Holocaust memorial in Bratislava

The Holocaust in Slovakia was the systematic dispossession, deportation, and murder of Jews in the Slovak State, a client state of Nazi Germany. Out of 89,000 Jews in the country in 1940, 68,000 to 71,000 were murdered during the Holocaust. In 1939, the ruling ethnonationalist Slovak People's Party declared independence from Czechoslovakia with German protection. Jews were targeted for discrimination and harassment, including the confiscation of property and businesses. On 9 September 1941, the government passed the Jewish Code, which it claimed to be the strictest anti-Jewish law in Europe. In late 1941, the Slovak government negotiated with Nazi Germany for the mass deportation of Jews to German-occupied Poland. Between March and October 1942, 58,000 Jews were deported to Auschwitz concentration camp and the Lublin District; only a few hundred survived. The murder of Jews resumed after August 1944, when Germany invaded Slovakia and another 13,500 Jews were deported. (Full article...)

Vision wrapping of the Ringturm

• ... that the Ringturm, a 65-year-old skyscraper in Vienna, has been wrapped by artists in summer, such as Mihael Milunović's Vision (pictured) in 2017?
• ... that the formation of the Central Irian Jaya province in Indonesia, which was headed by Herman Monim, caused a civil war between the supporters and opponents of the province?
• ... that the 1951 film The Basketball Fix is based on a real-life scandal involving college basketball betting?
• ... that architect Piers Taylor had to carry the materials for building his award-winning home "Moonshine" over a 600-metre (2,000 ft) woodland incline?
• ... that the book In Praise of Blood was described as "an immediate, destabilizing influence on the world of orthodox Rwandan scholarship"?
• ... that Susan Estes is the first woman to have her own company in the historically male bond-trading business in the U.S.?
• ... that during the Yamagata Hanagasa Festival, ten thousand people sing and dance on Japan National Route 112?
• ... that "New Year's Day" by Taylor Swift was recorded in "scratch takes" that did not filter out unwanted sounds from the outside environment?

Protests in Saint Petersburg

• In Russia, protests (example pictured) against the arrest of Alexei Navalny occur in more than 120 towns and cities.
• American baseball player Hank Aaron dies at the age of 86.
• Faustin-Archange Touadéra is elected for a second term as President of the Central African Republic.
• LauncherOne becomes the first liquid-fueled aircraft-launched rocket to reach orbit.

January 27

Mahamane Ousmane

• 98 – Trajan succeeded his adoptive father Nerva as Roman emperor; the Roman Empire reached its maximum extent under his rule.
• 1343 – Clement VI issued the papal bull Unigenitus, justifying the power of the pope and the use of indulgences.
• 1965 – South Vietnamese prime minister Trần Văn Hương was removed by the military junta of Nguyễn Khánh.
• 1996 – Mahamane Ousmane (pictured), the first democratically elected president of Niger, was deposed by Colonel Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara in a military coup d'état.
• 2011 – Arab Spring: The Yemeni Revolution began as more than 16,000 protesters demonstrated in Sanaa to demand governmental changes.