January 23, 1909 (Saturday)
- The steamer Republic, with 461 people on board, began sinking 26 miles (42 km) out to sea, shortly after being struck by the SS Florida. Except for 6 people killed in the collision, everyone was saved because the Republic had the latest technology, a wireless telegraph. Jack Binns sent the CQD distress signal that was picked up at a rescue station at Siasconset, Massachusetts, then relayed to other ships. At 15,378 tons, the Republic was, at the time, the largest ship to have been lost. The wreckage would be located in 1981. Binns briefly became a worldwide celebrity.
- Centered at Darb-e Astaneh in the Lorestān Province of Iran, an earthquake destroyed 64 villages and killed more than 6,000 people. More recently, the 2006 Borujerd earthquake struck the same region on March 31, 2006.
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Famous quotes containing the word january:
“Here lies interred in the eternity of the past, from whence there is no resurrection for the days—whatever there may be for the dust—the thirty-third year of an ill-spent life, which, after a lingering disease of many months sank into a lethargy, and expired, January 22d, 1821, A.D. leaving a successor inconsolable for the very loss which occasioned its existence.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)