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January 1 Jan 7 2008 365gay.com January 1, 1801 - Ireland was added to Great Britain by an Act of Union thus creating the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It also put Ireland, and today, Northern Ireland under British laws on morality and particularly homosexuality. January 1, 1879 - E. M. Forster (1879 - 1970) is born in London. After his brilliant novel "A Passage to India" in 1924, he produced no new works. His gay novel "Maurice" was written in 1914, but not published until after his death. For 50 years his lover was a married London policeman named Bob Buckingham. January 1, 1886 - English Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1885 takes effect. "Indecencies" between adult males in private become a crime punishable by up to two years imprisonment. January 1, 1892 - Ellis Island in New York harbor opened. Over 20 million new arrivals to America were processed until its closing in 1954. It is unknown how many of the new immigrants were gays and lesbians. Some estimates are as high as 1 million (This is lower than 10% since most of those admitted to the US were families). January 1, 1895 - J. Edgar Hoover is born in Washington. What exactly was his relationship with his ever constant companion and fellow FBI man Clyde Tolson? There has been a lot of speculation but no documentation. Still there are numerous stories of Hoover appearing in drag in New York. Usually in a red dress, he liked to be called "Mary". January 1, 1900 - Silent movie star William Haines is born in Staunton, Virginia. His good looks and baby face made him a hit playing the wisecracking penniless young man in countless films. Blessed with a good voice, he was one of the few silent stars to make the transition to talkies. January 1, 1901 - The Commonwealth of Australia was founded as six former British colonies became six states with Edmund Barton as the first prime minister, and Canberra as the capital. Today, Sydney, the biggest city in Australia, has one of the world's largest gay communities. It's annual Mardi Gras celebrations draw nearly a million a people from all over the globe. January 1, 1933 - John Kingsley was born in Leicester, England. Writing under the name Joe Orton he became of Britain's most popular comic playwrights (Entertaining Mr Sloane in 1964 and Loot in 1966). He was murdered by his lover Kenneth Halliwell who then committed suicide in the London flat they had occupied for 15 years. In 1967 he had written in his diary "I have high hopes of dying in my prime." January 1, 1959 - Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba after leading a revolution that drove out dictator Fulgencio Batista. Castro then established a Communist dictatorship. Although homosexuality was illegal under the Batista government the laws were largely ignored in fun loving Cuba. Since Castro, tens of thousands of gays have been rounded up and imprisoned. January 1, 1971 - Colorado decriminalizes private consensual adult homosexual acts. January 1, 1971 - Oregon decriminalizes private consensual adult homosexual acts. January 1, 1972 - Science magazine publishes a report that suggests male homosexuality may be determined in the womb due to chemical and/or hormonal stress of the pregnant woman. January 1, 1972 - Hawaii decriminalizes private consensual adult homosexual acts. January 1, 1974 - Ohio repeals its sodomy laws and decriminalizes private consensual adult homosexual acts. January 1, 1975 - New Mexico decriminalizes private consensual adult homosexual acts. January 1, 1976 - Iowa decriminalizes private consensual adult homosexual acts. January 1, 1977 - Vermont decriminalizes private consensual adult homosexual acts. January 1, 1978 - Good Housekeeping readers name Anita Bryant "The Most Admired Woman in America." January 1, 1978 - North Dakota decriminalizes private consensual adult homosexual acts. January 1, 1980 - Arizona decriminalizes private consensual adult homosexual acts. January 2 January 2, 1857 - Carey Thomas is born in Baltimore, Maryland. Thomas was an influence on other remarkable Baltimore of the them, Gertrude Stein and Ettta and Claribel Cone. She went on to become the dean and later president of Bryn Mawr. She hired Woodrow Wilson as a young professor. She is also credited as the founder of the Johns Hopkins Medical School. January 3 January 3 - 1752 Swiss historian Johanes Von Muller is born in Neunkirch, Switzerland. He spent 40 years writing a history of his homeland, but more interesting are his love letters to Charles Victor de Bonstetten a handsome young Swiss writer. Outed by Goethe, Muller's poems to Bonstetten were not published until 1835, long after his death. January 4 January 4, 1877 - Marsden Hartley the American painter is born in Lewiston, Maine. Hartley was in Paris at the creation of the cubist movement. His friends reads like a phone book of the gay who's Who on the time: William Sloan Kennedy, Thomas Bird Mosher, Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, to name only a few. The love of his life was Karl von Freyburg a young German soldier who was killed in batle in 1914. January 4, 1976 - In Saskatoon, the Saskatchewan