Bachsaal at Schloss Köthen

Die Zeit, die Tag und Jahre macht (Time, which day and year doth make), BWV 134a, is a secular cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach for a celebration of New Year's Day in 1719 at the court of Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen (hall in the palace pictured). The libretto by the author Christian Friedrich Hunold portrays a dialogue between two allegorical figures, Time (representing the past) and Divine Providence (the future). Bach set the words to eight movements consisting of alternating recitatives and arias, culminating in a choral finale. Most movements are duets for alto and tenor, supported by a Baroque instrumental ensemble of two oboes, strings and continuo. The character of the music is close to Baroque opera, including its French dances. In Leipzig in 1724, Bach used this secular work as the basis for a church cantata for the Third Day of Easter, omitting two movements and changing only the text. (Full article...)

Christmas Oratorio at the Unionskirche

• ... that Carsten Koch conducted all Beethoven symphonies at the historic Unionskirche, and shared Bach's Christmas Oratorio there in an ecumenical project (performance pictured)?
• ... that al-Barakah, a self-declared administrative district of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, was moved about 200 kilometres (120 mi) south during its existence?
• ... that Alphonsus J. Donlon became known as the "father of Georgetown athletics" for overseeing multiple victorious teams?
• ... that when creating the television drama Butterfly, the playwright Tony Marchant aimed to dispel the myth that transgender children transition in order to be "trendy"?
• ... that Wilmer Clemont Fields of the Southern Baptist Convention was a defender of freedom of the press?
• ... that the underwater mountain and former atoll Darwin Guyot is named after Charles Darwin?
• ... that Gujarati writer Geeta Parikh has written more than 900 poems?
• ... that in the Battle of the Hatpins, women protestors repelled police officers with rolling pins and skillets?

Damage from the Sunda Strait tsunami

• The New Horizons space probe performs a flyby of 2014 MU₆₉, nicknamed Ultima Thule.
• A tsunami hits the Sunda Strait, Indonesia, killing at least 426 people and injuring more than 7,000 others (aftermath pictured).
• In field hockey, the World Cup concludes with Belgium defeating the Netherlands in the final.
• The Balangiga bells, taken by US Army soldiers from the Philippines in 1901 as war trophies, are repatriated.

January 1

Ceres

• 417 – Galla Placidia was forced by her brother Honorius into marriage with his magister militum, Constantius III.
• 1773 – The hymn "Amazing Grace" was probably first used in a prayer meeting in Olney, England, without the music familiar to modern listeners.
• 1801 – Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi discovered the dwarf planet Ceres (pictured), naming it after the Roman goddess of agriculture and of motherly love.
• 1945 – World War II: In retaliation for the massacre of captured Americans by Waffen SS soldiers, U.S. Army personnel killed 60 Wehrmacht prisoners near Chenogne, Belgium.
• 2011 – A bomb exploded at a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria, Egypt, killing 23 people.

Lorenzo de' Medici (b. 1449) · Marie-Louise Lachapelle (b. 1769) · Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati (d. 1937)