Old Farmer's Almanac

Daily Calendar for Friday, January 2, 2026

Daily Calendar

View daily calendar information including holidays, advice, and daily features.

Friday, January 2, 2026

Born

  • Nathaniel Bacon (colonial leader) –
  • Justin Winsor (historian) –
  • Frederick Varley (Canadian artist) –
  • Count Folke Bernadotte (Red Cross official) –
  • Isaac Asimov (author) –
  • Renata Tebaldi (opera singer) –
  • Julius LaRosa (singer) –
  • Roger Dean Miller (singer) –
  • Jim Bakker (evangelist) –
  • Cuba Gooding Jr. (actor) –
  • Taye Diggs (actor) –
  • Kate Bosworth (actress) –

Died

  • Bill Veeck (baseball player) –
  • Pete Postlethwaite (actor) –

Events

  • Georgia ratified the U.S. Constitution, becoming the fourth U.S. state –
  • Alice Sanger became the first female staffer for the White House –
  • Elara, a Moon of Jupiter, discovered –
  • Willis H. Carrier patented an air conditioner –
  • Japanese invaded and occupied Manila and the Philipines after a successful attack on Pearl Harbor –
  • Fidel Castro and his followers captured Santiago, Cuba; Fulgencio Batista went into exile –
  • USSR’s Luna I was launched, becoming the first spacecraft to leave Earth’s gravity. Later, it became the first to reach the Moon’s vicinity and the first to orbit the Sun. –
  • Luna-1, the first spacecraft to escape Earth’s gravity, is launched by the Soviet Union from a site in modern Kazakhstan. –
  • The U.S. Federal Trade Commision charged seven record companies and eight distribution firms with paying disc-jockeys to play certain songs (Payola Incident) –
  • General Lyman L. Lemnitzer became the supreme commander of NATO –
  • The NY Jets signed quarterback Joe Namath for $427,000. At the time he was the highest paid player in pro football –
  • Robert Clark was seated as the first African American legislator in Mississippi in 74 years –
  • Kenneth Brugger and Cathy Aguado discovered first winter refuge of monarch butterflies, in Mexico –
  • Kenneth Brugger and Cathy Aguado discovered the exact locations of monarch butterfly wintering sites in the mountains of central Mexico. –
  • President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney signed the final version of the U.S.-Canadian trade accord. The pact provided for the elimination of tariffs on most goods within 10 years and created a series of binational groups to regulate the agreement –
  • Explosion in a West Virginia coal mine that led to the death of 12 of 13 miners—Sago Mine disaster –
  • On this date a numerically rare event occurred: 01-02-2010 expressed backwards as a date is precisely 01-02-2010 –
  • 28-lb. 13-oz. tautog caught, Ocean City, Md. –

Weather

  • A record low of 14°F is recorded on Haleakalā summit, Maui, Hawaii –
  • Little Rock, Arkansas, received 13 inches of snow in 24 hours –
  • A severe snowstorm began in New England. The Blue Hill observatory in Milton, Massachusetts, had 19 inches of snow in 24 hours. –
  • Hawaii experienced one of its lowest temperatures on record, 14 degrees F, on Haleakala summit –
  • Nor’easter flooded the East Coast –