Court of Queen's Bench rules that term "sex" in the Saskatchewan Human Rights Act does not include sexual orientation and turns down a job discrimination case brought by Doug Wilson. Wilson decides to abandon pursuit of legal redress. January 4, 1977 - The first issue of After Stonewall: A Critical Journal of Gay Liberation is published in Winnipeg. The magazine continued into the early 1980s. January 5 January 5, 1925 - Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming became the first female governor inaugurated in the U.S. She may not have been a lesbian, but she was one of the first feminists to gain political office. January 5, 1977 - The Lesbian Organization of Toronto moves to new center at 342 Jarvis Street, sharing with feminist publication The Other Woman and coffeehouse called Three of Cups. January 5, 1978 - Toronto Police lay charges laid by police against Pink Triangle Press and three officers under Criminal Code section 159 ("possession of obscene material for distribution") and section 164 ("use of the mails for purpose of transmitting anything that is indecent, immoral or scurrilous"). January 6 January 6, 1412 - Joan of Arc was born in France. After a series of mystic visitations by saints, she inspired French troops to break the English siege at Orleans and win several important victories during the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453) between France and England. She was eventually captured and sold to the English who tried her for heresy and burned her at the stake in 1431. In 1920, Joan of Arc was canonized a saint by the Roman Catholic church. Was she a transvestite who like dressing in men's armor, the most famous woman to do so? We have no evidence of her sexuality. January 6, 1854 - This is the date, Arthur Conan Doyle tells us his character Sherlock Holmes was born. Although a figment of Doyle's imagination, his friendship with his assistant Dr. Watson leaves little to the reader's imagination. The team became the template for other novelists writing mysteries like Nero Wolfe. January 6, 1977- The first issue of gay magazine Directions hits the streets in Toronto. It lasted only one year. January 7 January 7, 1977- The government financed Canadian Broadcasting Corporation releases a new public policy on public service announcements from its headquarters in Ottawa. Nothing controversial would be allowed, and gay is controversial. January 8 January 8, 1947 - David Bowie is born David Jones in London. The enfante terrible of punk, Bowie loved to shock his audiences with a mock blowjob of guitarist Mike Ronson. Among the songs he wrote was Queen Bitch about a a young dude who "dresses like a queen but...can kick like a mule." In 1976 he confided in a playboy interview that he is bi. January 9 January 9 1859 Carrie Lane Chapman (1859-1947) was born in Ripon, Wisconsin. Although there is nothing to suggest she was a lesbian she was the women's rights pioneer who founded the National League of Women Voters in 1919. January 10 November 10, 1404 - Gilles De Rais was born in Machecoul, Brittany. Convinced that sacrificing young boys to Statan would restore his wealth and sodomizing them his power thousands of young men in Western France disappeared through his castle gate never to be seen again. November 10, 1775 - The U.S. Marine Corps was established. Originally part of the Navy, it became a separate unit on July 11, 1789. With the corps, thousands of wet dreams about men in uniform would never occurred. November 10, 1939 - Actor Sal Mineo is born in the Bronx, New York. He may have fooled his female fans, but gay men in the 50's knew he was gay. Mineo produced a revival of "Fortune in Men's Eyes", and starred in a west coast production of "P.S. Your Cat is Dead". In his off hours he was usually on the prowl for rough trade. He was murdered in 1976 a few steps from his home. January 11 January 11, 1757 - Alexander Hamilton is born in Nevis, British West Indies. Rumor has it he was a "boy" to George Washington. Washington called his young patriots his family. Hamilton was the favorite. Hamilton also exchanged love letters with another revolutionary, John Lautens. January 11, 1974 - L'Association homophile de Montréal / Gay Montreal Association holds its first public meeting. January 11, 2000 - Britain lifted its ban on gays in the military. January 12 November 12, 1974 - The U.N. General Assembly suspended South Africa over its policy of apartheid. January 12, 1976 - In Vancouver a British Columbia Board of Inquiry rules in a case called Gay Tide vs Vancouver Sun case that British Columbia human rights code provides protection for gays and lesbians. January 13 January 13, 1834 - Horatio Alger is born in Revere, Massachusetts. As a Unitarian minister in Brewster, Mass. he often traveled to New York were he sought to improve the condition of street boys. His experiences became the fodder for over 100 books. But, back home in Brewster a parish committee charged him with "gross immorality and a most heinous crime, a crime of no less magnitude than the abomination and revolting crime of unnatural familiarity with boys." Alger left town before the cops arrived. January 13, 1983 - Zandra Rolon and