January 4 — World Braille Day
Since 2019, January 4th is a day to bring awareness to the importance of braille, as a way of communication and acknowledge human rights for people who are blind or partially sighted. Especially during COVID, people with disabilities have experienced increased isolation and thus they rely even more so on ways to communicate their needs and access information.
January 7 — Sadako Sasaki
(birth date, victim of nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, 1943 – 1955)
Sasaki was two years old when an atomic bomb was dropped near her home in Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II. Sasaki, who developed leukemia 10 years later, was inspired by a Japanese legend that if a sick person folds 1,000 origami cranes they will get well. Sadako folded well over 1,000 cranes but she died in 1955. The Children’s monument in Hiroshima honors her memory and those of all child victims of the atomic bomb. Read the book Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr for more information.
January 17 — Martin Luther King Jr. Day National Holiday (Observed)
Born January 15, 1929
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute’s Liberation Curriculum provides document-based lesson plans, online educational resources, and historical materials pertaining to the modern African American Freedom Struggle and King’s vision of a just and peaceful world. This educational initiative seeks to transform the way students acquire and apply knowledge about the past.
January 22 — Tet (Vietnamese New Year)
Jan. 27 – International Day of Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust
