carroll born (1832)
Paris Peace Accords signed, ending the Vietnam War (1973)
Also try: Vietnam War
28
National Kazoo Day
Pride and Prejudice published in United Kingdom (1813)
Also try: Jane Austen
Space shuttle Challenger explodes (1986)
Also try: NASA, space missions
29
National Puzzle Day
Also try: brain teaser, riddle
President William McKinley born (1843)
Oprah Winfrey born (1954)
30
President Franklin D. Roosevelt born (1882)
Also try: New Deal, FDR, US presidents
Vietnam War: Tet Offensive launched (1968)
Also try: Vietnam War
Erno Rubik patents the Rubik's cube (1975)
31
Franz Schubert born (1797)
Also try: Romantic era, composers
Jackie Robinson born (1919)
Also try: color barrier, baseball
1
National Freedom Day
National Girls and Women in Sports Day
Also try: female athletes
Four black students stage the first of the Greensboro sit-ins (1960)
2
James Joyce born (1882)
Also try: Ulysses, Dubliners
The Battle of Stalingrad ends with the surrender of German troops to the Soviets (1943)
3
15th Amendment ratified (1870)
Also try: voting rights
First operational weather satellite, ESSA-1 launched in US (1966)
Also try: meteorology