Deborah Johnson are refused seating in a private booth by a posh Los Angeles restaurant. They are told that a city ordinance prohibits such seating, which is not true. They sue, and win, but the restaurant removes the section rather than seat gay or lesbian couples proclaiming, "True romantic dining died on this date." January 13, 1992 - Out Magazine begins publishing from San Francisco. January 14 January 13, 1904 - Cecil Beaton was born in London. A queen, an artist, an anti-Semite, and a snob. Little more need be said. January 13, 1925 - Japanese poet-dramatist-novelist Yukio Mishima was born in Tokyo. An avid body builder he tried to live the life of a samurai. In 1970, he committed ritual suicide outside the Japanese parliament with a young disciple and lover during a neo fascist demonstration. January 14, 1978 - A rally and march is organized to protest the visit of Anita Bryant to Toronto. The trip was sponsored by fundamentalist group Renaissance Canada. January 14, 2001 - Two couples, one gay the other lesbian, were married in a double ceremony at Toronto's Metropolitan Community Church after Rev Brent Hawkes, the pastor discovered the ancient Christian tradition of reading banns was still legal in Ontario and did not specify sexuality. The Ontario government refused to register the marriages citing federal law defining marriage as being between a man and a woman. January 15 January 15, 1622 - French writer Moliere was born in Paris as Jean Baptiste Poquelin. While it may be easy to dismiss some of the commentary about him as the ramblings of jealous rivals, it is known that Moliere fell in love with 15 year old Michel Baron after taking him into his home saving him from a troop of young actors of which he was the star. The romance ruined his marriage but Michel was with him til his death. January 15, 1893 - British musical comedy performer Ivor Novello was born in Cardiff Wales. It seems everyone except the millions of women of swooned over the star knew he was gay. Novello wrote the famous World War I song "Keep the home fires Burning," but it is not clear which soldier he was keeping them burning for. Winston Churchill has admitted having a one night stand with Novello. January 15, 1929 - Martin Luther King (1929-1968) was born in Atlanta, Georgia. As an African American civil rights leader he spoke eloquently and stressed nonviolent methods to achieve equality. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. He was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. In 1983, the third Monday in January was designated a legal holiday in the U.S. to celebrate his birthday. King's message was a catalyst for many in the gay rights movement and continues to be an inspiration for the GLBT community today. January 15, 1973 - Lance Loud comes out on the PBS "series" An American Family. He's the first person to come out on US national television. January 15, 1973 - The New York Division of Motor Vehicles bans "offensive" license plate combinations, including "DYK" and "FAG." January 15, 1974 - After Dark magazine announces it will no longer allow the word "gay" to be included in any advertisements. Although popular with gay men for its art photographs of nude males (although no crotch was ever shown) at a time when there was no gay porn the magazine never admitted it was targeting a gay market. It used the subtle phrase, "The Magazine You Can Leave On Your Coffee Table When Your Mother Visits" to get the point across. January 15, 1975 - The Vatican releases its "Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics" which includes a definition of homosexuality as "a serious depravity." January 15, 1978 - Anita Bryant speaks at People's Church in North York. Gays, lesbians and others protest outside. January 16 January 16, 1887 - George Kelly was born in Philadelphia. Kelly was a successful Broadway playwrite and the uncle of Princess Grace of Monaco. Kelly was found in a hotel room in bed with a young actor. He was later forced to him, and the third party (said to be the actor's lover) off to keep their silence. He then hired a gay bookkeeper to double as his lover. January 17 January 17, 1886 - British novelist Ronald Firbank was born in London. Firbank was a prototype for Evelyn Waugh. His best novels are Caprice (1917) and Concerning the Eccentricities of Cardinal Pirelli (1926) Firbank was not without his own eccentricities. He lived wore two dressing gowns at once, painted his nails, lived in an apartment painted black, and owned only books bound in blue leather. He dined only on champagne and flower petals and died malnourished. January 18 January 18, 1726 - The man who might have been the first gay king of America was born in Berlin. Prince Heinrich of Prussia was the brother of Frederick the Great who tried have him made King of America. The fledgling US even considered it during the period ruing the Article of Confederation, but, by the time the fickle prince agreed, the equally fickle American public had opted for the Constitution and a republic. January 18-19, 1975 - The founding conference of the Coalition for Gay Rights in Ontario (CGRO) opened at Don Vale Community Center in Toronto. January 19 January 19, 1887 - American critic Alexander Woollcott was born in Phalanx, New Jersey. Fem and vicious, Woolcott wrote drama reviews for the New York Times and a gossip radio show called Town Crier. His life was the model for Kaufman and Hart's The Man Who Came To Dinner. January 19, 1943 - Jannis Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas. Bisexual, she did her best to sleep with as many people as she could in the 60s. She eventually died of too much Jack Daniels and drugs. January 19-20, 1974 - A Lesbian Conference, organized by Gay Women's Collective, held at the Montreal Women's Center and the small group of women who take part agree to hold a major conference for lesbians in North America the following year. January 20 January 20 - St Sebastian was born in the 3rd century AD. We know the date, but not the year. He is the patron saint of archers because he was found to a state and shot with arrows. He is also the patron saint of soldiers. As a beautiful young man he was the favorite of the emperor Diocletian who turned against him for embracing Christianity. January 21 January 21, 1885 - Artist Duncan Grant was born in Rothiemurchus, Scotland. One of the last members of the Bloomsbury Group, he designed pottery, textiles, and theatre decor. Handsome and sexual he was the toast of the gay artists group. January 22 January 22, 1561 - Sir Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626) was born in London. He is best known for his philosophical works concerning the acquisition of knowledge; Novum Organum and The Advancement of Learning. Bacon had a fondness for tow-haired red-cheeked youths from Wales. His mother wrote him a letter, which still survives, complaining about the long list of "servants and envoys" who find their way to his bed. She refers to a gay Spanish envoy as "that bloody Perez and bed companion of my son." We don't know what she wrote to her other son, Roger, who was also gay. January 22, 1788 - George Gordon, Lord Byron, was born in 1788. His memoir My Life and Adventures was burned being considered too scandalous for publication. But, bits of his private life have been pieced together. A champion of freedom and an ememy of hypocrisy he had a ravenous sexual appetite. We also know he once took a young friend, Nicolo Giraud to a doctor to repair his sphincter. January 22, 1973 - Abortion became legal in the U.S. as the Supreme Court announced its decision in the case of Roe vs. Wade striking down local state laws restricting abortions in the first six months of pregnancy. In more recent rulings (1989 and 1992) the Court upheld the power of individual states to impose some restrictions. January 23 January 23, 1893 - Franklin Pangborn was born in Newark, New Jersey. If you don't know the name you've seen his work in old late late show movies. The character actor appeared in dozens of comedies always playing prissy, fluttery clerks, bank tellers, assistant hotel managers, and department store floorwalkers. His roles were are imitating his own life. January 23, 1974 - The first lobbying effort on part of an alliance of Quebec gay groups, to include sexual orientation in a proposed provincial human rights charter, culminates in appearance before Justice Committee of Quebec's National Assembly. It becomes the first appearance of Canadian gay movement before legislative body. January 23 1976 - Police raid the Club Baths of Montreal on the eve of the Montreal Olympics. Thirteen people are arrested as found-ins in a common bawdyhouse, a charge usually reserved for prostitution in Canada. January 24 January 24, 41 A.D. - Roman Emperor Caligula was assassinated at the Palatine Games by his own officers after a reign of only four years, noted for his madness and cruelty including arbitrary murder. His taste in men was far reaching. In fact, his taste for anything sexual, male, female, relative or animal seems far reaching. One of his playmates was a priest who he enjoyed screwing in public at religious events. He forced his officers into regular sex bouts. He is reported to have made them kiss his middle finger in public. January 24, 76 AD - Roman Emperor Hadrian was born near Seville Spain. Hadrian built the famous wall on the Northern fringe of the empire, in Britain, and put down the last serious uprising by the Jews. When his lover Antinous mysteriously drowned in the Nile Hadrian went into a deep despair then put all of his wealth into building memorials to his lover, even building a city in his name. It said that the beautiful Antinous copmmitted suicide before old age destroyed his looks. He was 21. January 24, 1712, Frederick the Great was born in Berlin. Perhaps in another life he would have been a poet or an architect, but his father wanted him to be a warrior. Frederick fled with his lover Hans von Katte, but the pair was captured and Frederick was forced to watch von Katte's execution. On his father's death, when Frederick became emperor, he went to the palace of Sans-Soucci at Potsdam and came into his own. He excluded women and surrounded himself with sexual young men. On hearing that a particularly well endowed soldier had been arrested for "Beastiality with his horse," the emperor said "Fool don't put him in irons, put him in the infantry." January 24, 1965 - Winston Churchill (1874-1965) died. He had been Britain's wartime prime minister whose courageous leadership and defiant rhetoric had fortified the English during their long struggle against Hitler's Germany. "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat," he stated upon becoming prime minister at the beginning of the war. He called Hitler's Reich a "monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime." Following the war, he coined the term "Iron Curtain" to describe the barrier between areas in Eastern Europe under Soviet control and the free West. In his biography of W. Somerset Maugham, Ted Morgan writes that Maugham once asked Churchill if it were true as Churchill's mother had claimed, that the statesman had affairs with men in his youth. "Not ture!" Churchill replied. "But, I once went to bed with a man to see what it was like." (The man turned out to be British musical-comedy star Ivor Novello) "And, what was it like?" Maugham asked. "Musical," Churchill replied. January 24-25, 1975 - The first international Lesbian Conference is held in Montreal. It was attended by more than 200 delegates from Canada and the US. January 25 January 25, 1874 - W. Somerset Maugham was born in Paris. The famous playwright was 21 when Oscar Wilde was put on trial. It was enough to make him "publicly straight." He later said that his biggest mistake was "I tried to persuade myself that I was three-quarters normal and that only quarter of me was queer -- whereas it was the other way around." Despite his wealth, his fame, and his secretary-companion Gerald Haxton, Maugham died a bitter man. January 25, 1892 - Lesbian writer Virgian Woolfe was born in London. The most celebrated of the Bloomsbury set, he writing is cerebral, and subtle. Woolfe's greatest love was probably Vita-Sackville West. The fruit of the affair is the novel Orlando, considered by most to be the most beautiful love poem in the English language. January 25, 1962 - Aaron Fricke was born in Providence Rhode Island. At 17 he decided to take a male date to the high school prom. "The simple thing would have been to go to the enior prom with a girl. But that would have been a lie -- a lie to myself, to the girl, and to all the other students." He rcounts the battle over that date in in Reflections of a Rock Lobster: A Story About Growing Up Gay. January 26 January 26, 1716 - Lord George Germain was born in London. While he was in America as Colonial Secretary he fell in love with handsome Benjamin Thompson of North Woburn, Massachusetts. As the Yankees came close to winning the War of Independence the pair fled to England. January 27 January 27 1832 - Lew3is Caroroll was born in Baresbury, England. We don't really know if the writer of Alice Through The Looking Glass were gay or not, but psychiatrists examining his writings say he was a dirty old man. One writers "The Alice books reflect many unassimilated phallic problems." January 28 January 28, 1833 - Charles George Gordon was born in Woolwich, England. A military hero he became a martyr at Khartoumn. Always surrounded by handsome young men, he once told a friend he lacked the courage to act on his impulses because of his religious beliefs. He said he hoped to die in battle to prove his manhood. He got his wish. January 28, 1873 - The Great French writer Gabrielle Sidonie Colette was born in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye. Her affairs with women are well documented. But so too are her liaisons with men. Ambivalence seems to have been her middle name. January 28, 1935 - Iceland became the first country to legalize abortion. January 28, 1977 - Charges are dismissed against 16 of 22 men arrested as found-ins in Club Ottawa. January 29 January 29, 1749 - Christian VII was born in Copenhagen. He was rejected by his father as being effeminate. When he became king at 16, the nobles plied him with sex mates to curry favor. He married to produce an heir, but his queen became the mistress of the court doctor who then took control of the government and assigned Christian a lover. The lover locked him in a room. But Christian was freed by the nobles, the queen was divorced, and the doctor and the lover were drawn and quartered. January 30 January 30, 1948 - Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated in New Delhi, India, by a religious fanatic. Gandhi had ended British rule in India through nonviolent resistance. "Non-violence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our very being," he stated in 1926. His teachings were used during many of the gay demonstrations of the 60s and 70s. Today, the gay non denominational group Soulforce uses Gandhi's non violence practices in its demonstrations against churches which discriminate against gays, lesbians, and transsexuals. January 31 January 31, 1902 - American actress Tallulah Bankhead was born in Huntsville, Alabama. She liked men. She liked women. She loved herself. Bankhead loved drugs and booze but nobody could play a Southern belle or curse like a drunken sailor on leave like her. Her life is filled with wonderful one-liners like, "I can say 'shit' daaaahline, I'm a lady." |